The Indian Shell Heap

The Indian Shell Heap:
Archaeology of the Ruth Moore Site
© Abbe Museum, 1994
All rights revert to the authors on publication.
“The Indian Shell Heap” reprinted from Time's Web. William
Morrow Co., 1972
Cover photo and design by Betts Swanton
ISBN: 0-942396-68-5
Blackberry Books
RRl,Box228
Nobleboro, Maine 04555
Gulf of Maine Bioregion
To Ruth
“Well, Old Neighbor, We Have Found It For You:”
Introduction
The Abbe Museum, the first institution in Maine to sponsor
archaeological research, sponsored field work throughout the state
beginning in 1927. However, its focal area has always been the
Mount Desert-Frenchman Bay region. While the Museum's
mission has evolved over time, its mission to “collect, preserve and
interpret” local Indian history continues, as does its field research
program. Since the mid-1980s, the museum has been conducting
archaeological site surveys, and excavations through membership
field schools, as part of its ongoing Frenchman Bay Research
Program.
The field school approach to archaeological research is not a
new one to the Abbe Museum. Wendell Hadlock, Curator at the
Museum from 1936 to 1978, first taught field schools as part of the
research program in 1946 (Figure 1). Field schools combine field
work with a hands-on experience, resulting in a successful joint
research and education program, with students learning about
Indian history through archaeology, as well as the importance of
site protection and preservation. And as a Museum, it is possible to
present these research findings to the public through an exhibition
program.
Figure 1. Abbe Museum archaeological field school at Ellsworth
Falls, 1949, and Wendell Hadlock excavating at the Erkkila Site,
Warren, 1960.
Title quotation from “The Indian Shell Heap.”
“The Indian Shell Heap: Archaeology of the Ruth Moore Site”
really began in 1985 during one of these archaeological surveys,
was brought to fruition with field schools from 1991 to 1994 at the
site on Gotts Island, and culminated in the exhibition and
publication of the same name. In addition to locating and
documenting sites, surveys include meeting artifact collectors to
document and assess their collections. During the 1985 survey I
had the true pleasure of meeting Ruth Moore. I was told that she
had a large collection, but I also knew that she was a well-known
author and, so I'd heard, very private and unwelcoming to
interviewers. But I took the plunge anyway, called, and was
immediately invited to her home in Bass Harbor where Ruth
enjoyed talking about archaeology for a change, instead of about
herself or her writing. Afternoon turned to evening and Ruth and
her sister, Esther, insisted I stay for dinner. So much for her gruff
image!
I learned that Ruth had developed an early interest in
archaeology and an appreciation and respect for Native people. Her
interest and curiosity led to her exploration at the Indian site on
Great Gott, the island where she had grown up. She dug at the site
periodically from 1946-1960 after she had returned home to Maine
from living in New York, Washington, DC and California. She
apologized for digging in the site. She hadn't realized it at the time,
but later knew that, because she was not professionally trained in
archaeology, she was inadvertently destroying important evidence.
But, she made the full circle by sharing her collection, her
information and knowledge, and by setting the stage for her
family's subsequent donation of her collection to the museum
(Figure 2). On later visits, I studied her collection more carefully,
and she and Esther arranged for me to visit the site on Great Gott
on Russell Gott's mail boat one stormy day. While the ride was
rough, it was a good day to witness and examine the
destructiveness of erosion on coastal archaeological sites.
Based on the site itself—a large shell midden undergoing
severe coastal erosion, combined with the variety of artifacts, age
and extent of Ruth Moore's collection from Great Gott, we
determined that the site should be tested to determine its
Figure 2. Selected artifacts from the Ruth Moore Collection. Photo
by Stephen Bicknell, courtesy of the Department of Anthropology,
University of Maine, Orono.
significance to our understanding of Maine prehistory. During the
spring of 1988, Dr. Steven Cox led his students from the Center for
Northern Studies, Wolcott, Vermont, in the testing of the site. The
testing “located thick (40-60 cm.) shell midden deposits and
produced a good deal of prehistoric cultural material, including
several varieties of pottery spanning at least two thousand years, a
small spear point, a shell bead and a piece of copper from the early
European contact period.” It was clear to Dr. Cox that this was a
significant site, one with good research potential despite some
damage from erosion and human activities.
These factors, plus the Abbe Museum's growing commitment
to public educational programming led to the first, in 1991, of what
would become annual archaeological field schools at the site
(Figure 3). A final season is planned for the fall of 1994. Dr. Cox
anticipates “that further work at the site will help clarify the dating
Figure 3. 1993 field school. Abbe Museum members Darrell
Crawford, Marcia Chapman, Alice Wellman, Elizabeth Noyce
and Carol Pelletier in foreground. Photo by Harriett Mitchell
of the earlier occupations of the site and add to our picture of life
in the Mt. Desert region over the last 3,000 years.”
“The Indian Shell Heap: Archaeology of the Ruth Moore Site”
brings the results of this field work to the public, again part of the
Museum's mission, through both an exhibition and publication. In
the archaeological community the research, coupled with
professional reports and papers, presents our findings to other
scholars for their research and contributes to an overall knowledge
of Maine prehistory. There are many ways of learning about the
past. Exhibitions at the Abbe Museum over recent years have
reflected the movement in the museum world of including other
voices, in particular the voices of the people being interpreted and,
thus, have focused on oral traditions. Some of the exhibitions have
been collaborations between members of the Penobscot,
Passamaquoddy and Micmac tribes and archaeologists; some have
been developed by Native people themselves.
“The Indian Shell Heap” will focus on the science of
archaeology as a tool and process. But, in keeping with the
Museum's efforts to present a rounder and fuller picture of the past,
the exhibit also looks to the oral traditions of Maine's Native
people, and in this case, to the traditions of the “later” Great Gott
islanders as well, through the writings of Ruth Moore.
The exhibition combines the archaeological, historical and
literary legacies of Great Gott Island, located off-shore of Mount
Desert Island. It interprets 3,000 years of a Maine island, from its
earliest inhabitants, Native Americans, to the present day.
Interpretation is through objects used by Indians, and later by
settlers, to obtain an island living, a video production of the
excavation, pull-out collection storage drawers and a hands-on
laboratory where children can try out some archaeological
techniques. Ruth Moore's poem and title for the exhibit, “The
Indian Shell Heap” (reprinted in this publication), serves as both
framework and thread, weaving the exhibition together. And, as
you will discover, we were not the first to find the Indian Dog or
bones of extinct animals! And, typical for Ruth Moore, both the
poem and exhibit end with a little twist.
This publication expands upon several topics within the
exhibition to provide the exhibit visitor with an amount and level
of information not possible within the exhibition. Separate from
the exhibit, it fills a niche in the literature on local Indian history
and archaeology. The essays answer questions frequently asked by
visitors to Mount Desert Island, as well as local residents, on these
topics. In the first article, “An Overview of Eastern Maine
Prehistory,” Dr. Steven Cox presents an archaeological overview
of the earliest inhabitants of eastern Maine to provide a context for
the Ruth Moore Site. Not only does it provide a context, or setting,
in which to place the Ruth Moore site, but it summarizes cultural
time periods in Maine beginning with the retreat of the ice sheet
from Maine, continuing up to the present day. Dr. Cox answers the
questions— When did people first arrive in Maine? Why isn't there
evidence of people living on Mount Desert Island at that time?
What were the Indians' food resources? What were the effects of
the arrival of Europeans on Native people?
There has been, and will continue to be, much written about
Ruth Moore and her writing. But Gary Lawless in his article “But
That's All Legend Now,” takes a different approach. Using
examples in her writings, he traces not only Ruth's interests, but
her very deep ties to the land and sea, to history, to the Shell Heap
and to Native Americans—the first “old neighbors” of Gotts
Island. In the poem at the end of his article, Gary Lawless
continues Ruth's tradition of combining literature and science to
evoke feelings that are sometimes difficult to extract from
scientific facts alone. His article, in turn, sets the stage for the last
article, “The Ruth Moore Site.”
“The Ruth Moore Site,” by Dr. Steven Cox, describes the site
and its archaeological investigation. He discusses the formation
and significance of shell middens, stratigraphy, archaeological
techniques used in the field, and food and artifactual evidence
Through his interpretation, you will learn about the first Gott
Islanders-the American Indians. The article demonstrates how
archaeologists gather evidence and interpret their findings to piece
together a picture of the past.
As with most exhibition programs and publications, there are
many people to be thanked.
Elizabeth B. Noyce, through The Libra Foundation, provided
generous funding for the exhibition. As a field school student, she
explored two of her many interests—archaeology and Ruth Moore.
Mrs. Noyce and The Libra Foundation support numerous
organizations and projects, and the archaeological community in
Maine is grateful to be among their recipients.
Funding from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission
supported the archaeological surveys and assisted the 1991 field
season. The Commission continues to contribute to archaeological
research and preservation in Maine, and the Abbe Museum
appreciates their continued support.
Dr. Steven Cox, first as Abbe Museum trustee and later as
Research Associate, contributed a great deal of time, labor and
expertise to the project. He provided field school students with the
right combination of instruction and respect. Students learned a lot
in a short period of time and enjoyed every minute of it.
The students themselves deserve a great deal of thanks. They
gave up their real lives and took vacations from their work - to
work! They learned fast, worked hard, and excavated the objects
presented in the exhibition.
