Island Improvement: Cultivating Change in the Eastern Frontier Landscape of Deer Isle, Maine

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Islands of Time (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Archaeological studies have long highlighted rapid and radical human transformation of island ecosystems through colonization. Given their generally more limited biodiversity and size, the impact of human activity is often easier to discern on islands than on the mainland. In this paper, I examine human interaction with the island ecosystem of Deer Isle, Maine to gain insight into how Euroamericans transformed the Eastern frontier landscape through settlement, clearing, and cultivation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Typically, the frontier environment is portrayed as marginal and intractable, so I analyze archival, archaeological, and geospatial data from Deer Isle to evaluate the extent to which pioneers modified the island landscape as they established farmsteads and whether their agricultural system was sustainable, providing consistent, desired resources. Results suggest that while households often expanded farmsteads and fields, improving their lots, some did so with diminishing returns, possibly pushing the ecological limits of the island.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021   •
• Islands of Time (General Sessions)

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology