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

CHAPTER 17
ABORIGINAL LAND AND RESOURCE USE
IN NEW BRUNSWICK DURING THE LATE PREHISTORIC
AND EARLY CONTACT PERIODS
Michael Deal
INTRODUCTION
This chapter developed from a legal background
paper relating to aboriginal land claims in the province
of New Brunswick (Deal 1998), which along with Nova
Scotia and Prince Edward Island, make up the
Canadian Maritime Provinces. While the information
was originally used to illustrate traditional ties to the
landscape and resources for establishing aboriginal
land and resource rights (e.g., Aronson 1997), it is also
valuable to archaeologists who wish to understand the
ecological context of local prehistoric societies and
related mobility strategies. Land use patterns are
equated here with patterns of archaeological settlement
(site) distribution and seasonality, while resource
use relates to the natural resources that formed the
basis of prehistoric technologies and subsistence practices.
The Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric aboriginal
inhabitants of New Brunswick were foraging peoples
(hunter-gatherers) who followed complex mobility
patterns according to changing socioeconomic conditions.
According to Kelly (1992:43-44), forager mobility,
or the periodic movements of people across the landscape,
is influenced by a number of factors, including
subsistence, level of food storage, trade, territoriality,
social and gender inequalities, work patterns, demography,
and cultural perceptions. Nash (1997) even associates
the long-term settlement and subsistence patterns
of the indigenous peoples of the region with the
three archetypal landscapes of glacial wasteland, primordial
sea, and forest labyrinth, with the latter being
primarily associated with the Woodland period.
Following Binford (1980), a distinction is made here
between residential mobility and logistical mobility.
The former relates to the movement of all members of
a campsite or village from one location to another,
while the latter involves the movement of small
groups or individuals to and from residential sites
(Kelly 1983:278). In logistical terms, mobility can
involve short trips for general foraging, specific tasks,
or resource monitoring. The discussion below begins
with a review of archaeological evidence of aboriginal
resource use in the province, followed by an
assessment of current models of aboriginal settlement
and resource use. The major archaeological sites discussed
below are found on the map in Figure 17.1.
Archaeologists working in the Maritime Provinces
generally agree that there was a largely unbroken cultural
sequence for the 1,500 year span before
European contact (ca. 2000-500 B.P.). In terms of the
regional chronology, this includes the Middle and
Late Woodland and Protohistoric periods (see Table
17.1). While Middle and Late occupations can sometimes
be distinguished in coastal shell midden sites
(Black, this volume), this is not always possible at
interior sites, which tend to have compressed stratigraphy
and occupation sequences from Late Archaic to
historic times. In the archaeological literature, the
Middle and Late Woodland peoples are generally
treated as a cultural continuum, distinguished by
minor changes in technology, and historic ethnic divisions
are often projected back to the Middle
Woodland period (e.g., the ancestral Mik’maq,
Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy). Middle and Late
manifestations of Woodland culture are often distinguished
on stylistic fads in ceramic designs, and
assigned to specific Ceramic periods (CP1-7; after
Petersen and Sanger 1991). Based on our current
understanding of local prehistory, the “early Late
Prehistoric (A.D. 700-1300)” designation used elsewhere
in this volume is not easily identified as a distinctive
developmental period. However, ongoing
research does suggest a trend from Middle to Late
Woodland times toward the exploitation of a wider
Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change: A.D. 700–1300 by John P. Hart and Christina B. Rieth. New York State Museum
© 2002 by the University of the State of New York, The State Education Department, Albany, New York. All rights reserved.
Chapter 17 Aboriginal Land and Resource Use in New Brunswick During the Late Prehistoric and Early Contact Periods 321