The exhibition and video production were developed by Betts
Swanton. The exhibit advisory committee included: Dr. Steven
Cox, project archaeologist and consultant, Sandy Phippen, Dennis
Damon, Gary Lawless, Edward Holmes, Esther Trask, Rita
Kenway, and trustees Marion Smith, Mary O'Meara, Mary
Philbrook and Lisa Markos. The script was also reviewed by
trustee Wayne Newell. Jeff Dobbs Production provided expertise
and support with the video production. Robert Lewis, Maine State
Museum, analyzed the faunal remains of the site each year. Our
thanks to each of them, and to the many others who helped with
this project, for their interest and for contributing their time and
expertise so graciously. The field school, upon which the exhibit
was based, was possible due to the generosity of the site property
owners, the Gott Heirs - Edward Holmes, Bud Trask, Norma
Stanley, John Clark and Stuart Reed, and to Elizabeth Baldwin and
Marion Silver for opening their homes to the field crew. While the
field school would have been possible without our acceptance by
the residents of Gotts Island, I can tell you that life would have
been difficult! Instead, the islanders welcomed us, befriended us
and helped us with island logistics to make our stay wonderful.
Thanks to Beth Leonard and Gary Lawless of Blackberry
Books, for their interest and generosity in printing this publication.
If it were not for Blackberry Books, you would not be able to take
“a part” of the exhibit home with you!
Diane Kopec, Director Abbe Museum
“Years Stretching Back Like a Funnel:”
An Overview Of Eastern Maine Prehistory
Before Shell Middens
It is not known when people first started living on the coast in
Maine. The evidence lies submerged off today's coastline, the
earliest sites victims of rising sea levels and coastal subsidence. It
is not until after about 5,000 years ago that we begin to pick up
evidence of coastal inhabitants in surviving shoreline sites. For
earlier periods we are limited to evidence from interior and nearcoastal sites, plus a few tantalizing fragments of evidence dredged
up from the remains of submerged sites offshore (Figure 1).
Our story begins around 13,000 years ago, with the retreat of
the massive ice sheets of the late Pleistocene glaciation from the
area. The great weight of the glacier had depressed the land
surface, so that as the glacier retreated the sea followed the ice
edge, drowning large areas of what is now dry land. However, the
Figure 1. General map of eastern Maine with reference points.
Title quotation from Candlemas Bay.
marine transgression was relatively short-lived, because as the land
was relieved of the weight of the glacier it began to rebound
upward. By 11,000 to 12,000 years ago the sea had retreated to the
present coastline, and by about 10,000 years ago the coastline was
about 200 feet lower and 5-15 miles further seaward than at
present. Thereafter the rate of crustal rebound slowed until 9,000 to
8,000 years ago, after which the coast began to gradually subside, a
process which continues today.
By 11,000 years ago the glacier had retreated to north of the
St. Lawrence and Maine was essentially ice-free, although rapidly
melting ice remnants may have remained in some valleys and on
mountain peaks. As the land emerged from its ice and water
burdens, colonizing plants spread a carpet of vegetation over the
raw landscape. The initial immigrants were mosses, lichens,
grasses and sedges - tundra vegetation suited to the cold and poor
soils of the periglacial land. Later willow and alder thickets
appeared, followed by stands of the hardier tree species such as
spruce and poplar. At around 11,000 years ago an observer in
eastern Maine would have seen a mosaic environment of tundra,
brush and trees arranged in patterns determined by local soil
conditions, drainage and exposure.
Although this late Pleistocene park tundra environment would
generally have resembled that of the present-day Arctic or of
mountaintops near the tree line, it was probably a substantially
richer environment than that of modern tundras, supporting a rich
and varied population of Pleistocene animals. Late Pleistocene
animal species in Maine probably included mammoth, mastodon,
horse, muskox, bison and caribou. These Ice Age species formed
the resource base for the first human inhabitants of the region, the
remote ancestors of today's Indian peoples.
Archeologists use the term Paleo-Indian for the Indian
inhabitants of the Americas at the end of the Pleistocene and
beginning of the present postglacial period (Holocene), roughly
11,500 to 9,500 years ago. These were the earliest definitely
known humans in the Americas, although there are scraps of
evidence suggesting a much earlier presence, perhaps more than
30,000 years ago, in unglaciated areas. Almost certainly the
ancestors of Maine's Paleo-Indian peoples entered the Americas
from Siberia via a land bridge which existed between Alaska and
Siberia during the Pleistocene.
Paleo-Indians in Maine, indeed throughout the Americas, had
a culture that was well adapted to hunting late Pleistocene
mammals. In the arid regions of the Southwest and Plains where
bones are preserved for thousands of years, Paleo-Indian tools are
frequently found in association with mammoth remains. We
suspect that in Maine both Pleistocene elephants (mammoth and
mastodon) and caribou were important game species, although
Maine's moist, acid soils have long ago dissolved food bone left in
Paleo-Indian sites.
The most distinctive stone tool within the Paleo-Indian tool kit
was the fluted point. This was a finely flaked stone point with a
central channel, or flute, running down both faces from the base,
probably to facilitate hafting into a spear or lance shaft. Two such
points were reportedly found on the shores of Graham Lake in
Ellsworth, and although no true Paleo-Indian sites have been found
in the region, it is likely that the first humans entered eastern
Maine during this period.
As the climate warmed and forests replaced tundra and park
tundra in most areas of Maine, the human inhabitants of the region
faced difficult changes. The pine and hemlock forests of the early
Holocene were relatively impoverished environments compared to
the late Pleistocene park tundra, and a combination of climatic and
vegetational change, perhaps together with increased hunting
pressure from man, led to the extinction of many of the Pleistocene
big game species. Thus, where previously a great deal of meat was
concentrated in large animals (mammoth, mastodon) or in herds
(caribou, bison), now animal resources were dispersed in smaller
and more solitary species (deer, moose) requiring different hunting
techniques.
In general the Archaic period, which lasted until about 2800
years ago, can be seen as a period of gradual cultural adaptation to
Maine's post-glacial environment. Although this increasingly
sophisticated adaptation took many forms, two of the most
important developments were an increased emphasis on fresh
water fishing and on coastal resources including fish, shellfish and
marine mammals.
Rather early in the Archaic we begin to see a fresh water
fishing adaptation, not so much in food remains which are poorly
preserved from this period, but in settlement locations at good
fishing spots on rivers and lakes. In general the Archaic economy
was probably a broad-based one, combining hunting and trapping
of large and small game with fishing, birding and gathering wild
plant foods.
Up until recently we knew of very few Maine sites from the
Early or Middle Archaic periods (ca. 9500-5000 years ago), and it
was generally believed that the challenges posed by the changing
environments of the early Holocene resulted in very low
population levels in Maine during the period. However, in the last
decade investigations by archaeologists David Sanger, Jim
Petersen and Brian Robinson have revealed a number of deeply
buried early Holocene sites along the Penobscot River and its
tributaries. Their ongoing research is revolutionizing our picture of
early Archaic cultures in Maine, showing us that not only was
Maine populated during this period, but that a number of cultural
developments once thought to post-date 5,000 years ago actually
appeared several thousand years earlier. By Middle Archaic times
(ca. 7,000 years ago) and perhaps earlier we begin to see
widespread use of specialized woodworking tools, including adzes
and gouges, and new techniques of pecking and grinding stone
added to the stone tool maker's repertoire. There is also good
reason to believe that human burials accompanied by grave goods
and red ocher deposits began similarly early.
It is likely that the resources of the coast also began to be
exploited early in the Holocene, although as noted above we have
lost most of the evidence for coastal occupancy prior to 5,000
years ago to coastal submergence. We do know that to the north in
southern Labrador, where the land is still rebounding upward from
the relatively late disappearance of the glaciers, coastal sites dating
as early as about 9,000 years ago have been found. In Gulf of
Maine waters every now and then scallopers drag up artifacts from
the ocean bed, often quite far offshore. In the early 1980's I
investigated one such location off Deer Isle where scallopers had
dredged up several early-looking artifacts, including a ground
stone knife, two flaked stone knives or unfinished points, a
plummet (line or net weight) and a stone axe. A combination of
SCUBA dives and bathymetric profiling in the area indicated that
the site lay on a small southeast-facing point that was now about
25- 30 feet underwater, and that as it submerged the site deposits
were washed out, scattering cultural material downslope on both
sides of the point. The site's depth and the style of the artifacts
suggest a date around 6,000 -7,000 years ago for the occupation.
The Abbe Museum's collections contain two plummets dragged up
from off nearby islands (Figure 2), and even earlier artifacts,
perhaps dating as far back as late Paleo-Indian, have been found in
deeper waters. Unfortunately, it is likely that the inundation
process destroyed the great majority of early coastal sites, and our
picture of the earliest human coastal inhabitants in Maine will
remain as murky as the waters that today cover the evidence.
The Late Archaic
We have a much greater number of sites dating to the Late
Archaic (ca. 6000-2800 years ago) than from earlier periods,
perhaps reflecting increasingly successful adaptations and
increased population levels as well as site preservation factors. We
are able to discern several different cultures within Late Archaic.
Perhaps the earliest of these is the Vergennes culture, which is
generally regarded as the earliest phase within a longer
northeastern cultural tradition called Laurentian. The later phases
of Laurentian are not well represented in Maine, but Vergennes is
quite common in eastern Maine.
