45 Geoarchaeology: Sites, Substrate, Sources, and Context (Posters)

ANALYSIS OF POTTERY AND LITHIC ARTIFACTS, FROM THE NEVIN AND RICHARDS SITES, BLUE HILL BAY MAINE

Paper number: 45-6
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Authors

Abstract

The Nevin and Richards sites are two contemporaneous sites, located in the town of Blue Hill, Maine. Excavated in the 1950s, these are two of the largest archaeological sites in the region. These sites contain over ten thousand individual pottery artifacts which represent several hundred pots. Several hundred lithic artifacts together with a small assortment of copper implements are also present from the sites. Pottery shards recovered from both sites exhibit two decoration styles. The older dentate pottery ranges from 2300 to 1500 B.P. while the younger cord wrapped stick pottery ranges from 1500 to 450 years B.P. Open pit firing during manufacture indurated the pots. Pottery shards were ultrasonically disaggregated into their constituent clay – and silt - sized grains. The clay fraction contains an assemblage of quartz, muscovite, illite, and chlorite +/- plagioclase. The silt fraction consists of quartz, illite, muscovite, chlorite, orthoclase, and plagioclase. Several pots are clay-poor and consist almost entirely of silt-sized and larger grains. Pottery materials are consistent with that of local glacial marine clay and silt of the Presumpscot Formation. Mineralogy of the clay and silt sized portions of the pots suggests that the Presumpscot is a likely source.

Five principal varieties of stone implements are recognized from the two sites. Two varieties suggest sources from western and northern Maine and three varieties suggest origins from eastern Pennsylvania, Vermont and Nova Scotia. The two varieties interpreted to have origins from Maine are chert from the Munsungan Lake area west of Ashland, Kineo Rhyolite interpreted to have originated from the Moosehead Lake area. A red and yellow ochre colored jasper is interpreted to have originated in eastern Pennsylvania, while a fine – grained very well sorted quartzite is attributed to the Cheshire Quartzite from Vermont; and a mottled brownish brecciated jasper is interpreted to have originated from Nova Scotia. The copper for this group of artifacts is interpreted to have been derived from the Cap d'Or region of Nova Scotia.