PREHISTORIC CONTEXT
New England’s prehistory is poorly understood relative to that of other regions in North America. For most of the prehistory in the region, river drainages such as the river defined physiographic units within which human communities operated. This pattern follows from the longitudinal diversity of habitats that occur along drainages, forming ecologically unique wetland habitats, together with the transportation routes afforded by their watercourses. In the clearest examples, rivers provide access to maritime and upland resources at each end of the drainage, and to the diverse habitats in between. Integration of the exploitation of those habitats into a seasonal round was a key element in people’s lives that differed at various historical moments.
Characteristic styles of projectile points, pottery and other artifacts divide the prehistory of southern New England into seven periods. These periods are the Paleo-Indian (13,000-10,000 BP), Early Archaic (13,000-10,000 BP), Middle Archaic (10, 000-6000 BP), Late Archaic (6000-3000 BP), Early Woodland (3000-2000 BP), Middle Woodland (2000-1000 BP) and Late Woodland (1000-350 BP). In addition to their artifacts, changing patterns of site location, activities and size characterized the periods.
Paleo-Indian Period (13,000-10,000 Years BP)
Although there is new research continually being conducted, the present theory is that the people who first settled in New England arrived in the New World during the end of the Wisconsin ice age, about 13,000 years BP (Stone and Borns 1986; Braun and Braun 1994:14-15). Before this time, mile and a half thick sheets of ice called glaciers covered New England, and much of the northern half of the United States. Ice ages are part of the Earth’s natural warming and cooling cycle. Approximately 60,000 years BP, the temperature dropped on Earth just a few degrees, just enough to cause the glaciers and ice caps at the north and south poles to begin removing water from the oceans and growing. By about 20,000 years BP the edges of the northern ice sheet had reached its maximum extent, present-day Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, and began to recede. As the glaciers melted, they dropped millions of tons of sand, gravel and boulders that had accumulated during their journey southward. All this material, the moraine and outwash soils became the sandy hills, the drumlins, eskers and kames, and all the lower layers of soil that make up our landscape today. Mixed in with the moraine and outwash were glacial erratics, these are the large boulders, like Plymouth Rock, that dot our landscape today.
Following the retreat of the glaciers, the climate in southern New England was southern tundra. It was cold, windy and barren and covered with large areas of wetlands. Scattered intermittently across the landscape were patches of grasses, shrubs such as sedge, alder and willow, and small stunted trees including spruce followed by birch and pine. There was also a lot more landscape than there is today because the oceans were about 300-400 feet lower. In New England, this meant that the coastline was up to 50 miles to the east of its present position. This left exposed large portions of land, like George’s Banks, that are today underwater. The islands that we see today in many coastal harbors were at this time hills on a barren landscape and many of the rivers that we know today were nothing more than springs or small streams (Braun and Braun 1994:3).
The types of animals that were present at this time included some of the smaller species such as foxes and rabbits, but megafauna were also present. Megafauna is a term that describes the large breeds of animals in New England after the last ice age. These included the mammoth, which existed on the tundra, the mastodon, which lived in the early forests, bears, like the large Kodiak variety, as well as giant beavers, bison, elk, caribou and musk ox.
Paleo-Indian sites in southeastern Massachusetts have been encountered on the Eel River in Plymouth, on the coast in Marshfield and on the river in Taunton. At these sites, the evidence of people living here after the last ice age has consisted predominately of stone projectile points of a variety called the Paleo or fluted point. These points were generally made from exotic materials, carried in by the inhabitants as they traveled from the west. These materials were predominately very fine-grained stones including cherts from New York and Maine and jaspers from Pennsylvania. Population densities, estimated at 5-12 people per 100 square kilometers in dictate widely scattered, often moving, small groups occupied the landscape of New England. People from this time period made their living by hunting and possibly scavenging the carcasses of the megafauna. They also hunted smaller game such as rabbits and they may have fished on the coast. The populations in New England at this time may have numbered no more than a few hundred, living in small groups and traveling seasonally. They probably were not nomadic, but were following seasonally migrating herds, and as a result, Paleo sites are often on hilltops overlooking plains or were high on the shores of glacial lakes (Dincauze 1980; Snow 1980). Eventually, by 12,500 BP, these lakes drained with many marshes, swamps and bogs being left, the last remnants of the great glacial lakes.