In general Vergennes is a culture of the northern New England
forests and waterways, appearing most commonly in the states and
provinces bordering the St. Lawrence. We again do not have much
in the way of preserved food remains for Vergennes and therefore
lack the ability to be very precise about its economy, but the broad
pattern was probably similar to that of Middle Archaic - a broadlybased interior hunting, fishing and gathering adaptation. The most
characteristic artifact of Vergennes is the Otter Creek point, a
large, side-notched point or knife. Developments seen earlier in
Middle Archaic, such as the manufacture of woodworking tools
Figure 2. Large plummet, Abbe Museum collections, collected in
fish net by Oliver Spear, Jr. near Bald Porcupine Island off Bar
Harbor. Photo by Stephen Bicknell, courtesy of the Department of
Anthropology, University of Maine, Orono.
and use of ground stone, accelerate in Vergennes, and a variety of
adzes, gouges and ground slate points become common along with
other characteristic Archaic forms such as stone plummets which
were probably used as net or line weights in fishing. Only traces of
Vergennes have been found on the coast, and it is likely that the
culture was primarily interior-oriented.
Toward the end of Vergennes, around 5,000 years ago, we
begin to see the first clear evidence of significant use of coastal
resources. The earliest component we have preserved on existing
coastal sites date to around 5,000 years ago and appears to
represent a different culture than Vergennes, one with small
stemmed points rather than the large notched Otter Creek points
and which lacks initially much of the ground stone industry
common in Vergennes. By the time we see this “small stemmed
point” culture archeologically, it had already achieved a coastal
adaptation with many of the elements of later coastal cultures,
including offshore and inshore fishing for a variety of species such
as swordfish, cod and flounder, harvesting of shellfish, and seal
hunting.
By around 4500 years ago this small stemmed point culture
had given rise to the most famous of Maine's prehistoric Indian
cultures, termed by most Maine archeologists the Moorehead
phase but better known to the general public as the Red Paint
culture. This culture is best known for its spectacular cemeteries,
mostly excavated during the early years of this century by a man
named Warren K. Moorehead, with graves filled with red ocher
and elaborate grave goods. However, it is equally interesting to the
archeologist for its sophisticated adaptation to coastal living and
evidence for broad-ranging trade contacts throughout the northeast
during this period.
Moorehead culture includes many of the elements of
Vergennes culture such as adzes, gouges, plummets and ground
slate points, although in somewhat different form (Figure 3), and
its development may have been influenced by either Vergennes or
by a culture called Maritime Archaic in Newfoundland and
Labrador which shared many of the same traits -indeed some
archeologists include Moorehead within Maritime Archaic because
of the many cultural similarities between the two areas during this
time. We believe that the people of the Moorehead culture spent a
good portion of the year living on the coast. A variety of fish,
shellfish and marine and terrestrial mammals supported the coastal
villages, but probably the most striking activity was swordfish
hunting, an activity which presumably took place reasonably far
offshore and which therefore must have demanded substantial
boats and a sophisticated marine technology. We get a glimpse of
this sophistication in Moorehead bone technology preserved in
coastal shell middens, including bone toggling and barbed
Figure 3. Moorehead phase artifacts. Left to right, adze, gouge,
slate bayonets, plummet (top right) and large flaked stemmed
point. Abbe Museum collections. Photo by Stephen Bicknell,
courtesy of the Department of Anthropology, University of Maine,
Orono.
harpoons, bone points, fish hooks, daggers and harpoon foreshafts,
many decorated with elaborate geometric motifs. The Moorehead
people also spent a portion of the year away from the coast, and
Moorehead sites are common along lower stretches of rivers from
the Kennebec to the St. John. It is likely that many of these sites
represent seasonal fishing camps, occupied perhaps in the spring
and summer months.
The stone tool inventory now includes substantial numbers of
ground stone points as well as flaked points, both small forms
found commonly in habitation sites and long, delicate forms called
bayonets which are found chiefly in burials. Also found in burials
are a variety of flaked stone points made of materials from outside
of Maine, including quartzite and chert from western Vermont and
chert from Labrador. These finds suggest that an extensive trade
network existed during this period, tying together people with
similar cultures throughout northern New England and the
Canadian Atlantic Provinces.
Our picture of the Moorehead phase is of a thriving,
sophisticated culture, one that was very efficient at exploiting both
marine and terrestrial resources and which shared with its
neighbors to the east and north a set of ritual customs which are
most visible archeologically in the burial of the dead. Thus, the
abrupt disappearance of Moorehead at about 3800 years ago is one
of the major mysteries of Maine prehistory. At around this time
Moorehead is suddenly replaced by a new cultural complex,
termed the Susquehanna Tradition. Although most archeologists
suspect that this transition involved the entrance of new people into
Maine, we do not know what happened to the people of the
Moorehead phase. It is not necessary to envision a group of
Susquehanna people invading and pushing out or killing off the
Moorehead inhabitants of Maine. It is equally possible that the
people of the Moorehead phase simply adopted the new
Susquehanna technology when it appeared, and indeed at least one
archeologist has suggested that the appearance of Susquehanna in
the northeast is simply the result of adoption of new, specialized
stoneworking techniques by the existing cultures of the region - we
must be very cautious not to confuse artifact styles with people.
Susquehanna technology is very different from Moorehead.
Ground slate points disappear, and flaked stone points and knives broad, thin and exquisitely made in comparison to the rather crude
Moorehead points - now dominate the stone assemblages (Figure
4). A new tool type which appears in Susquehanna is the flaked
drill - long, narrow bifaces perhaps used with a bow drill (the term
“bifaces” refers to tools flaked on both faces, commonly points,
knives and drills). Adzes and gouges are still present, but are made
of different raw materials and using different stoneworking
techniques than in Moore-head, and a new form, the grooved axe,
joins them.
The stone tool assemblage is not the only major change
between Moorehead and Susquehanna. Although Susquehanna
commonly occurs on the coast, often in the same sites as
Moorehead, evidence from Susquehanna faunal remains resources
than was Moorehead. For instance, swordfish remains are very
rare in Susquehanna middens, perhaps in part reflecting colder
water temperatures and fewer swordfish in the Gulf of Maine than
during Moorehead times. Other types of fish are also less common
than earlier, and Susquehanna coastal middens are generally
dominated by terrestrial species, particularly whitetail deer which
were perhaps hunted using drives on coastal peninsulas and islands
where geographic constrictions made such techniques extremely
efficient.
The Susquehanna period in eastern Maine seems to have
ended almost as abruptly as it began, sometime around 3400 years
ago. Artifact styles from the later stages of the Susquehanna
Tradition known from the Middle Atlantic states and southern New
England are rare in eastern Maine. We do not know the reasons for
the disappearance of Susquehanna at this time, and the centuries
Figure 4. Susquehanna Tradition naked stemmed points. Abbe
Museum collections. Photo by Stephen Bicknell, courtesy of the
Department of Anthropology, University of Maine, Orono.
following its disappearance are very poorly known archeologically.
Indians continued to inhabit the state, making their living from
hunting and fishing both on the coast and in the interior probably
much as their predecessors did.
The Ceramic Period and the Arrival of Europeans
It is not until about 2800 years ago that we regain a somewhat
clearer picture of the prehistoric sequence in Maine. At this time a
new technology, the manufacture of pottery, marks the beginning
of the third major stage of Maine prehistory, the Ceramic period.
In many parts of the country the introduction of pottery roughly
coincides with the beginning of agriculture, marking a major
turning point in economy and lifestyle. That does not seem to be
the case in much of Maine. Indian agriculture does not appear to
have been practiced east of the Kennebec River at the time of the
earliest European explorers, and there is no evidence that it ever
reached eastern Maine, presumably because the Maine climate is
marginal for agriculture. Essentially Ceramic period Indians in
Maine probably had an economy similar in its basic elements to
that of earlier Archaic cultures, including hunting, fishing and
gathering of wild plant foods.
The probable absence of agriculture in eastern Maine does not
mean that there were not important cultural innovations during the
Maine Ceramic period. It is likely that the bow and arrow first
appeared in the closing stages of the Archaic or early in the
Ceramic period. Perhaps an even more important invention was the
birch bark canoe, which I suspect was developed during this
period. The birch bark canoe allowed a much higher degree of
mobility, and indeed we see Ceramic period sites spread
throughout the coastal and interior regions of Maine, including
many relatively inaccessible areas along smaller streams which
lack Archaic sites.
The Ceramic period has been divided into early (ca. 28002300 years ago), middle (ca. 2300-1200 years ago) and late (ca.
1200-400 years ago) phases based primarily on changes in pottery
manufacture and decoration. Other artifact forms also changed
through time, but in all periods we see flaked stone assemblages
including notched or stemmed projectile points which may have
been used to tip either spears or arrows, small scrapers which were
used to work wood or scrape hides, and chipped and ground celts
used as axes or adzes. Bone tools, which appear to become more
numerous and varied through time, include a variety of point types,
harpoon heads, leister prongs, fish hooks and gorges, awls and
needles.
