John Crock

Against death, the Tupinamba adopted the best defense: attack. Making a virtue of necessity and a necessity of virtue, they transformed the natural given of death into a social necessity and a personal virtue: warfare vengeance was a method of instituting society. Indeed, ...

The Far Northeast, a peninsula incorporating the six New England states, New York east of the Hudson, Quebec south of the St. Lawrence River and Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Maritime Provinces, provided the setting for a distinct chapter in the peopling of North America. Late Pleistocene Archaeology and Ecology in the Far Northeast focuses on the Clovis pioneers and their eastward migration into this region, inhospitable before 13,500 years ago, especially in its northern latitudes. Bringing together the last decade or so of research on the Paleoindian presence in the area, Claude Chapdelaine and the contributors to this volume discuss, among other topics, the style variations in the fluted points left behind by these migrating peoples, a broader disparity than previously thought. This book offers not only an opportunity to review new data and interpretations in most areas of the Far Northeast, including a first glimpse at the Cliche-Rancourt Site, the only known fluted point site in Quebec, but also permits these new findings to shape revised interpretations of old sites. The accumulation of research findings in the Far Northeast has been steady, and this timely book presents some of the most interesting results, offering fresh perspectives on the prehistory of this important region.

Shifting baselines can skew species harvest guidelines and lead to potentially inaccurate assessments of population status and range. The North American Fur Trade (~1600–1900 CE) profoundly impacted the continent’s socio-ecological systems, but its legacies are often not incorporated in management discussions. We apply a conservation paleobiology lens to address shifting baselines of nine species of fur-bearing mammals in Vermont, including seven mesocarnivores and two semi-aquatic rodents. Using a database maintained by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, we identified 25 existing radiocarbon dates of fur-bearer associated features from 16 archaeological localities spanning the Early-Late Holocene. We also generated 7 new radiocarbon dates on beaver and muskrat bones from the Ewing (VT-CH-005), Bohannon (VT-GI-026), and Chimney Point (VT-AD-329) localities. Our new radiocarbon dates cluster within the Late Holocene, immediately prior to and throughout the European contact period, and overlap with The Beaver Wars. We recover a ~8,000 year record of beaver harvest, affirming the millennial scale importance of beavers, a species that is often the focus of human-wildlife conflict research. Comparison of zooarchaeological occurrences with digitized natural history specimens and community science observations reveals geographic range continuity for most species except for the American marten, which was historically extirpated, and confirms the native status of the red fox. While taphonomic constraints make our dataset a conservative assessment, our case studies demonstrate how wildlife managers can employ zooarchaeological data to better understand long-term properties of coupled socio-ecological systems and highlight the cultural importance of these species to Indigenous trade networks prior to the Fur Trade in Vermont.

Archaeological testing at the Trants site (MS-G1 ), located on the windward coast of Montserrat, was undertaken in 1979 and 1990. A combination of systematic surface collection and test pit/unit excavation at the approximately 0.6 square kilometer site has produced a substantial sample of lithic artifacts. Eight radiocarbon dates from stratified deposits at Trants have documented that the site was minimally occupied ca. 480 B.C.-A.D. 320 during the Saladoid period. The lithic sample clearly represents the reduction sequence of chert cobbles, presumably from nearby sources within the northern Lesser Antilles, for flake production; and the reduction sequence of exotic raw materials, presumably from South America, for bead manufacture. Detailed attribute analysis of the lithic artifacts from the highly significant Trants site contributes to a better understanding of prehistoric technology and social interaction during the Saladoid period in the Lesser Antilles. INTRODUCTION The Trants ...

This paper discusses the Arbor Gardens site (VT-CH885) located in Colchester, Vermont, identified by the University of Vermont Consulting Archaeology Program (UVM CAP) in October, 2001. Though the site did not produce radiocarbon dates or unequivocally diagnostic artifacts, various other lines of evidence suggest that it likely was occupied during the Late Paleoindian or Early Archaic Period ca. 8000-5500 B.C. The recovery of exotic raw materials including highly weathered examples of Mt. Jasper rhyolite (New Hampshire), Mt. Kineo rhyolite (Maine), and Onondaga chert (New York), the form and type of lithic tools recovered, the high proportion of artifacts recovered from deep contexts within the non-depositional soil profile, and the site’s geographical location, all suggest that the Arbor Gardens site dates to the early Holocene epoch. Analysis of the tool assemblage also reveals striking similarities with other Paleoindian and/or Early Archaic sites elsewhere in Vermont and the bro...

ABSTRACT We review the dynamic late-Pleistocene environment and hydrology of the New England-Maritimes region and the inception of the Champlain Sea. Thereafter, we briefly summarize previous investigations of site patterning data relative to the Champlain Sea and present several recent discoveries predicated upon the application of a revised model of the Champlain Sea shoreline at its maximum. After a broad overview of Early and Middle Paleoindian site patterning across the basin we briefly explore the implications of the Champlain Sea and the sites associated with it for understanding Paleoindian lifeways in northeastern North America.

Analysis and comparison of the lithic assemblages from five systematically excavated Paleoindian sites in Vermont has yielded a shared. potentially unrecognized scraper type. These notched oblique scrapers are described relative to their site contexts and to each other. This paper also endeavors to locate and assessthis scraper type in other Paleo indian lithic assemblages in the Northeast and beyond. Finally, a tentative explanation for the morphology, manufacture. use and/or reuse of this scraper type is postulated. Recent excavations conducted by the University of Vermont Consulting Archaeology Program (UVM CAP) of one Late Paleoindian period site and another probable Paleoindian period site in the northern Champlaih Valley have contributed significantly to our understanding of early human presence in Vermont. Specifically, the Mazza site (VT-CH-9179), located in Colchester, is now recognized as the firJt systematically excavated Late Paleoindian site in Vermont. Similarly; the A...

This paper explores select Paleoindian sites and site patterning along the southern arm of the Champlain Sea; a Late Pleistocene and early Holocene marine body connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River valley. Local and larger-scale environmental changes that may have precipitated changes in subsistence and settlement patterns over the course of the Paleoindian period are also briefly explored. Next, we explore the Late-Pleistocene geography and lithic raw material distributions to examine intrabasin and extrabasin travel, and how the Champlain Sea may have shaped it or perhaps even facilitated it. Finally, we examine scant but intriguing information from the now-drowned Atlantic Continental shelf or areas immediately adjacent to it in the Far Northeastern region for clues to its uses by Paleoindians. Although impressionistic at this point, the cumulative information from the Champlain Sea and Atlantic Continental Shelf areas suggests that the focus on interior, terrestrial lifeways may need to be modulated in the future.

While conducting archival research as part of a thorough reanalysis of the Reagan si te, new information about the enigmati c “Fairfax Sandblows” site (VT-FR-64) was uncovered. Although not voluminous, the new information provides some minimal context to the site and has enabled the authors to plot its general location. Moreover, the information has enabled the authors to construct a plausible narrative of the site’s discovery and also to tentatively ascribe several additional artifacts to the site. Interestingly, the research also suggests that the “Fairfax Sandblow s” site may have been the first Paleoindian site in New England reported to professional archaeologists, though interest in the site never progressed beyond Fisher’s overtures to the American Museum of Natural History.

ABSTRACT To investigate potential variation between the fishing practices of contemporaneous Late Ceramic Age villages in the northern Lesser Antilles, we model expectations for each site based on local marine habitat and bathymetry and compare them to observed differences in zooarchaeological assemblages. The predictive model approximates which taxa were the most likely to have been targeted by fishers from each site, assuming that the majority of fishing likely occurred within short distances from each settlement. A comparison of expectations and archaeological observations is used to expose potential differences between sites in preferred fishing areas and techniques, preferred foods, or social distinctions. This variability is argued to reflect a fishing community’s ‘marineness’, or the interrelationship members have with the unique composition of marine resources and underwater seascape adjacent to their villages.

... doi:10.1016/j.jas.2006.06.014 | How to Cite or Link Using DOI Copyright © 2006 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved. Permissions & Reprints. Fish communities and populations during the post-Saladoid period (AD 600/800–1500), Anguilla, Lesser Antilles. ...

The investigation of social inequality in the Caribbean mainly has focused on the larger islands of the Greater Antilles where ethnohistoric records and monumental architecture form the basis for analysis of precolumbian complex societies. This paper presents evidence for status differentiation in the Lesser Antilles on the small island of Anguilla within a deposit at the Sandy Hill site and evaluates associated archaeofauna for evidence of rank-based differences in food consumption. When compared with three other sites, the higher density of status-related artifacts and higher densities of food remains at the Sandy Hill site are interpreted as the result of feasting. No evidence for inequality is observed in patterns of food consumption.

Natural and anthropogenic changes to the landscape have transformed the northern Lesser Antilles since the arrival of the first human colonists during the Archaic Age. Sea-level rise, volcanic activity, storm events, coastal erosion, farming and modern development all have altered the landscape, and destroyed or obscured archaeological evidence of early settlement. The effects of these post-depositional processes inhibit our ability to reconstruct the early human history of the eastern Caribbean.

A distinctive biface and perforated plummet were recently recovered from separate, submerged contexts by a scallop fisherman in eastern Blue Hill Bay, Maine. The biface, along with two others previously reported from the same area, may represent the location ...

Surface collections and controlled excavations at a sample of substantial Late Ceramic Age village sites on the limestone island of Anguilla have resulted in the recovery of significant volumes of non-local lithic raw material and ceramics containing volcanic temper. These artifacts, in addition to the presence of Taino-related religious paraphernalia and prestige items, provide evidence of large-scale inter-island trade and exchange in the northern Lesser Antilles and between these islands and the Greater Antilles to the west during the Late Ceramic Age. Higher proportions of artifacts reflective of external trade relations and social status occur at larger sites located in more prime locations near the sea and salt ponds. This settlement hierarchy is argued to reflect the existence of a chiefly society in Anguilla during the Late Ceramic Age that likely included communities on neighboring small islands. In addition, strong stylistic and iconographic correlations suggest that Anguilla and the northern Lesser Antilles were part of a Taino-related cultural sphere that extended eastward from the Greater Antilles.