By the end of the Paleo Period the environment in New England was stabilizing and lifeways were becoming fairly distinct. The megafauna were extinct by 10,000 years BP, probably due to a combination of hunting by the first settlers and climactic change. The forests were beginning to change to more pine and nut bearing hardwoods that created new habitats for animals and new food sources for people. The tundra gave way to spruce parkland by 9000 BP and eventually became oak and hemlock by 7000 BP. The next period, the Early Archaic viewed as a time of settling in and accommodation to life in New England, while the Paleo Period is a time of first colonization.
Early Archaic (10,000-8,000 Years BP)
The extinction of the megafauna and the changing climate led to a revamping of the Paleo-Indian way of life around 10,000 years BP. The environment in the Early Archaic had warmed slightly and as a result, trees such as oaks, pitch pines, beeches and hazel began to flourish. It was during this time that the major rivers that are around today began to form and into these rivers, anadromous fish species like salmon and herring began to run, providing another food source for the inhabitants of New England. As New England began to become more forested, new mammalian species also would have moved into the area including black bear, deer and moose.
The Early Archaic is one of the little understood and most elusive periods of New England prehistory. Early Archaic sites tend to occur on a range of settings including hillsides with slopes over 15 degrees and hilltops. The same locations used by Paleo-Indians were often again occupied by Early Archaic populations, but other early Archaic sites appear alone in the landscape. Homes at this time may have been either of a longhouse shaped, such as those discovered in Taunton, Massachusetts at the Titicut site, or as small pits dug into the sides of hills as like in Connecticut and northern Massachusetts (Braun and Braun 1994: 35; Dudek 2005: 12).. It is unknown if the two forms of houses occurred simultaneously, were seasonally determined or represent different building traditions by different populations.
Evidence of the Early Archaic peoples’ process of “settling in”, seen in their use of local volcanic materials such as rhyolite and felsite for tools and projectile points and their possible use of quartz for quick, expendable tools, is much more common at this time (Dincauze 1980, Meltzer 1988). Hunting during this period may have taken the form of spear throwing with the use of the atlatl, a weighted stick held in the hand that held a long spear. The atlatl was an extension of the thrower’s arm and it effectively increased the distance, force and accuracy of the throw.
Evidence for the Early Archaic, recovered from Marshfield, Taunton and Carver, Massachusetts with an especially large concentration of sites in Taunton on the Taunton River, reinforces the idea that these populations favored the same sites as Paleo-Indians (Dincauze and Mulholland 1977; Thorbahn 1982; Taylor 1976). The types of artifacts recovered from the Early Archaic period include Dalton-like points and Eden lanceolate points (Johnson and Mahlstedt 1984). The Titicut site is the largest identified from the Early Archaic period, interpreted as a base camp for several families. A number of Early Archaic sites identified in Massachusetts contained evidence that suggests that small hunting groups returned to camps with seasonal regularity. These sites contained stone tools diagnostic of the Early Archaic Period, radiocarbon age determinations, or both. Another site had deep pit features, interpreted as pit houses, with abundant charred hazelnut shells (Forrest 2000).
Early Archaic diagnostic points include Bifurcate-Base points and Kirk Stemmed and Kirk Corner-Notched points. The materials for these types of points generally do not include the exotic lithics characteristic of the Paleo period, but local rhyolites and quartz predominate. There has also been a noted occurrence of quartz technology in the form of bifaces and unifaces without any of the usual temporally diagnostic points being present (Forrest 2000).
Middle Archaic (8,000-6,000 Years BP)
While the Early Archaic was a time of transition from the Paleo-Indian nomadic way of life to a more sedentary and permanent situation, the Middle Archaic was a time of more normality and permanence. It still was a time of many changes though. Oceans remained lower than they are today but the rate of rise had slowed enough for estuaries to begin forming, which led to the establishment and growth of shellfish beds. Shellfish first settled in the warmer southern waters and eventually moved northward as the sea level rise slowed and waters warmed.
Establishment of forests with the same basic composition as today was complete by 7,000 BP (Dincauze 1976:119). The number of large Middle Archaic sites containing a variety of features is evidence of site differentiation and a more complexly ordered social landscape. The use of heavy stone woodworking tools such as axes, adzes and gouges increased during this period, possibly indicating log canoes or at least an increase in woodworking. Evidence for hunting using atlatls first appears at this time. The oldest burial in New England, 7570 +/- 150 to 7660 +/- 110 years BP, identified during a cultural resource management survey in Carver, Massachusetts, contained two atlatl weights of the whale-tail variety (Doucette 2005: 24).