We can discern a number of general trends during the Ceramic
period. Several of the trends may be related to increasingly
sophisticated boating technology. One of these is an increasing use
of marine resources. From a low during the Susquehanna period
there is a gradual increase through time in the numbers and species
diversity of fish remains found in coastal sites. Seals also become a
more important food source through time, and there is limited
evidence that even large whales may have been hunted by the end
of the period. Also probably related to increased mobility on both
the ocean and inland waterways is an increase in evidence for trade
with people outside of Maine. By the late Ceramic period we once
again see exotic materials moving into Maine as part of a far-flung
trade network. These materials include cherts from Labrador, the
Bay of Fundy and the Great Lakes, native copper from Nova
Scotia which was hammered into a variety of tools and ornaments
including awls and beads, and even a Norse penny which arrived at
a late Ceramic Indian village in Blue Hill Bay, probably through
trade with Indians to the north rather than a direct visit by the
Norse to Maine. Unlike the Moorehead trading pattern which
involved small numbers of high value, ritually significant finished
products which usually wound up in graves, much of the Ceramic
period trade involved everyday items such as arrowheads and
scrapers made of attractive materials which were used and finally
discarded when broken or too small to resharpen. The main
function of this pattern of trade was perhaps as much to regularly
reinforce alliances between villages and individuals as to obtain
needed materials.
By convention the Ceramic period and Maine prehistory ends
with European contact in the 16th and 17th centuries. Although
some of the developments in the early contact period such as longdistance trade and settlement in large villages are foreshadowed by
developments in the Ceramic period, in general the early contact
period was a time of great change and hardship for the native
peoples of Maine. Disease, warfare and changes in economy and
settlement pattern due to the fur trade disrupted local populations
and resulted in a high degree of population mobility, making it
difficult to trace direct relationships between prehistoric
populations and contemporary tribes.
It appears that during the 16th century, before direct European
settlement on the coast of New England, Maine Indians were
obtaining European goods through native middlemen in the
Canadian Maritimes who were trading with early European
fishermen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We have a number of
historic accounts of Indians from Nova Scotia, probably ancestors
of today's Micmac, traveling along the Maine coast trading
European goods for a variety of goods including furs which could
in turn be traded to the Europeans. European goods moving
through this native trade network included copper kettles and other
copper objects made from cut up kettles, a variety of iron
implements including knives and spear heads, trade beads and
probably cloth. Beginning in this period and continuing into the
period of direct European contact and settlement in the early 17th
century, coastal Maine natives abandoned many of their former
technologies such as the manufacture of pottery and stone tools,
substituting increasingly abundant European goods.
It is in the contact period that the archaeological record of the
Ruth Moore site ends, perhaps around the time of the first
European settlers of Gott Island in the late 17th century. We do
know that Indians continued to come to the Mount Desert Island
area (Figure 5), including Gott Island, right up to the early 20th
century, in part to harvest sweetgrass, and it is likely that, at least
in the early days of European settlement, some continued to camp
in the same spot chosen by many generations of ancestors.
Figure 5. Members of the Mitchell family, Penobscot Nation, in
Southwest Harbor during the early 20th century. Photo courtesy of
Southwest Harbor Public Library.
The Indian Shell Heap
In the bright light of morning the island lies still,
Around the shore the salt whisper of tide,
And over it the sky.
Old thorn trees on the bank slant north and east,
Blown that way by generations of southwest wind.
Their leaves have a tough and northward-growing green,
And one has a thorn on which a shrike once pinned a sparrow.
Now, dried by seawinds, bleached by summer suns,
The delicate small bones hang loose, about to fall.
Let once the wind lean out a little more,
They'll blow away like straw, or the thorn will go
The thorn is worn,
Sandpapered down to a thread by the light-swinging bones of
the sparrow.
This field was hayfield once.
This turf, ten inches thick, grew grass as high as a man,
From roots deep down in lime.
So they said.
Old Neighbor Welch's cows, they said, gave cream,
And his boys, fed on it, grew seven feet tall.
He plowed the turf up, once, and planted garden sass,
And had to haul the squashes home by ox-team, one at a time.
But that's all legend now.
The white man's town is gone from here, his houses down
Or open to the sky, his kitchen stove to rain.
In the bams that were fat and crammed and bulging,
Sweet-smelling to the peaks,
Swallows fly in and out where windows were;
Batten is gone from board and from rafter.
Cracks here that a coon could walk through,
If there were any reason now for coons to come.
Old Neighbor and his sons sleep round the clock—
Who never, in the gone time, did such a thing, never,
When the foreshore field was full of hay to cut.
Dig in the foundations, lifting fallen rafters.
There you will find his tools.
Old iron—he was a one for saving iron.
Here, on an island, you couldn't run to a store,
Even if you had the cash to do it;
Couldn't run to a blacksmith shop when something cracked
or wore,
You fixed it up yourself.
Old Neighbor made the things he used; could make a broadax,
An adze,
Horseshoes and horseshoe nails.
Dig here, the shelf in the barn where he kept the broadax
Has left its shape on the earth—
Rectangular, reddish, to show this soft stuff once was wood,
And ants live under it;
But there's the broadax where it dropped when the shelf
fell down,
under an old horse-collar and some rusty rings;
A pile of square-cut nails, what's left of the adze,
And two sickle-blades, plainly marked,
Each with the nickname of a seven-foot son;
Because the boys, Hiram and Byron,
Fought over whose tools were whose.
They had, it was said, some legendary fights,
Until the old man got enough of it.
He went too the barn, tore the iron shoe off and old wheel,
Beat out two blades at the forge, stamped on HI and one BY
And swore he'd use one on the nose of the first boy who yipped
over tools from then on out.
These are the blades; you can still make out the letters:
HI and BY.
The hay in the field is only knee-high now.
It has had competition.
Thorn trees grow here,
The tough, spiked bush that loves a shell mound,
Pink wild roses, rattlebox on a fat root,
Daisy and devil's paintbrush—
Trash growth that in the gone time would have been
whacked off by
HI and BY,
Before their seeds grew big enough to know they were in
a hayfield,
Growth known as “sour,” whose roots nevertheless like lime,
For under ten inches of turf the shells lie heaped,
Clamshell and moon shell, winkle and scallop and snail,
Together with the bones of the great auk and the gray seal and
the Indian dog,
Whose types died out of the world who knows how long ago.
Ten inches, at a hundred years an inch.
Of the slow-drying, slow-dropping grassroots cover them.
A thousand years of southwest winds and black northeasters,
Stars and sunrises, spring green and snow,
Since the old Neighbor of his tribe split out his marrowbone,
Dropped his hammerstone by the firepit,
And went to sleep in the sun.
Slowly, carefully, dig, marking off the horizons
To the glacial clay, left when the ice went over.
Layer of ash, pearl gray, mixed with the black of charcoal.
Burned stones around the firepit which was his kitchen stove,
(And many years the rain's been dripping into it.)
Layer of beach gravel his boys lugged up from the shore
And dumped over the shells when they got high in the sun
And stank so a man couldn't sleep for the smell of them—
Shells, ash, charcoal,
And over all, a thousand years of turf.
Here by the firepit, you will find his tools.
Lost in the ashes, kicked aside by a careless foot,
Buried up, while the old man slept.
Did he beat up the boys, couldn't find this blade?
Give them sore tails and kick the kitchen pot?
At least, here is the blade in the ashes and the shards of the pot.
It is a knifeblade, carefully chipped from felsite,
Gray-green, tough stone, triangularly shaped.
The chips are tiny; the artist who split them off
Knew how to work the stone's conchoidal fracture so,
With nothing but a bone, or a beaver's tooth,
Or a chisel cut from antler.
(Not like forge or a set of steel dies; without a micrometer.)
It must have taken whoever did it a long time.
Well, Old Neighbor, we have found it for you.
We'll put it on a shelf we have to keep,
Along with other artifacts we have.
HI's sickle and BY's sickle and the Dresden cup,
The sparrow's clean-bleached bones.
It may be we'll confuse the archaeologists
Who come to dig for keepsakes from a gone time
Under the red-brown rectangle of our shelf.
They'll think Old Neighbor had a Dresden cup,
and HI and BY and I all cut our hair with sickles.
“But That's All Legend Now “
Gary Lawless
Ruth Moore always had her hands deep in history, Her novels
and poems are constructed from the facts of local and family
histories, and her interests ranged across a wide historical territory.
Ruth was always digging into history for material for her books.
These pictures from time are important to a novelist. Ruth says, in
Candlemas Bay:
“It was funny about time. If Jeb shut his eyes, he could see
the big end, and at the small end some little pictures, far away
and dim. Sometimes they got clearer, sometimes not, It
depended on how much he could find out about them.”
Ruth Moore grew up on Gotts Island and spent much of her
adult life living on the mainland within sight of the island. The
history of that particular island runs deeply throughout her novels
and poetry. That history is the basic setting within which many of
her novels occur. Her sense of that place is particularly acute. In a
passage which I feel is autobiographical, she writes of her
character Roger in The Fire Balloon that he “came to feel an
almost mystical relationship with the region of lakes and forests,
the ocean shorelines and the windy islands off the coast, set with
their green and secret trees. He was aware at times of a deep inner
homesickness for a place of mind which he had known as a young
man trying to write poems, a place still and solitary where he had
been able to listen and set down some part of what he heard.”
Her relationship with Gotts Island, her deep interest in this
particular place, shows continually throughout her novels and
poetry. Again and again we hear of the same ledges and pools,
churches, houses and graveyard. Deeply felt, at this center of this
personal geography, is the shell mound. The shell mound is Ruth's
physical connecting point to those “little pictures” deep in the past.
It is her way of gaining access to the oldest human history of the
place from which she writes. It is a literal connecting point, as well
as a source of renewal, and a center of her place.
