Usage Of Land

[-=METACOM=-]

Hello,


I know people probably can't answer this, but I was maybe looking for some insight or theories. There is a local reservoir that I recently started hunting with a friend of mine. He has gathered a couple hundred points from this area and we got to talking about the different sites that dot the shore.

So we got to talking about what is to be found at these different sites. For example, one spot, which was very small, contained quartzite chipping debris, and nothing else. No points, no tools(none found at least), just chipping debris, and only quartzite. At another spot there is only quartz, and only small bird points. Then other spots are large, and have a variety of points and rock flakes.

What might account for this? Why does one place look well lived in, while another place looks like they hung out there for an hour?

And what would account for finding only one type of material?

[Scorpion68]

Hey METACOM - I can't answer your question but you can bet that I'm gonna be watching the answers. It's an interesting question. I had a similar question a few years back about why I was finding so many different types of points and so many different lithics. The answer the state archaeologist gave me was that I was living in a crossroads where many people crossed paths and traded or hunted. I have only one area that is covered with local lithic, which is above a rockhouse and creek, that leads me to believe people were living in this precise area. ...Chuck

[OnewiththewilD]

well, i would think over the course of time the landscape changes, and people like to camp or hang out in good spots, and the good spots changed over time. just for instance, lets say where the quartzite flakes where found there used to be a giant oak tree that had a nice sitting spot under it that was only used a few times,then a thousand years go by and the tree is gone and the water line moved up,then maybe the quartz flake and small stem point area was the next best spot to camp or just stop and fix tools. and the other site you mention may well have been a good spot for a few thousand years and had multiple occupations before it either changed enough to where it wasnt as good or perhaps a better spot was found. who knows though right!

[OnewiththewilD]

without giving away to much location wise (R.I. is pretty small after all!) i know of a N.A.site thats a decent walk down into the woods to get to, that teenagers still hike out at night to party at and have campfires and regular people walk down to daily with their dogs or for a evening stroll. theres no road thats ever led to it and theres never been a building or structure or anything else besides a rock outcropping and a fire pit to draw people there (modern day wise that is!). its also a multiple occupation site thats been know to turn up artifacts from the mid archaic onwards. so for thousands and thousands of years now this spot has been drawing people to it with nothing (modern wise) all that remarkable about it, but still humans are going out of their way to just be there, cause a good spot is a good spot.

[Hoss]

That is a tough question to answer. I have to ask what do you mean by bird points. Most often in the north east small stemmed quartz points of 1 and a 1/4" or less are mid to late archaic and where used as dart tips. They could take down a deer very easily.

Your quartzite mystery could very well be that there was boulder or several boulders. Not huge but big enough where they could not carry it whole back to camp. . The Indians chipped away and took blanks, larger flakes and preforms back to their home site and finished them off.

Resources are usually what draws people who live off the land. A campsite where they returned year in and year out might have had something drawing them back. It could be lithics nearby? It could be great hunting grounds? It could be the creek your state dammed to create that reservoir was once a seasonal area for fish? When people think of spawning run most think of Salmon. Atlantic salmon could make it up many streams . In coastal states did you know that Stripped bass do not migrate east like blue fish but stay in coastal waters and will go upstream and spawn in fresh water. Not many people know this because all of the hydro electric dams stopped them from moving upstream. American eels also go up streams and spawn. Shad and Herring also went up rivers and streams. The Dam in Derby CT is 11 miles from LONG Island Sound. I have caught Blue fish there and seen so many bunker ( Menhaden) up there the river looked like a carpet with there fins sticking out of the water. You could throw a rock into the school and watch four or five float up from that single rock. If the bait goes that far I am sure that prior to damms they went a lot farther. Fish was in many Native Americans diets. The original water shed might have had a fishweir at a narrow in the creek. Do they draw it way down in winter or just take it down a bit to accommodate run off in spring? What direction did the original creek flow. North to south or east to west? If it is North to south I would bet that the better sites are on slight slopes that face east. Just a hunch and I could be wrong. That is not really a deal breaker. People who lived out doors welcomed sunshine in the morning. Nothing can help to take the night chill away like Sun light can. Especially in New England winters.

I once hunted a site where a new home was being built. They did some site work with a bulldozer and after the first rain the knoll they were building this house on looked like it had snowed on it. The quartz debitage was prolific. Several people including myself had walked it. Perhaps a month and a half time while the house was being constructed and we only found one broken argelite point. I am willing to bet one single quartz point was made and the argelite stem was discarded and replaced with a new quartz point. I am not saying all that debitage came from one point I am saying this site was a lithic source and for what ever reason they only made blanks and preforms there and carried them out to finish elsewhere .

Take note of how many sites are surrounding your res. There were small sites like that at every watershed in your state. Back to your reservoirs. Hunter, gatherers moved through there for thousands of years. They might stop for bad weather, they might stop for illness, they might stop for something as mundane as a moccasin repair. They might have just found a nut tree or berry bush. . Whenever a person stops someplace they are leaving something there some clue. It could be a simple hair. It could be the sole from a worn out moccasin. I know this. No matter where you go in this country and think you might be the first person there . Think again! Someone was there before you. We only find hard evidence, stone sometimes bone or shell or pottery ( metal detectors guys find a plethora of garbage) Non Native and others have been here for a mere 400 years look at how much junk we have laying around. Native Americans were here for 13,000 years prior to us. Imagine finding one point for each year? Imagne what this country would look like if all the organic material never decomposed. Pieces of hair and worn out clothes and moccasins, shelter materials where laying around we would certainly know a lot more about who what and where.

