Prehistory of the Boston Harbor Islands

The prehistory of the Boston Harbor Islands , a group of islands off the city of Boston in the US state of Massachusetts , includes, according to the current state of knowledge, the period from around 7000 BC, which cannot be traced back to historical sources This period, only accessible through archaeological sources, extends into the early 17th century, when the first written sources began with European immigration. On the islands, however, there are also so-called native sites from the 16th and 17th centuries, which already belong to the historical epoch in the narrower sense, but are almost only archaeologically tangible.

21 of the 34 islands that make up the Boston Harbor Islands are registered on the United States' National Register of Historic Places and are administered by the National Park Service . There is a museum on Spectacle Island that exhibits artifacts of indigenous and early European settlement.

The reserve belongs to six different cities , namely Boston , Hingham , Hull , Quincy , Weymouth and Winthrop , which in turn are divided into three counties , namely Suffolk , Norfolk and Plymouth . Only Thompson Island is privately owned. While almost all indigenous sites on the Atlantic coastline of the USA were destroyed by tides or construction work, the earliest settlement history can be researched here.

Paleo-Indians, Archaic Period

Hunters, fishermen and gatherers, so-called paleo - Indians , came to the coast 10,000 to 12,000 years ago . The Wamsutta site (19-NF-70) on the Neponset River is assigned to such Paleo-Indians. It has been dated to (10210 ± 60 BP ). At that time, towards the end of the last ice age , which was sea about 100 meters deep, making up about 17 or 18 kilometers east of today's coast a plane extended from which the present islands as drumlins stood out that the glaciers were formed were. Only around 5000 BC In the Archaic Period , the hills were transformed into islands by rising sea levels .

When the first Paleo-Indians lived in the region, the islands were part of a river system, as the islands only emerged in the late Archaic period. In these early epochs, many Indian groups living near the coast used the islands in times of increased food supply due to fish and bird migration, especially in autumn. However, in some cases it could also be spring or summer camp. In any case, none of the islands were large enough to allow permanent settlement, especially since they became completely uninhabitable in winter due to climatic conditions. Therefore, the coastal islands were visited seasonally, while traces of human activity are found on the outer islands much later.

The detectable range of food comprises 64 animal species, of which deer , cod and sand gape clams dominated by far. The latter have been predominant among the mussel species found in the bay for at least two millennia. In addition to the fact that deer inhabited the islands or reached them by swimming or across the ice, their bones were probably also often brought with them in order, as can be proven in many places, to make bone tools there . Whether cod was simply the most common fish or whether it was particularly preferred cannot be proven.

In addition to the cyclical undertakings to obtain food, raw materials also attracted the Indians to the islands. These included certain types of rock, clay deposits and shells for making pearls. In addition, with their constant breeze , the islands offered the mainland residents cooling off in hot summers, and food was also smoke or sun-dried here. However, it is unclear whether there were also social, religious or ritual reasons for visiting the islands.

The camps were mainly on the larger islands and there in the most favorable places, that is, in places with drinking water suitable for landing canoes .

Formation of the islands (from 1500/1000 BC)

In the period from 1500 BC A marshland was created until 500 AD , from around 1000 BC onwards. The eastern hills became islands. A landscape developed between these islands that was heavily influenced by the tides. Accordingly, mussels settled here in large numbers, which the coastal inhabitants integrated into their eating habits and developed appropriate fishing techniques.

The remains of the mussels ended up on rubbish heaps, which were often used for a very long time. A shell mound ( Køkkenmødding ) was built on Spectacle Island between 600 and 1000 and was excavated from 1994. Numerous bone tips for fishing , but also awls and pearls were brought to light. There were also arrowheads, knives, hammer stones and pottery shards as well as the fragment of a pipe head. Such organic matter only survives a few decades in the predominantly acidic soils of Massachusetts.

Woodland period

In the woodland period , agriculture was added as a further use , so that the respective fields presumably belonged to families. Others increasingly avoided visiting these islands. Accordingly, large multi-component stores prevailed until around 1200, while afterwards settlements were widespread on inexpensive agricultural land. However, significant parts of the islands were likely to continue to be considered common land.

The islands were used seasonally by groups north of the bay and groups south of the bay. The differences in the archaeological remains are so clear that it is assumed that these two large groups have divided the islands along today's main fairway, the Nantasket Roads. Only on Thompson Island were there traces that indicate rituals and that both the northern and southern groups must have been present here. The fact that appropriate ritual meetings and exchanges of goods took place here can be considered certain. It is obvious that these meetings also led to social and political ventures and agreements.

archeology

In 1974 only 14 pre-European sites were known on the islands, by 1999 this number rose to around 60. At that time, some of the islands were only partially or not yet explored, with others it became apparent that the last excavations were so far back that the new methods and findings developed in the meantime offered considerable potential for further research.

Around the year 2000 most of the mussel mounds were known, but the sites without such mounds had hardly been explored. Some of them date from the Middle or Late Archaic period, when the shellfish beds were not yet developed, others can be assigned to epochs in which this type of deposition of shellfish was still unknown. Most of the sites date from the Middle and Late Woodland Period . In addition, some places are likely to have been used for agriculture.

