Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T12:14:25.283Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2020

Jessica E Watson Open the ORCID record for Jessica E Watson [Opens in a new window]
Jessica E Watson*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, Albany, NY, USA New York State Museum, Albany, NY, USA
*
Corresponding author. Email: jewatson@albany.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Faunal 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.

Keywords

AlgonquinarchaicMarthaʼs Vineyardshell middenswoodland
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 62 , Issue 5 , October 2020 , pp. 1437 - 1451
Check for updates
Copyright
© 2020 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barnosky, AD, Lindsey, EL. 2010. Timing of Quaternary megafaunal extinction in South America in relation to human arrival and climate change. Quaternary International 217(1):10–29. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2009.11.017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourque, BJ. 2001. Twelve thousand years: American Indians in Maine. Lincoln (NE): University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Brennan, LA. 1974. The Lower Hudson: a decade of shell middens. Archaeology of Eastern North America 2(1):81–93.Google Scholar
Brennan, LA. 1977. The midden is the message: an investigation into the age relationship of oyster shell middens along the lower and the cultural materials found on and in them. Archaeology of Eastern North America 5:122–137.Google Scholar
Byers, DS, Johnson, F. 1940. Two sites on Marthaʼs Vineyard. Vol. 1. Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology 1. Andover (MA): Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology.Google Scholar
CARD. 2017. CARD 2.0. Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD). http://www.canadianarchaeology.ca/. Accessed December 21, 2017.Google Scholar
Chilton, ES. 2002. “Towns they have none”: diverse subsistence and settlement strategies in native New England. In: Hart, JP, Rieth, CB, editors. Northeast subsistence-settlement change A.D. 700–1300. New York State Museum Bulletin 496. Albany (NY): State University of New York Press. p. 289–300.Google Scholar
Chilton, ES, Doucette, DL. 2002a. Archaeological investigations at the Lucy Vincent Beach site (19-DK-148): preliminary results and interpretations. In: Kerber, JE, editor. A lasting impression: coastal, lithic, and ceramic research in New England Archaeology. Westport (CT): Praeger. p. 41–69.Google Scholar
Chilton, ES, Doucette, DL. 2002b. The archaeology of coastal New England: the view from Marthaʼs Vineyard. Northeast Anthropology 64:55–66.Google Scholar
Chilton, ES, Herbster, H. 2008. Marthaʼs Vineyard and Nantucket archaeology. Archaeology in America: An Encyclopedia. Westport (CT): Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Duranleau, DL. 2009. Flexible sedentism: the subsistence and settlement strategies of the Pre-Contact residents of coastal New England and New York [unpublished PhD dissertation]. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University.Google Scholar
Foster, DR. 2017. A meeting of land and sea: nature and the future of Marthaʼs Vineyard. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Guernsey, SJ. 1916. Notes on explorations of Marthaʼs Vineyard. American Anthropologist 18(1):81–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasenstab, RJ. 1999. Fishing, farming, and finding the village sites: centering Late Woodland New England Algonquians. In: Levine, MA, Sassaman, KE, Nassaney, MS, editors. The archaeological Northeast. Native peoples of the Americas. Westport (CT): Bergin and Garvey. p. 139–153.Google Scholar
Herbster, H, Cherau, S. 2006. The past is present: CRM archaeology on Marthaʼs Vineyard. In: Kerber, JE, editor. Cross-cultural collaboration: native peoples and archaeology in the Northeastern United States. Lincoln (NE): University of Nebraska Press. p. 165–182.Google Scholar
Huntington, G. 1959. An archaeological study from Marthaʼs Vineyard. Dukes County Intelligencer 1(2):1–21.Google Scholar
Kirakosian, K. 2015. Mapping the social worlds of shell midden archaeology in Massachusetts. Bulletin of the History of Archaeology 25(2):6. doi: 10.5334/bha.260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacy, DM. 1999. Myth busting and prehistoric land use in the Green Mountains of Vermont. In: Levine, MA, Sassaman, KE, Nassaney, MS, editors. The archaeological Northeast. Westport (CT): Bergin and Garvey. p. 115–124.Google Scholar
Largy, TB, Burns, PG, Chilton, ES, Doucette, D. 2002. Lucy Vincent Beach: another look at the prehistoric exploitation of piscine resources off the coast of Massachusetts. Northeast Anthropology 64:67–73.Google Scholar
Little, EA. 1999. Radiocarbon dating of shell on the southern coast of New England. In: Lavine, MA, Sassaman, KE, Nassaney, MS, editors. The archaeological Northeast. Native Peoples of the Americas. Westport (CT): Bergin and Garvey. p. 201–211.Google Scholar
Perlman, SM. 1977. Optimum diet models and prehistoric hunter-gatherers: a test on Marthaʼs Vineyard [unpublished PhD dissertation]. Amherst (MA): University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Richardson, JB III. 1985. Prehistoric man on Marthaʼs Vineyard. Oceanus 28(1):35–43.Google Scholar
Ritchie, WA. 1969. The archaeology of Marthaʼs Vineyard: a framework for the prehistory of southern New England; a study in coastal ecology and adaptation. Garden City (NY): Natural History Press.Google Scholar
Snow, D. 1980. The archaeology of New England. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Speck, FG, Dexter, RW. 1948. Utilization of marine life by the Wampanoag Indians of Massachusetts. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 38(8):257–265.Google ScholarPubMed
Steel, D. 2001. Bayesian statistics in radiocarbon calibration. Philosophy of Science 68(3):S153–S164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ. 1993. Extended 14C database and revised CALIB radiocarbon calibration program. Radiocarbon 35(1):215–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ, Bard, E, Beck, JW, Burr, GS, Hughen, KA, Kromer, B, McCormac, FG, van der Plicht, J, Spurk, M. 1998. INTCAL98 radiocarbon age calibration 24,000–0 cal BP. Radiocarbon 40(3):1041–1083.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ, Reimer, RW. 2017. CALIB 7.1. Available at http://calib.org/calib/.Google Scholar
Waters, JH. 1967. Animal remains from archaeological sites on Marthaʼs Vineyard. The Dukes County Intelligencer 9(2):60–67.Google Scholar
Waters, JH. 1969. Temporal fluctuations in marine mollusc populations as indicated by pre-Columbian shell heaps on Marthaʼs Vineyard. The Dukes County Intelligencer 10(4):230–238.Google Scholar