Sites from this period are fairly common, indicating that people had begun to spread out over larger areas. They have been found on the margins of bogs, swamps, rivers, lakes and ponds and on the present day coats, with sites of differing sizes possibly based on site function reflecting seasonal rounds or scheduled subsistence activities, as was the case during the Contact Period of European contact (Dincauze and Mulholland 1977). Middle Archaic sites identified in southeastern Massachusetts include base camps along rivers, streams or wetlands, smaller special-purpose camps in uplands or near wetlands, and rock shelters, stone quarries, and workshop areas (Bussey et al. 1992). The wide variety of sites and the common occurrence of projectile points from this period probably show that there were more people living in Massachusetts than before. Artifacts recovered from sites of this period include stemmed projectile points of the Neville, Neville-like and Stark varieties, atlatl (spear-thrower) weights, pecked, ground and polished woodworking tools such as axes, adzes and celts, and plant processing tools such as mortars, pestles, grinding stones and nutting stones.
Late Archaic (6,000-3000 Years BP)
The Late Archaic represents the period with the most identified and recorded number of archaeological sites in Massachusetts. Interpretation of this trend indicates a very large number of people living in our area during this period, although archaeologists are not sure why this happened. The case may also be made that this abundance of stone tools and sites may relate to a wider variety of stone tools being manufactures for specific purposes and a variety of habitats being exploited as opposed to a population boom. The Late Archaic is also a time of greater diversification and specialization than was clear in the earlier periods. The tool kits of the people living on the south coast and its coastal forests differed from that of the people in Maine and further north.
Along coastal Massachusetts, stabilizing sea levels combined with estuary formation led to significant runs of anadromous fish by this period. As a way of taking greatest advantage of these fish runs, Native people began using weirs, low stone dams or wooden fences that restrict fish species, in the rivers, streams and bays. Weirs were undoubtedly employed in most of the bays, rivers and larger streams in southeastern Massachusetts (Johnson 1942, Johnson 1949). Late Archaic populations appear to have settled into narrow foraging territories defined by drainages, and highly specialized to the habitats within these drainages where activities focused around the seasonal cycle. Sites are found in the same locations as those of the Middle Archaic with some greater focus on inland/upland locales. The variety of site sizes suggests use of a radiating, seasonally dynamic settlement pattern (Dincauze 1974, 1975, 1980; Thorbahn and Cox 1984).
The pattern of a riverine-upland subsistence settlement system apparently emerged during the Middle Holocene, between 6000 and 5000 BP, when the climax oak-hickory forest had matured and population levels increased, leading to regional Late Archaic strategies of extensive and intensive resource exploitation (Dincauze 1974). In Southeastern Massachusetts, the number and diversity of Late Archaic sites, and their distribution in riverine and inter-riverine, upland settings suggest a broad-base collecting approach to resource use and much attention to small-scale environmental features, including bogs and kettle-hole swamps (Binford 1980).
Another significant development in the Late Archaic was the use of bowls carved out of soapstone (steatite). The carving of the bowls was probably not a significant development in itself, but what these bowls represented is. The raw material for the bowls, soapstone, is found only in certain inland deposits in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Trade may explain the recovery of soapstone fragments on the coast. Travel taking two to three days from the coast to the quarries themselves could also explain this phenomenon. The effort expended to acquire these bowls as well as their weightiness must mean that they were important to the people. Before the use of these bowls became common, food was probably either roasted or boiled in skin lined pits in the ground through the used of hot stones. The soapstone bowls allowed for cooking directly on the fire, a change in cooking technology that eventually led to the use of pottery in southern New England. Steatite bowls use appears limited to the Late Archaic and specifically to the manifestations of the Orient culture phase. They do not appear in more recent periods. A ritualistic use for steatite bowls is also possible.
Artifacts from this period include a variety of projectile points that some archaeologists believe relate to the movements of southern or western peoples into New England. Projectile points and tool traditions represented in Massachusetts include Laurentian (Brewerton), Narrow Point (Small-Stemmed), and Broadpoint (Susquehanna or Wayland Notched)(Johnson and Mahlstedt 1984).
Early Woodland (3000-2000 Years BP)
The main distinction between the Archaic and Woodland Periods is the use of pottery. Current research suggests, pottery was not made in New England during the Archaic period and soapstone was not as widely used as it was during the Archaic. When and where and even why pottery was first manufactured in southeastern Massachusetts is a mystery to archaeologists. Pottery is more fragile, but lighter than soapstone and the raw material used to make pottery is readily available and easily acquired but not as valuable as soapstone. The switch from soapstone to pottery was neither immediate nor widespread but eventually it did occur everywhere in southeastern Massachusetts. The change may have been a result of increasing sedentism and larger community size. In this case, because people were not moving around as much there was less of a possibility of the pottery being broken during transport and more people began to make it. The earliest pottery in southeastern Massachusetts dates from ca. 3000 BP (Braun and Braun 1994:65). This pottery, identified as Vinette 1, has thick walls tempered with a great deal of crushed rock temper and little decoration. These appear to have been simmering versus boiling pots. The use of pottery appears related to an increased use of nuts and the removal of oils thorough boiling. Pottery may have also been used to render fat to grease in much the same way.