The mussel hills on the islands are mostly less than 50 cm thick; they consist of lens-like found densities, as the leftovers were often stored in pits for centuries - in some cases even for millennia.

When examining the camps on Thompson Island I , it was found that the camps in the north had a similar composition to certain types of stone as those on the north edge of the bay, while the south camps were similar to those on the south edge of the bay. This mainly related to Saugus jasper , Melrose green rhyolite (a type of green rhyolite ) and Braintree Hornfels . Upon further investigation it turned out that this division also applied to the northern and southern islands, so that the Charles River turned out to be a cultural border that continued eastwards and divided the islands. However, the groups behind it maintained close relationships with one another.

The islands may have been a preferred burial site, although only two such sites were excavated in 1999. However, the extensive erosion has been shown to have destroyed some burial sites, few of which are known.

No prehistoric sites were discovered on Rainsford Island, which rises 16.7 meters above sea level, during the 2001 and 2002 surveys. With the first buyer of the island, Edward Raynsford, a settler came to the island for the first time in 1636. A study carried out on Calf Island in 2005 showed how much the outer islands had changed as a result of fire before 1600, and even more so as a result of European grazing.

Owned by the city of Boston

On April 1, 1634 Spectacle Island, Deer and Hogg Island (now Orient Heights in East Boston) were given to the Town of Boston. The tax rate was set at two pounds per year. This tax rate was set on March 4, 1635 at four shillings per year for this and another island. Boston leased the islands to 37 Englishmen who wanted to farm and fell trees there. They also kept goats and pigs there. In 1640 Long Island was divided into lots and given to William, Earl of Stirling. Later, land on the island came into private ownership.

Prison in the King Philip War of 1675/76

During the rebellion of the Indians in southern New England called King Philip's War in the years 1675–1676, which was directed against the expansion of the English colonists, indigenous members of the "praying towns", ie the Christian Indian villages on Deer Island, were later on Long Island locked up. These came from Marlborough and Natick . They were brought to the islands from Watertown on October 6, 1676. Many of them died during the winter because of the cold and lack of food, and they had no permanent houses. Old Ahatton and other chiefs asked the Boston Council for permission to fish and hunt on the other islands. The survivors were only allowed to leave the island in the spring of 1677. Today there is a memorial on Deer Island, a museum in the Deer Island pump station tries to prepare the process in a museum-friendly way.

See also

• Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area

literature

• Barbara E. Luedtke: The Calf Island Site and the Late Prehistoric Period in Boston Harbor , in: Man in the Northeast 20 (1980) 25-76.
• Barbara E. Luedtke, PS Rosen: Archaeological Geology on Long Island, Boston Harbor , in: Field Trip Guidebook for the Northeastern United States: 1993, Boston 1993, pp. T-1 to T-15.
• Stephen A. Mrozowski: The Discovery of a Native American Cornfield on Cape Cod , in: Archeology of Eastern North America 22 (1994) 47-62.
• Barbara E. Luedtke: The Archeology of Thompson Island. Report submitted to Thompson Island Outward Bound, and to the Massachusetts Historical Commission , 1996.
• Julie A. Richburg, William A. Patterson III: Historical Description of the Vegetation of the Boston Harbor Islands: 1600-2000 , in: Northeastern Naturalist 12 (2005) 13-30. (Changes since European settlement and use)
• Linda S. Cordell, Kent Lightfoot, Francis McManamon, George Milner: Archeology in America. An Encyclopedia , Greenwood Publishing, 2009, pp. 61f.

Remarks

1. ↑ Jim Chandler On the Shore of a Pleistocene Lake: The Wamsutta Site (19-NF-70) MAS , in: Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society 62 (2001) 52-62. The site is also called Neponset / Wamsutta site .
2. ^ David Kales: Boston Harbor Islands. A History of an Urban Wilderness , Boston 2007, pp. 11-14.
3. ↑ Barbara E. Luedtke: Archeology on the Boston Harbor Islands after 25 Years , in: Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society 61.1 (2000) 2-9, here: p. 2.
4. ↑ OD Hermes, BE Luedke, D. Ritchie: Melrose Green Rhyolite: Its Geologic Setting and Petrographic and Geochemical Characteristics , in: Journal of Archaeological Science 28,9 (2001) 913-928.
5. ^ In addition, Emily A. Himmelstoss, Duncan M. FitzGerald, Peter S. Rosen, James R. Allen: Bluff Evolution along Coastal Drumlins: Boston Harbor Islands, Massachusetts , in: Journal of Coastal Research: 22, 5 (2006) 1230-1240 .
6. ↑ How severe the erosion is could be proven in a long-term study from 1944 to 2008 for the 4.45 hectare Rainsford Island (Christopher V. Maio, Allen M. Gontz, David E. Tenenbaum, Ellen P. Berkland: Coastal Hazard Vulnerability Assessment of Sensitive Historical Sites on Rainsford Island, Boston Harbor, Massachusetts , in: Coastal Research 2010).
7. ↑ William A. Patterson III, Julie A. Richburg, Kennedy H. Clark, Sally Shaw: Paleoecology of Calf Island in Boston's Outer Harbor , in: Northeastern Naturalist 12 (2005) 31-48.