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

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in the coastal Northeast outside the context of their developing or adopting horticulture. The structural shift in the archaeological record, documented here, is not restricted to the Quoddy Region. Coastal black soil middens containing evidence of pit features and warm season occupation appear at about the same time, in the archaeological records of other parts of the Maine/Maritimes area: Nova Scotia (Nash et al. 1991:216, 224; Sheldon 1991:233), Grand Manan (Blair 2000), the central Maine coast (Bourque and Cox 1981; Cox 1987), and the Casco Bay area (Hamilton and Mosher 2000). Such components may occur even farther afield, on the islands in Boston Harbor, for example (see Ludetke 1998:16-17). Presumably, the structural shift in coastal sites, from shell midden- to black soil midden-dominated components, must somehow reflect concomitant changes in Native subsistence-settlement systems. How can the Middle-Late Maritime Woodland transition be accounted for? Archaeologists working in the Northeast often directly relate the appearance of substantial pit features in the archaeological record to Native peoples developing or adopting horticulture (cf. Petersen and Cowie, this volume). I suggest that the appearance of pit features, in the Quoddy Region archaeological record specifically, and in Maine/Maritimes coastal sites generally, is associated with the development of a more sedentary settlement pattern and with greater reliance on stored wild foods, rather than with the adoption of a horticultural economy. However, this assertion by itself sheds no light on the reasons for settlement and subsistence changes in the context of a littoral foraging lifestyle. Population replacement at the Middle-Late Maritime Woodland transition has been raised (Bourque 1995:256-257) as a possible explanation, but continuities in ceramic technology and decorative motifs make this an unlikely scenario (cf. Deal, this volume). Population expansion may be indicated by the greater areal extent of some earlier Late Maritime Woodland components, as compared to Middle Maritime Woodland components. However, evaluating this variable is hampered by the complexity of determining how often and how long the (essentially internally unstratified) black soil middens were occupied (Black 1992:93; Sanger 1987:83-84; Sheldon 1991:232-233), even when, as at Weir and Northeast Point, they are relatively undisturbed and well separated from other components: Do they represent single occupations? A few seasons or years of intensive occupation? Or several decades—or even centuries—of low intensity intermittent occupations? Are all of these sites similar in these respects, or do they represent points on a continuum between the extremes of short-term-longterm, intensive-intermittent occupation? Climatic and environmental change during the Maritime Woodland period, as it is generally characterized in the archaeological literature (e.g., Rutherford 1991:111-112; Sanger 1988:83-84), seems too gradual to precipitate an abrupt cultural reconfiguration. However, the Middle-Late Maritime Woodland transition coincides with the beginning of the Subatlantic period, several centuries of cooler climate (Anderson 2001:146, 164-165), and the later Late Maritime Woodland period coincides with the Medieval Warm period, several centuries of warmer climate (Anderson 2001:146, 166-167). In the future, it may be possible to link climatic change to the cultural and archaeological changes documented in the Quoddy Region. The development of long-distance exchange systems involving Native peoples from Labrador and Newfoundland to northern New England (Black et al. 1998; Bourque 1994:34-35; Sanger 1988:94), indicates that sociological factors may have been involved in the Middle-Late Maritime Woodland transition. Loring (1988:50-53) suggests that exchange systems may have developed to compensate for the restriction of social networks created by subsistence practices focused on littoral and marine resources, and settlement patterns based around littoral locations. The issues of how and why the exchange systems developed, and how they interrelated with other aspects of Maritime Woodland culture, remain to be fully explored. The evidence presented in this chapter also suggests a shift in the Native subsistence-settlement system marking the transition from the earlier to the later parts of the Late Maritime Woodland period at ca. A.D. 1000. There are indications that Native peoples in the Quoddy Region may have been shifting from a pattern emphasizing residential mobility to one emphasizing more permanent base camps and more logistical mobility. Ironically, while Snow’s (1980:320) model of head-of-tide villages with satellite shell midden sites makes little sense for ancestral Wolastoqiyik living in the St. John drainage, it may be useful in accounting for the later Late Maritime Woodland settlement pattern of ancestral Pestomukatiyik living in the Quoddy Region. Sanger (1987:139-140) has argued that ethnohistoric evidence does not support the existence of permanent villages in the Quoddy Region. However, archaeologists working in adjacent parts of 314 Black