Title quotation from “The Indian Shell Heap”
In her poem “The Offshore Islands” Ruth says of the islands:
“They speak with a voice that is all their own, And this is what
they say: That they talk in terms of a billion years That their now is
not today. And the ghosts they brought along with them Have
never gone away.” Ruth was keenly aware of these ghosts, and
learned as much about them as she could. She went to the shell
mound and put her hands into the living dirt of history. She
reached back through the earth and shell to find some word, some
account, some evidence of the lives lived on her island, thousands
of years before. With the shell mound she had a physical
connection with these early visitors to Gotts Island (in the same
poem, she calls them “the first summer people.”)
The shell mound shows up in several of Ruth's poems,
including “Remembrance of a Deserted Coastal Village,” “The
Ghost of Phoebe Bunker,” “The Offshore Islands,” and “The
Indian Shell Heap.” It also appears in several of her novels,
including Candlemas Bay and The Walk Down Main Street. Our
fullest accounts of the shell heap come from two sources: the poem
“Indian Shell Heap” and a section from the novel The Walk Down
Main Street. These two are closely related, looking to be the same
information given to the reader in different formats. Both represent
Ruth's interest in the near past as well as the far past. Both the
poem and the section of the novel begin in the present and work
their ways back to the buried past. In both accounts we see the
field near the shell heap as a former hayfield. In both accounts we
hear the story e sparrow, pinned by a shrike to a thorn tree and left
to become brittle bone in the wind. We see the ruins of the houses,
the foundations, old tools and other artifacts. In The Walk the
narrator says “My old collection of tools, maybe, isn't so much to
kid about, for Carl to hoot at, maybe it ought to be hung up with
his [Carlisle's collection of Indian artifacts from the mound] it's the
same thing, only different people and long ago.”
Both accounts then reach the shell mound, describing the
physical geography, the look of the mound, and the layers of
contents. Ruth speaks of now-extinct animals, and the Indian dog.
The reader begins to get a feel for what the shell heap actually
contains, and begins to make a connection with the people who left
these things behind. The narrator in The Walk thinks about what
such a heap must have smelled like, and puts his nose to the earth,
finding a trace, a “kind of smell.” But what he really finds is:
“Shells and shells and shells. Some whole and hard, some so old
they fell to limey dust. Six thousand years, and over that the turf—
ten inches, and a hundred years an inch, of slow-drying, slowdropping grass roots. A thousand years of summer, southwest
winds and hard northeasters, of stars and sunrises, spring green and
snow, just marked by turf alone.”
Both the poem and the novel section show Ruth Moore to be
more than just a casual treasure hunter. She gives the reader
enough information to show that her interests are scientific,
careful, precise, informed. The shell heap is lucky to have had a
friend like Ruth Moore, and we are enriched in many ways because
of her interest.
Ruth says about history, in The Walk Down Main Street, that
“People ought to know about the past. If it's something to be proud
of, they ought to take example from it; if it ain't, then they ought to
buckle down and see to it that the present times should be better.”
Ruth has found a way to connect with the history of the particular
place where she lived her life, and the shell heap stands as a central
symbol of that history in her work.
Now, on Gotts Island and in Ruth's writing, we connect not
only with the far past, but with Ruth Moore, and with the
community of Gott's Island. We stand on the shore, our feet in
sand and shell, looking for the thorn tree with the bones of the
sparrow. We put our hands into the dirt and somewhere, deep
within the mound, we hear a dog, barking.
Somewhere within the shell mound
a dog is barking.
seals turn their ears
to the sound.
sand through our hands
drifts, plants
move along the ground —
to wear copper and bone,
left alone
for two thousand years.
it is where we come to
on this sunny day,
stick our hands
deep into shell and
sand, strike bone,
touch land again,
make the wind,
make the rain.
Gary Lawless
“Together with the Bones of the Great Auk and the Gray
Seal and the Indian Dog:”
The Ruth Moore Site
The Site Investigation Site Description
The Ruth Moore site lies in an open field on the southeastern
shore of Great Gott Island, south of Bass Harbor on Mount Desert
Island (Figure 1). Site midden deposits extend some 70 meters
along the shore and 30 meters inland. As in virtually all Maine
coastal sites, there is severe bank erosion along the front of the site,
with clearly visible shell and black midden soil eroding out of the
slumping bank (Figure 2). Probably more than half of the original
site extent has been lost to erosion due to rising sea levels. Adding
to the site loss is a narrow road cutting through site deposits as it
rises from the beach onto the field.
The site is a shell midden, composed of a black organic-rich
sandy soil matrix filled with discarded clam shells (soft-shell clam,
Mya arenaria), food bone and other cultural material. Like most
Figure 1. Overview of Ruth Moore Site. Photo by Betts Swanton.
Title quotation from “The Indian Shell Heap.”
Figure 2. Eroding bank of Ruth Moore Site. Photo by Betts
Swanton.
archaeological sites, the site on Gott Island is essentially a garbage
dump, filled with the refuse of everyday life of the island's past
inhabitants. Not very glamorous, digging in other people's garbage.
Certainly not the stuff of Indiana Jones. But what people throw
away (or lose) can tell us a great deal about those people, both
today and in the past.
The site's midden deposit is stratified; that is, it consists of a
number of visually distinct strata or layers laid down in sequence
over time, with the oldest layers at the bottom of the midden
(Figure 3). The layers may be distinguished by a number of
attributes, including the density of shell within the black soil
matrix, the condition of the shells within a layer (e.g. whole shells
versus finely crushed fragments), and the texture of the soil matrix
itself. The stratification of the midden is key to analyzing and
understanding the sequence of occupations at the site. Ideally, each
layer of the midden will represent a distinct culture or time period,
with all of the cultural remains in that layer assignable to that
particular slice of time. In practice of course it is not that simple. A
midden is a very complex structure, built up through time by
Figure 3. Profile of square S3E5 and S3E6, north wall.
hundreds or thousands of individual human actions - dumping out
the week's garbage, shucking a bunch of clams and tossing the
shells away, clearing a tent site, throwing away old stone tools as
they are replaced by new ones, and so forth. The sheer complexity
of the record can make it very difficult to interpret, particularly
when only a small portion of the site has been sampled. A single
layer may represent a very long period of time, containing several
cultural phases, or a few week's worth of clamshell dumping.
Human agencies (disturbances from later occupations, plowing,
refuse pits, pothunters, etc.) and natural ones (tree roots, rodent
burrows, etc.) act to mix material both upward and downward
through time.
Nevertheless, through careful excavation and recording, we
have begun to understand the stratigraphy and cultural sequence of
the site. While the stratigraphy varies somewhat from one portion
of the site to another, the general stratigraphic sequence has been
fairly uniform in all of our excavation areas, consisting of three
major layers (Figures 3 and 5). The uppermost layer, extending
from the base of the sod down to 20-30 cm. below the surface of
the ground, consists of a low-to-moderate density deposit of
relatively finely crushed shell (FCS) in a black soil matrix. In other
words, the FCS layer consists of small fragments of clam shell
mixed in with black soil, the shell constituting less than half of the
total midden volume in this layer. In this upper stratum we found
cultural material dating to the last thousand years or so, including
prehistoric late Ceramic material and a few artifacts from the early
European contact period.
The next major layer, down to about 50 cm. below the surface,
contains a dense deposit of coarse crushed shell (CCS), with whole
shells and large fragments constituting well over 50% of the
midden volume. Mixed in with the clam shell are smaller numbers
of mussel shells and tiny fragments of sea urchin spines and shell.
Cultural material from this layer is almost exclusively from the
middle Ceramic period, probably dating ca. 1,500 - 2,000 years
ago.
The bottom layer of the midden, extending down to culturally
sterile subsoil at about 60 cm. depth, is the most difficult to
interpret. It is a relatively shell-free zone of black sandy soil, often
containing varying quantities of gravel and small pebbles. This
layer represents a considerable span of time, ranging from the early
stages of the middle Ceramic period about 2,000 years ago back to
the earliest occupation of the site around 4,000 years ago, with the
majority of the cultural material dating to the more recent half of
that span. This layer varies a good deal in thickness over the site,
and in the northeastern area of the site the black soil of this layer is
bisected by a 5-15 cm. thick shell lens dating to the early Ceramic
period, ca. 2,500-2,800 years ago (Figures 4 and 5). As we shall
see, some of the most interesting finds from the site occurred in
this layer, but they are at times difficult to assign ages to because
of the great time span represented by this often rather thin layer.
Site Excavation
During three week-long field schools held at the site beginning
in 1991 we excavated a total of 19 one meter squares plus several
Figure 4. Stratigraphy of square NOE7, east wall. Staff photo.
50 cm. test pits (Figure 6). A site datum, the zero point of a metric
grid covering the site, was established near the end of the road
leading up from the beach and marked with a stake. Excavation
units were then laid out within the grid, with each unit designated
by the grid location of its northwestern corner. For example, the
northwestern corner of square S3E7 lies 3 meters south and 7
meters east of datum.
Eighteen of the nineteen one meter squares excavated to date
were concentrated in three areas of the site. Our main excavation
block, referred to as the main trench area, included 13 squares in
an expanded trench southeast of datum. North of the main trench
lie three squares in our northeastern area, and the western area
includes three more squares about 10 meters west of datum. The
three excavation areas represent a compromise between two
competing goals: broad areal coverage designed to investigate
cultural and stratigraphic variability within the site, and the kind of
intensive block excavation that allows a much more detailed
Figure 5. Profile of square N0E7 and N1E7, east wall.
Figure 6. Site map showing areas of excavation.
