Testing the models: Hunter‐gatherer use of space in the gulf of Maine, USA

Abstract

Abstract Analysis of settlement patterns provides valuable insights into hunter‐gatherer activities. Two decades of intensive research in the Gulf of Maine, northeastern North America, has resulted in a number of observations not possible except in a multi‐site, regional approach to archaeology. Efforts concentrated on the littoral of the Gulf of Maine, a highly productive marine environment that supported both hunter‐gatherer‐fishers and horticulturalists in the centuries preceding the arrival of Europeans around ad 1600. Because of sea‐level rise and a subsiding coastline, details on regional exploitation are scant prior to 3000 BP, after which the quality and quantity of data improve significantly. The transgressive nature of the shoreline means that reconstruction of the aboriginal approach to space is an artifact of both human choice and erosion. Attempts to factor in the latter in order to derive the former have combined cultural ecology with marine geology. A general absence of specialized activity sites and the lack of storage features suggests that the late pre‐European populations of the area can be characterized as ‘cold weather foragers’ in Binford's (1980) terminology. Discussion of settlement ranges from individual dwellings to functionally specific areas of sites to overall use of the landscape, including seasonality. In an area where traditional knowledge based on early historical accounts posited transhumance from coast to interior, much effort has been directed towards unequivocal seasonality indicators. Rather than a seasonal migration from coast (summer) to interior (winter), analysis of growth rings in soft‐shell clams and other indicators point to a year‐round occupation in the littoral zone. The presence of distinct interior and coastal populations was possible because of the year‐round availability of resources on the coast.