the Maine/Maritimes area have argued for the development of “central places,” such as the Melanson site in Nova Scotia (Nash et al. 1991) and the Turner Farm site on the central Maine coast (Spiess et al. 1983), and centralized “base camp areas,” as at the mouth of the Miramichi River in northeastern New Brunswick (Allen 1984:23), during the centuries immediately before European contact. If such settlements existed in the Quoddy Region, they may have been located at the sites of modern towns, such as St. George (head-of-tide on the Magaguadavic River) and St. Stephen (head-of-tide on the St. Croix River), and at the heads-of-tide on smaller streams, such as the Digdeguash (Figure 16.1). Evidence of these sites may have been destroyed by recent marine incursions or by Historic period constructions, such as mills, dams and highways, or may lay beneath the modern towns. Snow (1980:320) has noted the difficulty of finding late prehistoric village sites in other parts of the coastal Northeast. If horticulture was practiced by Native peoples in the Quoddy Region—immediately before, at, or immediately after European contact—locations on the lower reaches of the river systems are those where it would most likely have been practiced. It is unlikely that Native peoples would have practiced horticulture at the coastal campsites that have received the bulk of archaeological attention because, even today, coastal and insular locations in the Quoddy Region are marginal for horticulture. At any rate, at this point no evidence for horticulture and little evidence for wild plant use exists, in part because of the difficulty and expense involved in acquiring assemblages of macrobotanic remains (cf. Petersen and Cowie, this volume). Presently, there is no compelling evidence for exotic lithic materials associated with later Late Maritime Woodland components in the Quoddy Region. This raises the possibility that people inhabiting the region ceased participating in regional exchange systems after ca. A.D. 1000. However, an equally plausible scenario is that evidence for exchange dating to this period lies in a few undiscovered or uninvestigated residential sites at head-of-tide locations on the river systems. In conclusion, in the Quoddy Region, the Middle- Late Maritime Woodland transition has been documented in coastal sites. Explanations for the reconfiguration of Maritime Woodland culture that corresponds to this transition are complicated by anthropogenic disturbance of transitional components during subsequent Native and Euro-Canadian occupations, by uneven faunal preservation, and by lack of recovery of carbonized plant remains. Thus, I have offered only tentative suggestions to account for this transition. The earlier-later Late Maritime Woodland transition has not been adequately documented even in coastal sites, since the existing site inventory for the later Late Maritime Woodland period lacks substantial residential components and almost certainly is not representative of the Native subsistence and settlement system immediately before European contact. Components from this period investigated to date are small and impoverished in terms of artifact and vertebrate faunal assemblages. At this point, any attempt to account for this transition is premature. The Quoddy Region is an important piece in the mosaic of Maine/Maritimes Native prehistory and history. In this chapter I have shown, using the Quoddy Region as an example, that Native subsistence-settlement systems in this area are not only spatially mosaic, but should be expected to be mosaic in the temporal dimension as well. I have raised more questions here than I have answered—however, the expectation of settlement-subsistence variation within the Maritime Woodland period is a crucial step in designing the studies that will address the unanswered questions. Acknowledgments My research in the Quoddy Region has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Archaeological Services of New Brunswick, and the University of New Brunswick, and was conducted with the cooperation of the Department of Anthropology, McMaster University, the Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Royal Ontario Museum, and the Faunal Osteo-Archaeology Lab, University of Toronto. I wish to thank Christina Rieth and John Hart for inviting me to write this chapter, New Brunswick Provincial Archaeologist Christopher J. Turnbull (retired) for his support of my research, and Jim Petersen (Department of Anthropology, University of Vermont) for his analysis of Native ceramics from the Bliss Islands. I thank the reviewers for their suggestions, and Emelie Hubert for editing the manuscript. The title of this chapter was inspired by a great piece of rock music written by Neil Young. Chapter 16 Out of the Blue and into the Black: The Middle-Late Maritime Woodland Transition in the Quoddy Region 315
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Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Ch
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Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Ch
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TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures L
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LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Map of the cent
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9.3 Topographic map of Broome Tech.
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11.1 Upper Susquehanna Site Types (
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PREFACE The New York State Museum h
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Christina B.
