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

was the development of horticulture and the resultant
social aggregation and sedentism it brought. This
undoubtedly occurred at some point during the Late
Woodland period, although it may have occurred differentially
across the region, earlier in the south and
west, and later in the north and east.
CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, we suggest that the most profound
changes to ever occur among Natives in the Northeast
prior to the arrival of the Europeans were those related
to the local arrival of maize-beans-squash horticulture.
More specifically, we believe that there must have been
considerable economic and settlement variation within
local and broader regional contexts during late prehistory
and early history. In most settings to the south and
west of its prehistoric limit in central Maine, maizecentered
horticulture was likely adopted because it
reduced subsistence risk and crops could be raised
within the frost-free period. Ultimately, it also led to
increased social aggregation and sedentism across
much, if not all of the region. Adoption of maize horticulture
was attractive for reasons of subsistence predictability
and risk reduction, even if it was laborintensive
in terms of field maintenance and crop harvesting.
It ultimately transformed most regional Native
societies, at least in terms of their sedentism and settlement
patterns. Crop storage became ubiquitous where
farming occurred, although storage pits may or may
not reflect fully sedentary settlements. Even where late
prehistoric crop use has been interpreted as minimal,
the use of some cultigen foods cannot be ruled out on
the basis of the limited isotopic evidence that seems to
show a regional subsistence shift during Late
Woodland times. This avenue obviously needs further
assessment in the future.
Comparison of ethnohistoric data from the Contact
period and available archaeological samples suggests
that the archaeological evidence is very incomplete relative
to the recorded details. For example, comparison
of very limited cultigens recovered archaeologically at
the Contact period Fort Hill site and the known
emphasis on crop foods by the historic Sokoki residents
shows the magnitude of the preservation bias
working against cultigens and other plant foods, likely
also pertaining to most other archaeological contexts.
In fact, the historic Sokoki stored an estimated 3,200 to
4,000 bushels of maize at Fort Hill in 1663-1664, using
pits identical to those known from the Late Woodland
period, but only very limited cultigen samples were
preserved archaeologically at Fort Hill (Thomas 1979).
As noted above, recovery of any identifiable cultigens
from archaeological contexts is quite remarkable.
It seems unlikely that we will ever be able to properly
quantify paleoethnobotanical remains with complete
reliability, given the typical degree of preservation bias
against them. This bias is due partially to the fact that
many indigenous cultigens were destroyed at the time
they were prepared and eaten as food, and only trace
amounts were then discarded. The extreme fragility of
all carbonized floral remains in the archaeological
record also contributes to this bias. Additional bias
results from the necessity of using fine-grained techniques
to recover such remains and having trained
paleoethnobotanists identify them.
More tentatively, our understanding of late prehistoric
settlements across the region may well be biased,
too, as other scholars have suggested before. If greater
social aggregation and sedentism occurred among
farmers during the Late Woodland period, fewer settlements
may well be represented for late prehistory
relative to earlier periods, at least as they relate to
crop storage. Moreover, at least some of the late prehistoric
settlements were larger than those occupied
earlier and these late prehistoric settlements were
situated in more selective settings. They are rare to
begin with and are also difficult to sample adequately
due to their large size. Of these, only a few villages
have been located and excavated extensively enough
to establish late prehistoric site patterning regionally,
at least in New England. Again, it is quite likely that
some or many such sites have been destroyed by
historic development.
In summary, we believe that no one has yet fully
envisioned the subsistence and settlement variation
that characterized the Late Woodland period in the
Northeast. We have argued here that regional Natives
were transformed during late prehistory by the advent
of horticulture and its correlates, social aggregation
and sedentism. As a result of recent research from central
Maine westward, most interior river valleys have
produced evidence of storage pits and related cultigens
dating to the Late Woodland period, although perhaps
differentially from west to east and south to north.
Some will argue that there was a differential of a few
hundred years for the advent of maize farming across
New England, although crop raising of some kind is
likely much, much earlier. Others will argue that some
or all Natives in New England only dabbled with farming
prehistorically, rather than vigorously pursuing it.
Regardless of these different hypotheses, we believe
that are too few samples to fully understand these and
282 Petersen and Cowie