Between the Shores and the Hills: Precontact Boundaries and Behavior along the Housatonic River in Southwestern Connecticut

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Power to the People: Cultural Resource Investigations along Utility Lines Giving a Voice to Past and Present Communities" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

PAL’s archaeological investigations along a natural gas pipeline right-of-way in southwestern Connecticut identified a cluster of precontact Native American sites in Newtown situated along Rodericks Brook, a tributary stream to the Housatonic River. The sites include the Canopy Site (97-101), the Alberts Hill Road Site (97-102), and the McLaughlin Vineyard Site (97-106). Rodericks Brook runs along a previously documented lithic watershed and inferred territorial boundary separating the coastal precontact peoples of the lower Housatonic drainage from the interior-oriented groups of the upper river drainage. While the assemblages from these sites contain stone raw materials typical of sites from similar periods in the Lower Housatonic valley, the large volume of burned and heat-treated vein quartz and the caching of bifacial cores is unusual and appears to be unique to the Rodericks Brook drainage. The unusual assemblages may be associated with boundary maintenance between distinct Native American populations along a shared frontier.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Power to the People: Cultural Resource Investigations along Utility Lines Giving a Voice to Past and Present Communities   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40272.0