AN UPDATED HISTORY OF PRE-CONTACT NEW ENGLAND: NEW AMS DATES FOR THE HORNBLOWER II AND FRISBY-BUTLER ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

Radiocarbon ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 1437-1451
Author(s):  
Jessica E Watson
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Demersal Fish ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Demographic Profiles ◽  
Early Woodland ◽  
Southern New England ◽  
History Of ◽  
Autumn And Winter

ABSTRACTFaunal assemblages from the pre-Contact period sites Frisby-Butler and Hornblower II on Marthaʼs Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA, remain unstudied since excavation during the 1980s. This project establishes radiocarbon (14C) dates from faunal remains and evaluates occupation and abandonment at each site. 14C measurements were collected from 17 specimens and 13 dates from previous analyses were re-examined. Dates were identified from the archaeological time periods Transitional Archaic (2700–3700 BP), Early Woodland (2000–2700 BP), and Late Woodland (450–1200 BP) at Frisby-Butler. Occupation likely represented seasonal visitations during autumn and winter to hunt based on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) demographic profiles. A combined dataset of new and re-calibrated 14C measurements from Hornblower II date to the Late Archaic (3700–6000 BP), Early Woodland, Middle Woodland (1200–2000 BP), and Late Woodland periods. Settlement was focused on gathering warm-weather foods like demersal fish and lakebirds. Together, the sites demonstrate periodic seasonal use of the southwest coast of the island throughout the Late Holocene and fit within an established regional pattern in southern New England.

Late Woodland Settlement and Subsistence in Southern New England Revisited: The Evidence from Coastal Rhode Island

2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph N. Waller
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Narragansett Bay ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
European Contact ◽  
Southern New England

Archaeological investigations at Woodland sites in the Narragansett Bay drainage have aided in a refinement of Late Woodland settlement and subsistence models. Popular theory holds that intensive maize horticulture and the formation of tribal villages occurred relatively late in the prehistoric period or possibly were the result of European Contact. Archaeological investigations in coastal sections of Rhode Island indicate that village settlements and likely intensive maize horticulture were elements of Late Woodland settlement and subsistence behavior in and around Narragansett Bay and not Contact period phenomena.

Threads of Continuity

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-48
Author(s):  
D. Rae Gould ◽  
Holly Herbster ◽  
Stephen A. Mrozowski
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Native People ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
King Philip's War ◽  
Southern New England ◽  
John Eliot ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Praying Town ◽  
Over Time

This chapter explores the long presence of Nipmuc people such as the Wabbaquasset tribe in southern New England for millenia. It reaches back into the pre-contact period and acknowledges the culture change of Native people in this region over time and up to the present. A central topic is the memorialization of places connected to historic figures such as John Eliot, combined with the erasure of Native people who have had connections to this landscape deep into the past, long before European colonization. The history of the praying town period and Christianization of Nipmuc Indians through the efforts of John Eliot in the 17th century and of the seminal King Philip’s War (or Metacom’s Rebellion), and its aftermath on Nipmuc people, are summarized.

Clay Acquisition and Vessel Distribution Patterns: Neutron Activation Analysis of Late Windsor and Shantok Tradition Ceramics from Southern New England

1995 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 515-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan M. Lizee ◽  
Hector Neff ◽  
Michael D. Glascock
Keyword(s):  
Neutron Activation Analysis ◽  
Activation Analysis ◽  
Neutron Activation ◽  
New England ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
European Contact ◽  
Southern New England

In southern New England, typological distinctions between Niantic, Hackney Pond, and Shantok ceramics have been used to describe changing settlement patterns for the Late Woodland (500- 350 Years B.P.) and contact (post-A.D. 1600) periods. Based on the initial typologies developed by Rouse (1947) the Shantok ceramic tradition was also considered an ethnic marker of the Mohegan and Pequot tribes based on material recovered from Fort Shantok. Reexamination of stylistic data have suggested that levels of stylistic similarity between late ceramic types actually limit their use as ethnic markers in reconstructing contact period settlement patterns (Lizee 1994; McBride 1990). In this study, neutron activation analysis is employed to determine if compositional profiles correspond with identified stylistic types. The distribution of compositional groups within the region proves to be useful in describing changes in settlement during the Late Woodland and contact periods for southeastern Connecticut. Results of this study suggest that cultural factors underlying the evolution of the historic Pequot and Mohegan tribes, and locations of focal village sites, also had an impact on access to clay resource zones at the time of European contact.

A record of late-Holocene environmental change from southern New England, USA

2011 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Wyatt Oswald ◽  
David R. Foster
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Climatic Variability ◽  
Organic Content ◽  
Pollen Record ◽  
Southern New England ◽  
Ecological Changes ◽  
Dry Conditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Town

AbstractAnalyses of a sediment core from Little Pond, located in the town of Bolton, Massachusetts, provide new insights into the history of environmental and ecological changes in southern New England during the late Holocene. Declines in organic content and peaks in the abundance of Isoetes spores indicate reduced water depth at 2900–2600, 2200–1800, and 1200–800 calibrated years before present (cal yr BP), generally consistent with the timing of dry conditions in records from elsewhere in the northeastern United States. The Little Pond pollen record features little change over the last 3000 yr, indicating that the surrounding vegetation was relatively insensitive to these periods of drought. The 1200–800 cal yr BP dry interval, however, coincides with increased abundance of Castanea pollen, suggesting that the expansion of Castanea in southern New England may have been influenced by late-Holocene climatic variability.

The Archaeology of Magunkaquog

2020 ◽  
pp. 49-73
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Mrozowski
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
New England ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Southern New England ◽  
Town Meeting ◽  
John Eliot ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
Praying Town

Chapter 3 details the history of the Magunkaquog site from the features and material culture recovered through archaeological investigations in the late 1990s, combined with information from documentary records. With this site, the location of a seventeenth-century praying town meeting house, collaboration began between the archaeologists and the Nipmuc Nation. Certain practices revealed through archaeology conducted at this site provide clear evidence of a continuum between the post-contact inhabitants at Magunkaquog and their pre-contact cultural practices. Connections to other Native sites in southern New England also exist. Analyses of soils, ceramics, metals, glass, pipes, lithics, buttons and other artifacts provide a glimpse into the everyday lives of the site’s inhabitants 350 years ago as they encountered intense cultural changes with the arrival of John Eliot and other European settlers coupled with the adoption of European products into their lives.

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