[-=METACOM=-]

Hey Hoss. When I say bird points I basically just mean small points, like an inch or less.

You mention the possibility of a boulder. What's funny is that I remember my friend mentioning that there is a quartz boulder in the area with all the cortex knocked off the top half... though didn't see it for myself and I'm not sure where it is in relation to the area that had a lot of quartz.

As far as I remember it was only completely drained for a short time, you could see the old waterway at the time and it ran North South. It seems as though they might be draining it again which is why we started looking there recently. The forest covers everything past the shore line and the area appears to be fairly flat, I will have to check a topo to see if there are any east facing hills near the good spots.

[OnewiththewilD]

and your not far off in your thinking either, some spots may have only been used for an hour, and may have been a quick camp just to work on tools or maybe just spend the night then move on, where as other sites may have been used season after season, generation after generation, like a fishing camp for instance, or maybe every year for 200 yrs. that pond was a great spot to hunt ducks and that was their duck hunting camp ya know? and maybe the reason for only white quartz at one spot and only quartzite at another is because the sites may be thousands of years apart time wise even if their only a hundred feet away from each other.

[-=METACOM=-]

Interesting point. So the type of material could be depending on the time frame? Pretty cool...

[OnewiththewilD]

ha! Hoss beat me to my follow up and said it much better than i could!

[skrewkase]

I dont know but I have to ask how far away are these spots from each other.also how do you know how big they are.cause im thinking if there close it could just be the same site .where differnt things where going on in differnt spots.

[-=METACOM=-]

Not extremely far apart, but you can definitely see where chipping debris and finds end at one spot, and then start at another a ways away. That's what made me wonder about the differences in finds.

[skrewkase]

Also mabe one spot was making points And another spot was for cleaning the animals.so they had to sharpen there blades maybe thats why theres bigger a differnt materials.takes more people to clean animals then it does to make points.so then the lager ones could be blades not points.jmo.

[skrewkase]

Some times things are more simple then what we think.

[painshill]

The other thing you might like to consider is the nature of the “reservoir”. That is, how long it has been a reservoir and what the landscape was like before that time. If the reservoir is a man-made “modern” feature created by damming/flooding it could be an enlargement of a smaller pre-existing lake or a newly-flooded valley. The reverse could also be true… that is the reservoir could represent a remnant of what was once a larger lake and it may also have experienced both shrinkage and enlargement over longer periods of time in the past as a result of climatic change or changes in the courses of rivers or streams that fed into it. Either way, what you now perceive as a “shoreline” might not have been so at the time the artefacts were deposited. It’s even conceivable for groups of artefacts to have arisen from flood-accumulation (although perhaps not so in this case, from the way you describe them).

You might try looking for old maps at your local library and also visiting areas that are exposed during periods when the water level drops significantly. You might get a different perspective on habitation or usage of the area.

[-=METACOM=-]

The area was created by a dam. I'm not positive, but as far as I know it was a stream until they dammed it, which was done about 60 or so years ago. When it was completely drained you could see a really old road bed crossing what would have been the stream. The current shoreline is definitely new as you can tell that long ago there was farm land leading up to the stream. The stone walls make it look that way at least.

[-=METACOM=-]

Awesome responses. Thank you guys for putting in your two cents, some interesting info to think about. I hope there is more to come. Just for fun, I'm going to post a few things my buddy found there. (not the best pictures, sorry)









Check out the fossil in this one.







And fragments of a bowl, I love this one, he even let me keep a piece of it.

[Kyflintguy]

Interesting question and responses, with some cool artifacts along the way! Thanks guys!

[Hoss]

Nice artifacts they demonstrate quite a range in cultural affiliation. The Levana Van Gogh is a heart breaker. LOL Is the quartzite you are finding in that one place the same color as this quartzite point?

[-=METACOM=-]

I'd have to take another look to answer that.

[Shedhunter]

Hi guys, I'm the friend Mark mentioned at the beginning of this post. Over the last couple years, I've been hunting a few different pond sites in Mass and Rhode Island. These are all freshwater ponds and with one exception, were all created when their respective river was dammed. After years of wave action and seasonal water level changes, a few ancient sites have been exposed around the shorelines of these ponds. I've noticed a similar pattern at all these sites. They all seem to have several locations where there are concentrations of quartz and quartzite flakes. Most of the points I've found in these areas are made from quartz, but quite a few are made from rhyolite or other lithics not locally available. The strange thing is, I almost never find chipping debris from these other materials. I believe this would indicate that these locations were only seasonally occupied, and the other stuff was made elsewhere and brought in.

Hoss, I can answer your question about the quartzite. The quartzite here is locally found and varies from a pinkish tan to grey in color. I've only found a few complete quartzite points. I'd love to find the rest of that soapstone bowl but that spot is still under water.

Mark, I dont think you saw this one yet, I found it just the other day at the location that inspired this post.

[SDhunter]

Lots of nice artifacts and responses. Fun to try and think out the possibilities.