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

available to Ceci were simply too limited and their
recovery too poorly controlled to determine if they are
truly representative of late prehistoric plant usage,
including crops, on Long Island. The case is only slightly
better today in the broad Northeast, on both the
coast and in the interior, although we have begun to
make rapid progress in some circumstances (e.g.,
Cassedy and Webb 1999; Crawford 1999; Largy et al.
1999; Lavin 1988a). It is important to recognize that
Ceci changed her views about the timing of coastal
sedentism (but not necessarily horticulture) over the
course of her research, pushing sedentism back into the
Middle and Late Woodland periods, even though she
first recognized it only during the Contact period. In
fact, it is remarkable that Ceci had any prehistoric cultigen
samples to work with at all, given their origin in
coarsely excavated and incompletely analyzed site
samples, as she recognized herself, along with the
aforementioned preservation bias.
Time, money, and patience for teasing details from
the northeastern record have been all too rare to date.
This bias is particularly the case when and where it
comes to large-scale excavations and extensive sampling
of individual sites. Researchers have begun to
rectify the situation where sites are relatively small
and/or a representative sample can be readily
obtained from them. Some periods predating the Late
Woodland have produced relatively substantial samples,
where settlements were small to modest in size,
and these have been reasonably well outlined over the
past 20 to 30 years of research. For example, Middle
Woodland components at the Winooski and Besette
sites in Vermont (see Figure 14.1) are reasonably well
understood, given sizeable excavations there. Other
Middle Woodland components are known on the
Atlantic Coast in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts,
and New York, among others (e.g., Lavin 1988a;
Lightfoot et al. 1987; Petersen and Power 1983; Thomas
et al. 1996). It may be more difficult to argue that we
have as many adequately studied and reported samples
for the occasionally larger settlements of the Late
Woodland period, as seemingly became more the
norm, at least in the interior (e.g., Cowie et al. 1999;
Custer 1996; Lavin 1988a, 1988b; Waller 2000). Samples
from small coastal sites are also known for the Late
Woodland period (e.g., Bernstein 1992, 1999; Funk and
Pfeiffer 1993; Lightfoot et al. 1987; Ritchie 1969a,
1969b). Overall, adequate samples of carbonized floral
remains from both coastal and noncoastal sites are rare
for the Late Woodland period (but see Asch Sidell, this
volume). In the case of Fisher’s Island, near the
Connecticut coast, for example, only 6 out of 27 (or 22
percent) prehistoric sites produced carbonized floral
remains, but of these, 5 sites produced maize remains
(Funk and Pfeiffer 1993; see Bernstein 1999:111-112).
Are these adequate samples, and if so, what does it
mean that 83 percent of the sites producing charcoal
produced maize as well? Is this a significant, insignificant
or indeterminate representation?
Of the small number of carefully controlled samples,
a still smaller number have been analyzed by paleoethnobotanists.
A trained botanist (who has not necessarily
had experience studying carbonized floral
samples) may not be able to discern cultigens among
carbonized floral remains (e.g., Lightfoot et al. 1987).
We know this firsthand from having worked with both
paleoethnobotanists and botanists over many years. In
other cases, carbonized floral remains are more or less
completely absent in both coastal and noncoastal settings
due to “poor preservation, absence of behaviors
that lead to the discard and deposition of plant
remains, or sampling problems” (Bernstein 1999:103).
Fortunately, paleoethnobotanical evidence has
begun to accumulate over the past 10 to 20 years for
most periods of prehistory and early history, largely
through the work of a small, devoted cadre of paleoethnobotanists.
People such as Tonya Largy, Nancy
Asch Sidell, and Cindy McWeeney, among others (see
Hart 1999c), have begun to tackle the mountain of
“charcoal” newly accumulating across the region as a
consequence of more exacting excavations and recovery
techniques. Nonetheless, paleoethnobotany is laborious,
time-consuming, and often very expensive, well
beyond the means of many researchers, except where
consulting archaeology funds are available. Perhaps
even more unfortunately, too few researchers even
realize what they may be missing without paleoethnobotanical
research (cf. Hart 1999c).
We may be presumptuous here in making broad
suggestions about how this situation might be rectified,
but we will be brief. For example, it has been the
standard practice of the UMF Archaeology Research
Center for over a decade now that all radiocarbon samples
be analyzed by a paleoethnobotanist before submission
for radiocarbon dating. If we have the money
for dating, then we also must find the money for paleoethnobotanical
analysis of particular samples.
Likewise, it has been our practice for over 16 years that
all feature fill from all cultural features recognized in
the field is minimally wet-screened in the laboratory
through 1/8 inch and 1/16 inch mesh screen. Some
subsamples have been floated as well in recognition of
the increased recovery of small seeds and other
macrofloral remains retrieved through flotation (e.g.,
Chapter 14 From Hunter-Gatherer Camp to Horticultural Village: Late Prehistoric Indigenous Subsistence and Settlement 269