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

to be poorly represented; but where parching of whole
seeds was practiced, and it seems to have been common,
representation may be excellent to excessive.”
Secondly, unless fine screening and flotation are systematically
and routinely employed, we will not have
adequate samples to properly address the question of
horticultural dependence. Even where past or current
research has employed fine-grained recovery techniques,
one other factor must be considered: Trained
analysts, including paleoethnobotanists are needed to
do the critical identifications and contribute to interpretations.
Most archaeologists and many botanists
will not recognize highly fragmentary cultigens (and
other floral remains) among what are merely “charcoal”
samples to most of us. Horticulture (and other
indigenous plant usage) will remain grossly underappreciated
all across the region until fully trained paleoethnobotanists
routinely study carbonized floral
samples.
Thus, we feel that most past research and even some
recent efforts may not be fully representative of the
indigenous dependence on cultivated crops and other
plant foods, for both methodological and archaeological
reasons. Even where it is ultimately documented
that local crop raising was of limited importance, the
strong likelihood of intergroup trade in cultigens still
may have allowed local dependence on them and also
left them more or less invisible in the archaeological
record. Trade in cultigens may have occurred on the
Atlantic Coast in southern New England, for example,
and in eastern Maine beyond the limit of historically
documented crop cultivation (e.g., Bragdon 1996;
Dimmick 1994:245-246; Williams and Bendremer 1997;
cf. Spiess and Cranmer 2001:20-22).
We also suggest that there may be a bias against discovery
and investigation of Late Woodland and
Contact settlements in some regional settings. Like others
before us, we hope to see this bias rectified through
future regional research. In our northern New England
experience, Late Woodland and later sites are relatively
rare compared to many sites from earlier periods, at
least beyond the coast. One factor may be that Late
Woodland and Contact groups lived in a smaller number
of settlements and these were larger and more permanent
than settlements of their predecessors.
Obviously, our suggestion here is simplistic, since we
have unequivocal evidence of smaller, contemporaneous
sites on or near the Atlantic Coast (e.g., Bragdon
1996; Hasenstab 1999; Thorbahn 1988). Other forms of
bias potentially work against discovery of these sites
too, including historic disturbance and deep burial in
floodplains. Thus, it remains unclear if we have representative
settlement samples for this critical period.
Evidence primarily from Maine and Vermont is
summarized herein to support our assertions, and
information from other areas of the Northeast is
addressed, as appropriate. Limited settlement-pattern
data, presumed storage pits and some artifact data
specifically related to pottery and textiles, support the
tentative interpretation of significant subsistence and
settlement change during the Late Woodland period.
Each of these data classes is very briefly summarized
after further discussion of the idea of horticulture as a
“non-event.” In the end, our disagreement with those
who postulate that the arrival of farming was a “nonevent”
is probably a minor dispute. We all seem to recognize
that horticulture had prehistoric origins across
much of the broad Northeast. Whether actual crop raising
was widespread or isolated, horticultural products
were certainly available through one means or another
during late prehistory in the Northeast.
MIDDLE-LATE WOODLAND PERIOD
SUBSISTENCE AND SETTLEMENT
Horticulture as a “Non-event”
Research across New England and surrounding
areas to the north, south, and west has been hampered
in the past by rather crude excavation and recovery
techniques, incomplete analyses, and even more
incomplete reporting of data. Dena Dincauze has
repeatedly noted that northeastern archaeology has
suffered from much neglect. The present challenge is to
see New England and the broader Northeast better
“centered,” working to modernize and shift our
research from the periphery of broad North America
toward its very center (Levine et al. 1999). However, we
also need to avoid replacing simplistic past models
with simplistic contemporary ones, as may result when
models are based on single sites and small, sometimes
inconsequential samples.
For example, we can applaud the early attempts
made by Lynn Ceci (e.g., 1977, 1980, 1990) to address
subsistence and settlement patterns for the Middle
Woodland, Late Woodland, and Contact periods in
coastal New York, and the more recent efforts her work
has spawned. Ceci suggested that very few cultigens
were used in coastal New York prehistorically and
thus, that horticulture was unimportant to coastal peoples
after her careful review of the then-available evidence.
This hypothesis can no longer be accepted at
face value, however. The carbonized floral samples
268 Petersen and Cowie