Figure 7. 1991 field school. Archaeologist Dan Odess and Abbe
Museum members Penny Longmaid, Anne Kinter and Ellen Devine
in foreground. Photo by Betts Swanton.
understanding of the sequence of past activities within any one
area of the site.
During the field schools students worked in two-person teams
while excavating, and normally it would take each team a full
week to dig a single one meter square (Figure 7), The squares were
dug by 10 centimeter (4 inch) thick levels in order to keep track of
the stratigrahic placement of all cultural material, and all artifacts
and other significant finds were mapped on individual square
maps. We used flat mason's trowels to excavate the midden, and all
backdirt from excavation was sifted through quarter inch mesh
screen to ensure that nothing was missed (Figure 8). In addition to
the square maps each team kept detailed narrative records of what
they observed and found in each level on standardized forms.
Finally, after the square had been completely excavated, profiles
similar to those in Figures 3 and 5 were drawn for one or more
walls of the square.
Figure 8. Muriel Davisson, Jackson Laboratory Scientist and niece
of Ruth Moore, checking screen for smaller items. Photo by Betts
Swanton.
Following each field school all of the excavated material was
taken to the Abbe where it was cleaned and catalogued by a crew
of volunteers under the direction of the Abbe's curator of
archaeology, Rebecca Cole-Will. The site catalog contains an entry
for every item recovered from the site, recording information about
its condition, its location within the midden, and its stratigraphic
association. The catalog, together with the individual maps, notes
and profiles from each square, then provided the basis for
analyzing the cultural material from the site.
A great deal of meticulous, detailed work both in the field and
in the lab has gone into the Ruth Moore site project (Figure 9).
When we excavate a site, we are very aware that the process of
excavation is a destructive one - we only get one chance at the
particular areas of the site we are digging, and the information we
Figure 9. Ellen Deuine drawing wall profiles. Photo by Betts
Swanton.
record is all there ever will be from those areas. Thus, we try to be
as careful as possible, and generally we only sample portions of a
site, leaving the rest of the site for a future that will inevitably
bring more advanced techniques of archaeological information
gathering and analysis. That is also why we try to discourage
relatively uncontrolled digging by hobbyists and other nonprofessionals. Artifacts by themselves are nice and can tell us some
things, but they represent only a small fraction of the total cultural
information from a site, information that is lost forever if
excavated without the desire, patience and training to record it.
In the concluding pages of this chapter I present a summary of
what we have found so far at the Ruth Moore site, and our present
understanding of the cultural history of the site. We will start at the
top of the midden and excavate our way downward through the
layers and back into time.
Prehistoric Occupation Of Gott Island
Fine Crushed Shell - Late Ceramic and the Contact Period
The FCS layer is distinguished by its relatively low density of
shell and by the fact that the clam shell occurs as relatively small
fragments. The fragmenting of the shells in the upper midden is
common in shell middens and probably has more to do with postdepositional factors such as historic plowing and the action of
vegetation roots extending from the stabilized historic ground
surface than with any prehistoric cultural factors. However, the
lower density of the shell compared to the underlying CCS layer
probably is meaningful, reflecting less clam harvesting in the late
prehistoric period, perhaps due to changes in season of occupation.
The European contact period at the site is represented by a
small series of artifacts from the FCS layer. They indicate that the
site was occupied by Maine Indians at least up to the initial
Figure 10. Contact period artifacts from the Ruth Moore Site. A:
brass disk; B: sheet brass fragment; C: brass pendant; D: shell
beads; E: pipe stem bead. Photo by Greg Hart, courtesy of the
Maine State Museum.
European settlement of the island in the late 17th century, and
probably for at least a century thereafter. We are indebted to Dr.
Alaric Faulkner of the University of Maine for identification and
dating of many of the contact period artifacts.
A series of small discoidal shell beads (Figure 10:D), perhaps
made from quahog shell, are attributed to the early contact period
because they occur in other historic Indian sites, and have not been
found in a definite prehistoric context in Maine. Perhaps also used
as a bead is a thin section of a European redware pipe stem, shaped
very much like the shell beads (Figure 10:E). Based on its material
and bore diameter the red-ware pipe was probably manufactured in
the period 1650-1680, and four other kaolin pipe stems from the
site have large bore diameters (9/64”) suggesting a mid-17th
century date.
Indicative of a later native occupation is one of the most
attractive artifacts from the site, found by island resident Ben
Weinburg and donated by him to the Abbe during our first visit in
1988. It is a small triangular brass pendant with finely serrated
edges and a hole at one end for suspension (Figure 10:C). While
not directly dated at this site, it resembles triangular pendants
recovered from 18th century sites in the Great Lakes region.
The pendant aside, it becomes much more difficult to
distinguish native artifacts as we move forward in time into the
period of European settlement of the island. This is a consequence
not only of the Euro-American presence, but also of the increasing
adoption of European material culture by Maine Indians. Artifacts
from the site such as more recent kaolin pipe fragments, cut
fragments of copper or brass sheet (Figure 10:B), a sherd of 18th
century Staffordshire pottery, and a thin piece of possible 17th
century window glass could originate in either the Indian or
European settlement of the island. An effective and rather
embarrassing reminder of the difficulty in attributing historic
artifacts to a particular culture came in the form of a brass disk
found eroding out of the bank in front of the site (Figure 10:A). In
a preliminary article on the site I stated that the disk was probably
an early contact period Indian brooch, worn as a chest ornament. I
was somewhat chagrined to later learn that it is actually probably a
backplate to a very much more recent alarm clock!
Unfortunately, it is not possible to stratigraphically separate the
late prehistoric and early historic components at this site. Thus, we
cannot tell, for instance, how long stone tools and native pottery
continued in use once European goods arrived on the scene,
although evidence from other sites suggests that pre-contact types
of tools and pottery were quickly abandoned once European
counterparts became available. At present it seems safest to
attribute all prehistoric types of artifacts in the FCS layer to the
Figure 11. Prehistoric pottery. A,B: Late Ceramic incised and
cord-wrapped stick impressed; D-K: middle Ceramic, predominantly dentate rocker stamped; M-0: early Ceramic interiorexterior fabric impressed. Photo by Greg Hart, courtesy of the
Maine State Museum.
late Ceramic component.
Late Ceramic pottery vessels typically were conoidal in shape,
with fairly thick walls and decorated with cord-wrapped stick and
punctate impressions. As the name implies, cord-wrapped stick
decoration was produced by wrapping a cord around a thin stick
Figure 12. Notched and stemmed bifaces from the Ruth Moore
Site. A-E: late Ceramic, Moore collection; F: late Ceramic, FCS
layer; G-I: middle Ceramic, CCS layer; J-L prob. middle Ceramic,
Moore Collection; M: early Ceramic, basal shell; N-R: basal black
soil; S: Late Archaic?, Moore Collection. Photo by Greg Hart,
courtesy of the Maine State Museum.
and then pressing the stick against the wet clay, producing a line of
oval cordage impressions (Figure 11:B), while punctations are
simply round or oval holes produced by pressing the end of a stick
or rod into the clay. Right at the end of the prehistoric period in
Maine much more finely made globular thin-walled vessels with
incised line decoration came into use (Figure 11:A), but these are
poorly represented at this site.
Late Ceramic stone tools from the site include a series of sidenotched points, probably arrowheads (Figure 12:A-F), unnotched
bifaces (often termed “nonstemmed bifaces”) that were probably
unfinished points (Figure 13:A,B), small end scrapers (Figure
13:E-H), a small pointed implement, perhaps an awl, made from
native copper (Figure 13:K), and a few small pecked and ground
Figure 13. Miscellaneous stone artifacts, A-E: non-stemmed
bifaces; E-H: end scrapers; I,J: graphite paint sticks; K: native
copper awl. Photo by Greg Hart, courtesy of the Maine State
Museum.
Figure 14. Pecked and ground stone tools, A,B: late Archaic
pecked and ground adzes; C,D: late Ceramic pecked and ground
stone axes; E: pecking stone. Photo by Greg Hart, courtesy of the
Maine State Museum.
stone axes (Figure 14:C,D). Bone tools from the site, mostly late
Ceramic but a few dating earlier in the Ceramic period, include a
harpoon head (Figure 15:A), several varieties of barbed, pointed
implements that were probably part of composite fish spears
(Figure 15:B-D), bipointed implements commonly called bone
“points” but whose function is uncertain (Figure 15:E-G), netting
needles (Figure 15:H is a fragment broken at the central thread
hole), beaver tooth knives probably used for whittling wood
(Figure 15:K), and several mink canines perforated for suspension
and perhaps worn as amulets (Figure 15:N,M). A few fragments of
bone have small areas of simple incised decoration (Figure 15:I).
Figure 15. Bone artifacts. A: harpoon head; B-D: barbed points or
fish spear parts; E-G: points or perforators; H: netting or snowshoe needle fragment; I: incised bone fragment; J: bone tool of
unknown function from feature 1; K: beaver incisor knife; L,M:
sea mink canine pendants. Photo by Greg Hart, courtesy of the
Maine State Museum.
The late Ceramic component is not directly dated at this site,
but the site was probably at least intermittently occupied during a
good portion of the total span of late Ceramic in Maine, about
1,200 to 400 years ago. Late Ceramic material was actually not
particularly abundant in the Abbe's excavation areas -it is much
better represented in the Ruth Moore collection from the site,
suggesting that she happened to dig in a portion of the site that saw
more concentrated late Ceramic activity than we did, perhaps in an
area that contained one or more late Ceramic houses.
