The More Things Change, the More They Change: Persistence and Evolution in the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Changes in the Land: Archaeological Data from the Northeast" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition has been defined as a persistent technological pattern that spans the Early to Middle Archaic Periods ca. 9,500-6,000 B.P. in the northeast, although sites containing this component have remained poorly documented. It is possible that human population density in New England was low throughout the early Holocene, and subsequently such sites are expected to be relatively rare. Alternatively, it is probable that Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition sites have been missed or wrongly interpreted during archaeological surveys in the past because many regional archaeologists committed to a limited number of "diagnostic" bifacially flaked artifact forms for site identification and remain unfamiliar with a techno-complex devoid of recognizable projectile forms. Site ME 7.65 on the lower Saco River in southwestern Maine produced associated lithic and faunal material dating to the late Middle Archaic/early Late Archaic transition. This site provides an opportunity to examine both the pervasiveness and the evolution of the long-standing Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition and a potential starting point to understand early Holocene interrelations between humans, technology, and resources in a changing landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Changes in the Land: Archaeological Data from the Northeast

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25728