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domesticates and the occupation of
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and Rieth highlight the important c
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Dunnell, R. C. (1971). Systematics
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Anthropology, University of Massach
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CHAPTER 2 CENTRAL OHIO VALLEY DURIN
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L a k e E r i e PENNSYLVANIA INDIAN
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L a k e E r i e INDIANA R i v e r G
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Olentangy River and other minor tri
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Figure 2.6. Comparison of Late Wood
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support the notion of resource stre
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F4 F7 F5 F6 F3 F2 F9 F10 F12 F13 F1
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B B M F42 F43 F41 F44 S5 S4 S1 F30
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Table 2.3. continued Temporal Age A
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Table 2.3. continued Temporal Age A
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L a k e E r i e INDIANA o i O h Sal
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Figure 2.13. Map of the Late Prehis
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Figure 2.15. Map of households with
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Figure 2.17. Sample of Late Prehist
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Barkes, B. M. (1982). An Analysis o
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Fort Ancient Tradition, edited by J
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CHAPTER 3 “ . . . to reconstruct
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IT TAKES A VILLAGE Figure 3.2. Arti
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social organizations is drawn prima
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elements of the village, the spaces
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Diametric, concentric, and circumfe
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egion, including Reckner (Augustine
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Chapter 3 Modeling Village Communit
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Figure 3.9. Architectural and nonar
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Figure 3.11. Measuring distances in
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Table 3.2. Descriptive Statistics f
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DISCUSSION Table 3.3. Descriptive S
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Figure 3.14. Box-and-whisker plot o
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Augustine, E. A. (1938d). Important
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Among Some Amazon Tribes. Privately
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on Black Mesa, Arizona. The Univers
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CHAPTER 4 THE EARLY LATE WOODLAND I
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Figure 4.3. Gibraltar Cordmarked ce
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Figure 4.5. Ceramics of the Gibralt
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points and notched Chesser or Lowe
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dated to A.D. 890 (1025) 1230 (DIC-
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Table 4.3. Available Stable Carbon
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where fishing and farming may have
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Figure 4.10. Ceramic of the Sandusk
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singular Mixter Stamped vessels typ
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urial with the dead, broadcasted a
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during the early Late Woodland time
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Valley. North American Archaeologis
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CHAPTER 5 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN TH
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interest in exchange of service or
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CURRENT INVESTIGATIONS In view of t
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710 Area C 700 B-75084 TO-4556 TO-4
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Table 5.1. Summary of Artifacts fro
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e Bull's Point C o o t e s P a r a
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classification system has been appl
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(Crawford et al. 1997a). The same i
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in Ontario was Middle Woodland-deri
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207-212. Smithsonian Institution, W
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CHAPTER 6 EARLY LATE WOODLAND IN SO
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Figure 6.2. Lower Grand River Valle
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Table 6.1. Radiocarbon Dates from t
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segment of the terrace that effecti
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Figure 6.7. Meyer site terrace, vie
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Figure 6.10. Forster site reconstru
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Figure 6.12. Middle Thames River 20
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Figure 6.13. Site situation: a comp
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Dieterman, F. (2001). Princess Poin
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CHAPTER 7 EARLY LATE PREHISTORIC SE
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ticultural hamlets, small and large
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that Clemson Island was greatly inf
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local deposits. Alternately, Stimme
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Table 7.1. Radiocarbon Dates from S
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Pennsylvania continued to practice
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level) overlaps with the West Branc
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Under a population metaphysic, the
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Hatch, J. W., and Koontz, K. L. (19
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CHAPTER 8 NEW DATES FOR OWASCO POTS
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Table 8.1. Key Components of the Th
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Figure 8.1. Location of the Kipp Is
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Table 8.4. Carpenter Brook Phase Ho
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Table 8.5. Physical Characteristics
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Table 8.6. AMS Dates and Calibrated
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REFERENCES CITED Ammerman, A. J., a
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CHAPTER 9 PITS, PLANTS, AND PLACE:
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Thomas/Luckey Broome Tech N 0 0 50
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confluence with the Susquehanna Riv
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Figure 9.3. Topographic map of Broo
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Table 9.2. Feature Types at Thomas/
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Figure 9.4. Histogram of feature de
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Table 9.4. Plant Remains from Thoma
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Figure 9.7. Sample composition of n
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Figure 9.9. Seed composition (exclu
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suggests that the gathering of wild
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of posts may mark remnants of tempo
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for allowing me repeated and unteth
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History Press, Garden City, New Yor
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CHAPTER 10 UPLAND LAND USE PATTERNS
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LOCAL LEVEL ANALYSIS Local level an
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N104 E101 Unit 19A Unit 7A Unit 12A
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Table 10.2. Park Creek II Feature A
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Fea. 2 Fea. 5 0 1 2 N Figure 10.4.