We did not encounter any recognizable late Ceramic house
deposits, but we know from other sites what they look like. In shell
middens they typically consist of a roughly circular shell-free sand
and pea gravel layer about four to five meters in diameter,
probably marking where beach sand was brought up to pave the
floor of a tent, providing a well-drained surface. The house may
have been either a conical tepee-like structure or a domed
wigwam, covered with birchbark or animal furs, and generally
containing a stone-lined hearth within the interior. There is also
some evidence to suggest that warm season houses may have been
larger, with oval or rectangular shapes. It is always exciting to
encounter a house deposit, not only because they tend to have a
concentration of artifacts and other cultural material within them,
but also because they represent a small slice of time, allowing us a
much more detailed look at the culture and the activities of the
dwellers of the house during a limited span of time, perhaps only a
single season of occupation.
The late Ceramic is a particularly interesting period because it
is a time of increasing social and economic complexity marked by
increasingly sophisticated adaptations to making a living on the
coast, larger settlements and, perhaps most dramatically, evidence
for extensive long distance trade networks. Evidence for such trade
is present at the Ruth Moore site in the form of several end
scrapers from the FCS layer made of cherts known to outcrop
along the shore of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, and the copper
awl, probably also from native copper sources on the Bay of Fundy
(there are no known sources of pure native copper in Maine). Other
Maine late Ceramic sites commonly contain lithic materials from
as far away as northern Labrador, the Great Lakes region and the
Middle Atlantic states. It is likely that the trade also involved
agricultural products obtained from tribes to the south and west,
although as one might expect evidence for this is poorly preserved.
Gott Island is not far from what may have been the largest
prehistoric settlement in Maine, the Goddard site. Covering several
acres on the shore of Blue Hill Bay, the Goddard site has produced
tens of thousands of artifacts to both amateur and professional
excavators, many of which are made of lithic materials from
outside of Maine. Goddard appears to have been a major summer
settlement in which inhabitants of the Penobscot River drainage
and the surrounding coastal region gathered for a variety of
economic and social activities before dispersing again in the fall.
Perhaps the late Ceramic inhabitants of Great Gott spent part of the
summer at the Goddard village, although as we shall see there is
evidence that the site was inhabited during part of the warm
weather season as well.
The size of the Goddard site and the evidence for the existence
of a far-reaching trade network imply a degree of social and
political control not previously evident in the prehistoric record.
Perhaps during the late Ceramic family or individual leadership
became increasingly based on economic factors such as one's
success in trading and the ability to control both the redistribution
of exotic goods within the tribe and the movement of trade goods
along the coast. Such factors are known to have been operating in
the contact period fur trade, and it may be that developments in the
late prehistoric period foreshadowed what was to happen when the
Europeans arrived.
Coarse Crushed Shell - The Middle Ceramic Period
The CCS layer consists of a dense deposit of whole clam shells
and large fragments of shell, and is quite distinct in appearance
from the overlying and underlying layers. Cultural material from
this layer consists almost entirely of middle Ceramic material
dating ca. 1,500-2,000 years ago, although the middle Ceramic
component also continues below this stratum.
Middle Ceramic pottery is some of the more attractive pottery
within the Maine sequence (Figure 11:C-K). It tends to be thinner
and more delicate than much of the early or late Ceramic pottery,
and is usually extensively decorated. The most common form of
decoration consists of rows of dentate impressions, probably made
with a comb-like implement. Often the dentate tool is rocked back
and forth, creating a zigzag pattern that we call dentate rocker
stamp decoration. Other decorative forms from this time period
include fine wavy lines made by impressing the edge of a scallop
shell or a tool resembling a scallop shell edge, often also rockered,
and incised lines. Sometimes middle Ceramic vessels have applied
collars, thickened areas at the rim (e.g. Figure 11:C).
Most of the same general types of stone and bone tools occur in
the middle Ceramic as in the late Ceramic, but for some categories
the styles are different. For instance, instead of the side-notched
spear or arrow points used in the late Ceramic, during the middle
Ceramic we see a variety of stemmed forms, presumably hafted
somewhat differently onto the weapon's shaft. The points
illustrated in Figure 12:G-I are from the CCS layer, while J-L are
points from the Ruth Moore collection that we believe are also
associated with middle Ceramic. As one might expect, middle
Ceramic nonstemmed bifaces, probably preforms from stemmed
points, are also shaped somewhat differently from the their late
Ceramic counterparts (Figure 13:C,D). No exotic cherts or native
copper have been found in the middle Ceramic levels, reflecting
the general pattern of use of local materials within the Maine
middle Ceramic.
In this section I would like to focus especially on the faunal
remains from the site, and on what they tell us about the
occupations. The term “faunal remains” simply refers to the animal
bone, shell and other dietary remnants left at the site. These
remains can tell us a great deal - not only what the inhabitants of
the site were eating, but also what hunting, fishing and gathering
activities were going on, and even what season or seasons of the
year the site was inhabited. I am indebted to Robert Lewis of the
Maine State Museum for analyzing the faunal remains from the
Ruth Moore site and providing much of the information on which
the following discussion is based.
Species represented in the faunal remains are summarized in
Table 1. We have organized it by culture (early, middle and late
Ceramic); columns with two cultures listed represent remains from
mixed or transitional levels. Feature 1 is a middle or early Ceramic
garbage pit at the base of the midden which I will discuss further in
the next section.
Some species such as cod, sculpin, wolffish, deer, seal, mink
and beaver occur throughout the sequence, and all levels are
dominated by cod, probably mainly taken during their late winter/spring spawning season, when they come into shallower water
and are more concentrated than in the warmer months. As one
might expect from its location on a relatively small island,
throughout its span the site was primarily a fishing settlement, with
sea mammals and terrestrial species taken as available.
Most or all of the mink bones from the site are from an extinct
species of mink called the sea mink (Mustela macrodon) that lived
on the coast and was somewhat larger than today's mink. It may
have filled about the same ecological niche and had the same
habits as the Pacific coast sea otter. Extinct by around 1860, the
sea mink only occurred along the coast of Maine, where its
remains are common in coastal shell middens. It seems likely that
sea mink pelts were a prime trade item, particularly in the long
distance exchange networks of the late Ceramic and early historic
periods.
Again perusing Table 1, there appears to be little difference
between the middle and early Ceramic faunal assemblages,
suggesting similar adaptations and seasons of occupation.
However, with late Ceramic there is an obvious and dramatic
increase in the range of species taken. To some degree this may
reflect an increasingly sophisticated cultural adaptation to making
a living in a marine environment. However, I believe that at this
site the main reason for the broader range of species in the late
Ceramic levels has to do with seasonality of occupation. The late
Ceramic faunal assemblage contains several species such as
dogfish, sturgeon and goose which are only or primarily available
during the warmer weather months. No such warm season-specific
species are present in earlier components. Thus, the species
distribution within the midden is one line of evidence suggesting
cold weather occupations for the early and middle Ceramic
components and perhaps both warm and cold season occupation
during the late Ceramic. Several other lines of evidence available
to us appear to confirm this picture of changing seasonality. A
duck leg bone recovered from the FCS layer is from an immature
individual whose age indicates a warm season kill. A number of
mammalian species have growth rings in their teeth, similar to
those of trees, and it is possible for us to section the teeth and read
the stage of growth of the last ring forming, giving us the season of
death. A gray seal canine from the FCS layer of square NlE7 in the
northeastern excavation area showed an April/May reading, while
two sea mink teeth from the CCS layer of the same square were
slightly earlier in the growth sequence, indicating a March or April
kill. Another sea mink tooth from the Feature 1 pit (middle or early
Ceramic) also indicated a March/April kill, while a deer premolar
from a transitional middle/early Ceramic level in the northeastern
area produced a fall (September-November) reading.
Clam shells also have readable growth rings, although I believe
they are somewhat less consistent and therefore less reliable
indicators than mammal teeth. No readable clam sections were
available from pure late Ceramic levels due to the fragmented
nature of the shell in the FCS level. However, sectioned shells
from transitional or mixed late/middle Ceramic levels produced
readings consistent with a January - October span, including the
summer months, while clams from pure middle and early Ceramic
levels produced readings falling within an October-June span, with
most readings falling in the late fall to spring period.
Taking all of the faunal evidence together, it appears that the
early and middle Ceramic occupations of the site fell within the
colder weather months, from late fall to the spring. During the late
Ceramic period cold season occupation focused on cod fishing
continued, but there were also residents sometime during the late
spring to early fall period, perhaps even year-round. This greater
seasonal span of occupation largely accounts for the greater variety
of species represented in late Ceramic levels, and perhaps also for
the lesser density of shell in the FCS level, if as I suspect, shellfish
were primarily exploited during the late winter and spring, when
other food sources were less available.
Basal Black Soil - Middle Ceramic, Early Ceramic and the
Beginnings of Occupation.
The basal black soil layer, largely shell-free, presents a number
of problems in interpretation. In all excavation areas middle
Ceramic material extended below the CCS layer into this stratum.
In some areas middle Ceramic material extended to near the base
of the midden, while in others, particularly the northeastern area
and eastern portions of the main trench, it was possible to isolate a
pure early Ceramic level in the lower portion of this stratum. In the
northeastern excavation area a shell lens attributable to the early
Ceramic component occurred in the middle of the basal stratum,
providing the clearest separation of early and middle Ceramic
components. Also from the base of this layer is the earliest known
occupation of the site, a Late Archaic component. Only traces of
this component, probably the Moorehead culture, have been found,
and it is likely that most of the evidence for this occupation has
been lost to erosion. Late Archaic artifacts from the site include
two pecked and ground adzes (Figure 14:A,B) in the Ruth Moore
collection, several pecking stones used to manufacture such adzes
(Figure 14:E), and possibly a small stemmed point, also from the
Moore collection (Figure 12:S).