Basic technological and economic changes such as the production and use of pottery and a gradual shift to food production (maize, beans, squash, sunflower and other vegetables) define this period. The earliest dates for horticulture in southeastern Massachusetts is a ca. 1100 BP date from Martha’s Vineyard (Ritchie 1969) but perhaps it began by ca. 2000 BP (Thorbahn 1982). Other identified changes from the Late Archaic include stable estuary formation with tidal flats (Cross 1996:5-6) and an apparent increase in the amount of exotic raw materials used such as jasper, chert, and copper. This increase in exotic raw materials may indicate an increase in trade and communication. Sites dating to this period have been found around large wetlands and lakes, along large river valleys and on the coast at the mouth of rivers and streams.
A decrease in the number of exotic finished goods indicative of long-distance trade and changes in mortuary practice (increase in secondary interments, less ocher use, fewer grave goods, and more variation in preparation of the dead) mark this period. While the roots of ceramic and lithic variability are found in the preceding periods, more rapid variation in sequence through time and more regional variation characterize this period. Pottery varies more in decoration and form. Lithic projectile points are less important in the tool kit, and bone and antler tools are sometimes preserved at some sites where matrix conditions are right (Shaw 1996:84-87). By the end of the period there is evidence of maize horticulture (Thorbahn 1982).
Artifacts attributable to the Early Woodland include side-notched bifaces, lobate-stemmed Adena, Small Stemmed, Orient Fishtail, Meadowwood and Rossville projectile points, and cache blades. Smoking pipes, possibly used for the ritual smoking of tobacco, but also for the smoking of other plants such as pokeweed or mint, are now present in the archaeological record.
Middle Woodland (2000-1000 Years BP)
Settlement and subsistence are similar to those of Early Woodland Period, with the main difference being lengthened stays at large sites along waterways and the continued use of upland areas for short-term resource procurement. During this period there is a marked decrease in the number of exotic finished goods, and changes in mortuary practice to an increase in secondary interments and less ocher use. Ceramics vary more in decoration and form with more occurrences of smoothed surfaces and the beginning of the use of shell temper. The decrease in the variety of projectile points is evidence that these were now less important in the tool kit although this point is still being studied. Typical projectile points include Fox Creek and Steubenville points and in the later Middle Woodland, Jack’s Reef points. While the amount of exotic finished goods decreased, the amount of exotic raw lithic materials increased, with Jack’s Reef points often being made of non-local chert (Shaw 1996: 92-93). Some projectile point types, such as Rossville and Small Stemmed may continue into the Middle Woodland (Shaw 1996:90; Hasenstab et al. 1990).
Settlement and subsistence are similar to those of Early Woodland period, but sedentism increases. Stays at large sites along waterways increase in duration, while upland areas saw use as for short-term procurement expeditions. Long-distance communication and exchange appear to shut down by the end of the period.
Late Woodland Period (1200-400 Years BP)
This is the period just before European contact and as a result, many of the historical reports written by the early explorers to New England (Verrazanno, Gosnold, Pring, Smith) present one way of understanding the late Late Woodland period. Some of their observations may apply to the prehistoric past by ethnographic analogy.
Ethnohistorically, Native people lived within a community territory that for the most part supplied their needs. Being on the coast or within a coastal environment, the Native people of Cape Cod and southeastern Massachusetts participated in a seasonal migration that was probably very similar to that which they had done for centuries before.
The seventeenth century Wampanoag were practicing what is known to anthropologists as a mobile economy. These people were seasonally migrational, they moved from place to place throughout the year to coordinate the resources of their territory. The resources they were using were ill-distributed and as a result, they had developed a specialized economy that maintained higher population numbers than could be done with resources gathered in isolation by specialized groups (Higgs and Vita-Finzi 1982:28). Their system was not as unique among peoples as some researchers believe (Dunford 1992: 23). In Frederick Dunford’s view, the Cape Cod and southeastern Massachusetts Natives practiced a unique human adaptation to the environment that he termed “conditional sedentism” (Bragdon 1996:58). This adaptation had the estuary as its primary focus with its human community “joining and splitting like quicksilver in a fluid pattern within its bounds.” (Bragdon 1996:59).
The Cape Cod Wampanoag exploited a diffuse range of plants and animals and coordinated their gathering so that as each species came into season it was intensively harvested and stored for the winter. In order to do this, the people would split up during the spring, summer and early fall and each family would venture out to their planting fields, which became their seasonal bases. They would then move out from these to exploit various resources. In the fall they would all join up again and move as a community to a sheltered valley or into the woods and set up a winter seasonal base from which to venture out and exploit winter resources. Come spring the entire process would begin again (Nanapashamet 1996).
The pottery of the Late Woodland period are often shell-tempered or made with fine grit temper and have thinner bodies and a more globular form than the earlier ceramics. The diagnostic projectile point of the Late Woodland period is the triangular Levanna point and occasionally the Madison. Increasing importance in horticulture (maize, beans, squash, sunflower and other vegetables) in coastal or riverine zones marks this period.
Trends attributed to increasing numbers and densities of population at larger sites include the decrease in projectile point styles and the increase in the reliance on horticultural crops. While the debate continued regarding “village” occurrence in southeastern Massachusetts, the effect of an increased reliance on corn, beans, squash and to a lesser degree gourds, sunflowers and tobacco, definitely led to a degree of sedentism not seen before this time (Hasenstab 1999; Kerber 1988; Luedtke 1988; Thorbahn 1988).
Contact Period (400 Years BP- 1524 AD)
The Contact period was a time of dramatic social, political and personal upheaval for southeastern Massachusetts Native populations. This period began with amiable trade relations with European explorers such as Giovanni da Verrazzano (1524) and Batholomew Gosnold (1602), followed by a growing distrust of Europeans and an increase in hostility between the two, especially on Cape Cod as shown by Martin Pring in 1603 and Samuel de Champlain in 1605. This hostility was due primarily to the kidnapping of Native men by Europeans desirous of returning home with informants or curiosities from the New World, such as by George Weymouth in 1607 and William Hunt working under, but not under orders of, Captain John Smith in 1614. By the time of the settling of the English at Plymouth, 1620, epidemic decimated Natives in the southeastern Massachusetts saw mortality rates possibly reaching 100% in some mainland communities.
The first recorded trading encounter in New England occurred in 1524 and involved the Florentine sailor Giovanni da Verrazzano who was sailing for France. Verrazzano arrived in Narragansett Bay in April of 1524 and traded with the Natives (Parker1968: 14). He stated that the people were apparently unfamiliar with Europeans and were very willing to trade and host the visitors. The Natives were first enticed to trade by tossing “some little bells, and glasses and many toys” (Parker1968: 14) to them as they came to Verrazzanno’s ship in their own boats. The Europeans remained in the harbor until early May and Verrazzanno stated that of all the goods they traded to the natives “…they prized most highly the bells, azure (blue) crystals, and other toys to hang in their ears and about their necks; they do not value or care to have silk or gold stuffs, or other kinds of cloth, nor implements of steel or iron.” (Parker 1968: 16). It was also noted that the natives here possessed ornaments of wrought copper, which they prized greater than gold. The copper may have come indirectly through trade with natives to the north who traded them from European fishermen or it may have been native copper from the Great Lakes or Bay of Fundy regions.
The next explorer known to have visited southeastern Massachusetts was Bartholomew Gosnold who arrived at the Elizabeth Islands off Martha’s Vineyard in May of 1602. There he traded with the first natives he met, giving them “certain trifles, as knives, points, and such like, which they much esteemed.” (Parker1968: 38). Gosnold’s crew, in return for the trifles, received many different types of fur from animals such as beavers, luzernes, martens, otters, wildcats, black foxes, conie (rabbit) skins, deer and seals as well as cedar and sassafras, the later prized as a cure-all in Europe. Of particular note is his description of the great store of copper artifacts which he saw people wearing and using.
The Native informant asked by Gosnold as to where they received the copper from was probably signing that it either came from the mainland, possibly he meant through trade with natives or Europeans, or to a Native historical tale about the origin of the copper. What is interesting is the great store of copper possessed by the natives and the desire that was present to trade for metal knives. It would seem that between 1524 and 1602 they had begun to see a value in steel knives and they had expanded their use of copper to create beads and arrowheads, whereas in 1524 they only had breastplates of copper.
The fact that so much copper was present and the desire by the Natives to trade with the Europeans, highlights the early relations. Natives saw European goods as being different, special, in some ways technologically superior and spiritually empowering. Unfortunately, the power that the Natives felt could help them cope with the sometimes disturbing new relationship with these strangers could not keep them from their diseases.
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