Assabet River NWR Final CCP - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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Chapter 3: Refuge and Resource Descriptions
listing (1987). The refuge is identified as being high biodiversity focus areas
in the SuAsCo watershed biodiversity protection and stewardship plan
(Clark 2000).
Assabet River NWR has been designated as a Massachusetts Important
Bird Area (IBA) for its rare and unique habitat communities, including
Atlantic white cedar swamp, a kettlehole pond, several dwarf shrub bogs,
open canopy minerotrophic peatlands, and other sand communities. IBAs
provide essential habitat for at least one or more species of breeding,
wintering or migrating birds. The primary goals of the program are listed
below.
“To identify, nominate and designate key sites that contribute to the
preservation of significant bird populations or communities.
To provide information that will help land managers evaluate areas for
habitat management or land acquisition.
To activate public and private participation in bird conservation efforts.
To provide education and community outreach opportunities.”
(http://www.massaudubon.org/birds-&-beyond/iba/iba-intro.html)
Cultural Resources
Prehistoric Period
The refuge is located within the southern Merrimack River Basin. The
earliest settlement/land use patterns in this basin during the Paleoindian
period were most likely a widely spaced network of site locations within a
very large territory. By 7,500 to 6,000 years ago (Middle Archaic)
populations were beginning to restrict settlement activities that appear to
correspond with the boundaries of the larger drainages within the
Merrimack Basin (Gallagher et. al. 1986). Perhaps due to an increase in
population, or changes in natural resource distribution, a maximum
concentration of settlement patterns within defined territories occurred
between about 4,500 and 3,000 years ago (Late Archaic). A general period
of environmental stress that affected the entire region occurred after 3,000
years ago (Terminal Archaic and Early Woodland), had a profound affect
on land use activities during that time. A noticeable restructuring of earlier
settlement patterns during the period of 3,000 to 2,000 B.P. (Before
present), is due to this event. Interior, upland environments appear to be
less populated, perhaps because people may have been utilizing coastal
resources more intensely (Gallagher et. al. 1986).
Toward the end of the prehistoric period, it appears that interior river
drainages and some upland settings were a vital part of settlement patterns
by 1,600 to 1,000 years ago (Woodland Period). A return to well defined
river basin territories and the final episode of the prehistoric period seems
to have taken place, although settlement patterns within interior section of
the Merrimack Basin remain unclear (Gallagher et. al. 1986). The move
Assabet River NWR