The origin of the basal layer is also not entirely clear. A portion
of it may represent decomposed organic matter from the original
pre-settlement forest floor, as well as from stabilized land surfaces
during periods of abandonment of the site between occupations.
However, most of the layer probably represents human midden
accumulation prior to the major shell dumping episodes covering
the entire site which occurred during the middle Ceramic period.
An observer standing on the site two to three thousand years ago
would have seen a patchwork of shell dump areas and areas still
free of shell.
The early Ceramic period marked the initial use of pottery in
the Northeast. The characteristic pottery of this period, called
Vinette I, has thick walls and is usually undecorated, but it retains
from the manufacturing process fabric impressions on both its
inner and outer wall surfaces. The basal layer of the Ruth Moore
site has produced sherds from several Vinette I vessels (Figure
11:L-O). A sample of charcoal from the base of asthe midden in
the main trench area, near some sherds of Vinette pottery,
produced a radiocarbon date of 2815±185 BP. (years Before
Present), a date near the beginning of the early Ceramic period.
One point can definitely be assigned to the early Ceramic
component, a rather thick specimen with a relatively broad,
straight stem recovered from the lower shell layer in the northeast
area (Figure 12:M).
Other finds from the basal layer are less certainly dated. A
series of relatively large, broad-bladed points were found near the
base of the midden in the main trench and western areas (Figure
12:N-R). These points show considerable variation in the form of
their bases, ranging from tapered stem specimens to expanded
stem, almost notched examples. However, we have good reason to
believe that they date together in the form of a cache of three of the
points (Figure 12:P-R), found lying carefully placed one on top of
another at the base of the midden in the western area by field
school student Darrell Crawford. Unfortunately, none of these
points are definitely associated with pottery or a radiocarbon date,
and thus we cannot be sure of their age. I suspect they belong with
the early Ceramic component, but the early stages of middle
Ceramic or even terminal Archaic associations are possible.
Feature 1, the pit feature in the main trench area, was about a
meter in diameter at its top in the basal layer and extended some 30
cm. below the base of the midden. It contained large quantities of
bone and was probably a garbage pit. The stratigraphy of the pit,
with three separate lenses of shell, suggests at least three dumping
episodes into the pit (Figure 3). Unfortunately, the pit has not been
firmly dated. It did contain one tiny sherd of early Ceramic Vinette
pottery, and one of the large points (Figure 12:O) was found near
the top of the pit deposit. These suggest an early Ceramic
affiliation, although both could pre-date the pit and been
incorporated into the pit deposit when it was dug. A very small
sample of charcoal scattered through the pit returned a radiocarbon
date of 1505±215 B.P., a date in the last half of the middle
Ceramic period. I suspect the radiocarbon date in this case does not
accurately reflect the age of the pit, and that it dates to the early
Ceramic or early stages of the middle Ceramic period, at least
2,000 years ago.
Finally, there are perhaps the most intriguing finds of the
excavation, the dogs. The remains of five dogs were found in the
basal layer. The first of the dogs to be found, a complete skeleton
whom we nicknamed Ernie, was located at the top of the basal
shell-free layer just below the base of the CCS deposit in the main
trench area. Ernie was a juvenile dog, 5-6 months of age. If he was
buried at all it must have been in a very shallow pit, as the coarse
crushed shell layer immediately above was undisturbed, but he did
have a large flat rock lying on his chest. A radiocarbon sample
consisting of several of his leg bones returned a date of 2030±170
B.P., early in the middle Ceramic period. If accurate, the
radiocarbon date not only dates Ernie, but must also lie near the
Figure 16. Excavated burial of dog (Bert) skeleton. Photo by
Betts Swanton.
Figure 17. Close-up of Darrell Crawford excavating Bert,
young dog. Photo by Betts Swanton.
transition from the basal shell-free deposit to the coarse crushed
shell layer.
A more obvious dog burial lay about two meters east of Ernie,
in a small pit extending down into the subsoil from the base of the
midden. Here lay the dog we named Bert, a young adult l½ to 2
years in age (Figure 16). He (or she - perhaps it was Bertha and
Ernestina) lay curled up in the pit, which was no more than 50 cm.
in diameter at its base and extended only 10 cm. below the base of
the midden - just deep enough to cover the body. The body lay in
an east-west orientation with the back to the south and the head to
the north, pointed west (Figure 17). Bert was a fairly small dog,
standing about 46 cm (18 inches) high at the shoulder,
approximately terrier size. Bert has not been radiocarbon dated and
no culturally diagnostic artifacts were found in the pit; the burial
could be either similar in date to that of Ernie or earlier, within the
early Ceramic period. The one artifact that may be associated with
the burial is a graphite paint stick found near the top of the pit. One
of two found in the basal layer (Figure 13:I,J), this is a piece of
graphite with a rounded, polished knob where it was used to draw
black lines.
The other dogs are much more fragmentary. In the western
excavation area scattered back, leg and paw bones from a young
dog, 6-18 months in age, were found not far from the cache of
three points near the base of the midden. Its scattered remains
suggest that it is more likely than Bert and Ernie to have been
butchered and eaten. This dog could again be either middle or early
Ceramic in date. Two definite early Ceramic dogs are minimally
represented by a few bones from the northeast excavation area. An
adult dog's jaw bone and a couple of fragments of skull plus a
single tooth of a 1-2 month old pup were recovered from the lower
early Ceramic shell layer.
We cannot be sure what kind of human behaviors and attitudes
toward dogs these canine remains represent, but early European
accounts of Indian dogs may provide us some clues. Historically,
dogs often seem to have had high value as pets, hunting
companions and perhaps as a form of wealth. Although perhaps
not the rule, at times there seems to have been a genuine affection
shown toward certain dogs. We have accounts of dogs being
buried with their masters as well as by themselves. Although they
were not uncommonly eaten in times of famine, at other times they
appear to have only been eaten on special occasions. A special
friend or ally might be given a dog to eat as a token of esteem,
presumably also a reflection of the high value of dogs. The most
dramatic instances of dog eating occurred in the dog feast, where
warriors participated in a ceremonial killing of dogs and
subsequent feast prior to going to war. This ceremony, which
occurred among both Iroquois and New England Algonkian tribes,
indicates that dogs not only had economic value, but also
embodied spiritual values such as courage that the warriors ritually
partook of by eating their flesh.
Dog burials, paint sticks, a carefully laid cache of points.
Clearly the bottom levels of the Ruth Moore site are hinting at
things that go far beyond prehistoric technology and subsistence:
brief, enigmatic glimpses into the human mind and spirit two to
three millennia ago. These glimpses are fascinating but at the same
time frustrating, because it is so difficult to reconstruct some of the
more interesting aspects of humanity from the bare bones of the
archaeological record. All we can do is keep gathering evidence
little by little, gradually enriching our knowledge of the past. We
will be returning to Gott Island, focusing our excavation efforts on
areas where there is stratigraphic separation of the early and
middle Ceramic components at the bottom of the midden, and
hopefully adding new information that we can draw upon in
attempting to understand the millennia of human experience on the
island.
COD
HADDOCK
POLLOCK
LH SCULPIN
GOOSEFISH
DOGFISH
FLOUNDER
HAKE
STURGEON
WOLFFISH
DEER
MOOSE
BEAR
SEAL
SEAL GRAY
SEAL HARBOR
MINK
BEAVER
OTTER
PORCUPINE
WHALE
DUCK
GOOSE
GREAT AUK
ALCID-MED.
Table 1:
FAUNAL REMAINS FROM SITE 31.17
LC
LC/MC
MC
MC/EC
EC
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
FEA 1
X
Species represented in the faunal remains, by culture.
X = Present. LC/MC/EC = Late/Middle/Early Ceramic.
X
X
X
X
X
Authors Dr. Steven Cox, right, and Gary Lawless at Gotts
Island field school. Photo by Betts Swanton.
The Authors
Dr. Steven Cox, Research Assistant of the Abbe Museum,
conducted the archaeological research and analysis of the Ruth
Moore Site. As Professor of Anthropology, Center for Northern
Studies, and Research Associate of the Maine State Museum, his
research leads him to Alaska, Newfoundland, and Labrador, where
he studies circumpolar environments and cultures, such as the
Dorset Eskimo. In New England, his research has focused on
Native exchange systems, subsistence/settlement analysis and
development of maritime adaptations. Work at the Ruth Moore
Site adds to his research contributions to shell midden stratigraphy
and the early Ceramic period, and adds to our body of knowledge
of Maine prehistory.
Gary Lawless is a poet, teacher and bookstore co-owner. As
publisher of Blackberry Books he has been republishing the works
of Ruth Moore, as well as other writers of the Maine coast.
Finally, the archaeology of eastern Maine is available to the public,
highlighted with recent research at a local site—the Ruth Moore
Site of Gotts Island. Not only will this publication answer your
questions about the process of archaeology and what we have
learned about the earliest inhabitants of the Mount Desert area, but
Ruth Moore fans (and fans to be) are in for a treat!
Blackberry Books
Nobleboro, Maine