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encounterlike hunting/butchering st
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END NOTES 1. A village is defined a
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Perrelli, D. J. (1994). Gender, Mob
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CHAPTER 11 EARLY LATE PREHISTORIC S
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Table 11.1. Upper Susquehanna Site
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Table 11.2. Summary of Late Middle
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Table 11.3. Settlement Features of
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approximately 1,000 sq. ft, there i
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Table 11.5. Summary of Seed Identif
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importance of hunting and hunting-r
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portion of the Susquehanna Valley,
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Herrick, J. W., and Snow, D. R. (19
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CHAPTER 12 WOODLAND PERIOD SETTLEME
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oundaries were given. According to
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Table 12.1: Selected Radiocarbon an
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shads and herrings of the family Cl
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consists of large concentrations of
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(1990) survey of recorded sites in
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York State 92:1-8. Busby, M. (1966)
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CHAPTER 13 PALEOETHNOBOTANICAL INDI
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Figure 13.1. Forest regions of the
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Table 13.1. Distribution of Nut Tre
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ation in feature contents. For mult
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Figure 13.4. Nutshell density (gray
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Figure 13.5. Seed density and maize
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Table 13.3. Seed Indicators-Maine S
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Table 13.4. Broome Tech Site: Selec
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6, and it occurred in 58 percent of
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Table 13.6. Continued Site Uncalibr
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Acknowledgments I thank John Hart f
Page 277 and 278: y K. J. Gremillion, pp. 161-178. Th
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Page 281 and 282: Figure 14.1. Distribution of select
Page 283 and 284: available to Ceci were simply too l
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Page 287 and 288: Table 14.1. Continued Site Lab C14
Page 289 and 290: within single settlements remains e
Page 291 and 292: noncoastal residential sites certai
Page 293 and 294: Figure 14.3. Two stratigraphic prof
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Page 297 and 298: other related questions yet, and so
Page 299 and 300: Northeast Historical Archaeology 21
Page 301 and 302: Thomas, P. A. (1976). Contrastive s
Page 303 and 304: CHAPTER 15 “towns they have none
Page 305 and 306: Table 15.1. Key to Figure 15.1: Arc
Page 307 and 308: Maize will normally not preserve fo
Page 309 and 310: artifacts. Cowie (2000) suggests th
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Page 313 and 314: Ph.D. dissertation, Department of A
Page 315 and 316: CHAPTER 16 OUT OF THE BLUE AND INTO
Page 317 and 318: Figure 16.2. Map of the Bliss Islan
Page 319 and 320: shell-bearing sites located on the
Page 321 and 322: site. Middle Maritime Woodland occu
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Page 325 and 326: Table 16.3. Faunal Remains Associat
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Page 333 and 334: Ethnohistory 36:257-284. Bourque, B
Page 335 and 336: CHAPTER 17 ABORIGINAL LAND AND RESO
Page 337 and 338: Table 17.1. Chronological and Ceram
Page 339 and 340: Among the food plants listed above,
Page 341 and 342: species, the American eel (Anguilla
Page 343 and 344: the Early Woodland period. Tools ma
Page 345 and 346: Copper Resources Throughout the Lat
Page 347 and 348: midden deposits were located along
Page 349 and 350: a model with two distinct populatio
Page 351 and 352: Table 17.2. Summary of Landscape an
Page 353 and 354: File Report 93-1, Fredericton. Alle
Page 355 and 356: Anthropology, Temple University, Ph
Page 357 and 358: stone age found at Maquapit Lake. N
Page 359 and 360: CHAPTER 18 MAIZE AND VILLAGES: A Su
Page 361 and 362: use of the term “small village”
Page 363 and 364: 1325 [1425] 1460) (Boyd et al. 1998
Page 365 and 366: several centuries after its first a
Page 367 and 368: from excavations at village sites h
Page 369 and 370: 133-156. New York State Museum Bull
Page 371 and 372: longhouses. American Antiquity 55:4
Page 373 and 374: CONTRIBUTORS Timothy J. Abel. Carth
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Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change: A.D. 700 –1300

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