Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change: A.D. 700 –1300

grass seed provides supporting evidence that part of
the landscape was open. The paucity of fleshy fruits
in the Transitional occupation indicates the area may
have lacked underbrush. Such a landscape could have
been maintained by ground fire to keep down the
underbrush and promote the growth of “grass and
herbage” (Cronon 1983:48-51). On the Cumberland
Plateau in eastern Kentucky, an increase in charcoal
accumulation rates and in fire-tolerant oaks, chestnut,
and pines in pollen diagrams after 3000 B.P. coincides
with human occupation of rockshelters and cultivation
of native plants (Delcourt et al. 1998).
It is difficult to interpret the presence of minor
amounts of the above assemblage of economically
important weedy species in Broome Tech features in a
nonagricultural context. One explanation for this
pattern is that fire may have been used to keep the
floodplain terrace forests open for optimum mast
production (and easier hunting) during the
Transitional occupation, but the landscape reverted to
the regional climax (northern hardwoods-hemlockwhite
pine) before the early Middle Woodland occupation,
then, with the opening up of fields for maize
agriculture during the Late Woodland, the oak and
hickory trees may have been selectively left to produce
mast, or the renewed use of fire may have effected
the change.
The change to a more mesic closed forest assemblage
in the early Middle Woodland at Broome Tech site is
signaled by the abundance of beech and sugar maple in
the wood charcoal, a decrease in oak wood, and a
decrease in nutshell to only 0.4 percent of all the plant
remains. The nutshell was 73.4 percent beechnut, an
unusually large amount for a nut that is seldom represented
at archaeological sites. Most of the beechnut
was concentrated in one feature, but three other features
also contained beechnut shell, making it as ubiquitous
as butternut and hazelnut. Presumably, occupation
and burning of the site had ceased for a period of
time prior to the early Middle Woodland settlement,
long enough for the shade-tolerant (and fire-intolerant)
beech and sugar maple to fill in the gaps in the hypothesized
oak-hickory woodland.
During the Late Woodland occupation, with the
presence of maize agriculture, there was a return to
dominance by oak and hickory wood charcoal with
an admixture of many other species. The nutshell
assemblage was again dominated by butternut and
hickory as in the Transitional levels, and the overall
percentage of nutshell as well as nutshell density
increased above early Middle Woodland levels. Acorn
was ubiquitously distributed in the midden and features,
and there were minor amounts of hazelnut and
bitternut hickory. Although trace amounts of beech
and chestnut wood were identified, no beechnut or
chestnut shells were recovered. The opening up of the
landscape for agriculture was evidently favorable for
mast production. Seed density also increased to 0.58
from a low of 0.03 seeds per gram of charcoal during
the early Middle Woodland. About half of the Broome
Tech Late Woodland seeds were from fleshy fruits,
including hawthorn, strawberry, blackberry/raspberry,
elderberry, and possibly blueberry, but there were few
seeds of the economically important weeds identified
in the lower Transitional. Hog-peanut (Amphicarpa
bracteata), another perennial legume that was found in
association with maize agriculture in Maine, was
identified in the Middle Woodland and Late
Woodland occupations at Broome Tech. Perhaps the
addition of maize and squash to the diet in the Late
Woodland made it unnecessary to collect weed seeds
as a dietary supplement at this site.
Lamb Site
The Lamb site was unique in terms of plant remains
and provides further possible evidence of the use of
fire for landscape alteration in southcentral New York
during the Late Woodland (ca. A.D. 800-1300). Braun’s
(1950:394-395) maps of New York suggested the Lamb
site would be located in a chestnut–oak–hickory forest
in the broad Chemung River Valley. However, the
analysis of wood charcoal, nut, seed, and cultigen
remains indicates the environment in the immediate
vicinity of the site was quite different from Braun’s
model. Most unusual was the abundance of pitch pine
cone scales and needles in the two largest features
(Table 13.5). Assuming that the pine bark and pine
wood at the site was also pitch pine (as opposed to
white pine), the site was notable for (1) the specialized
use of pitch pine wood charcoal in all five features
and (2) the predominance of pitch pine bark charcoal
in a large feature that also contained maize, five types
of nutshell, three or more types of seeds from fleshy
fruits, as well as pitch pine cone scales and needles.
The two largest features contained small amounts of
white oak group, red oak group, hickory, elm, and
birch charcoal. Nutshell recovered from Feature 5
indicated the availability of butternut, shagbark or
pignut hickory, acorn, beechnut, and bitternut hickory
in the vicinity of the Lamb site. Other nuts that
could have grown nearby are chestnut, black walnut,
shellbark hickory, and mockernut hickory.
Nutshell was found in all samples in Features 1 and
256 Sidell