Maritime Archaic
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In archaeology, the Maritime Archaic period is a period lasting from approximately 7000 BC into modern times. It describes and encompasses communities of sea-mammal hunters in the subarctic. Maritime Archaic sites occur along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Labrador. Their settlements sometimes included longhouses, and there is evidence of engaging in long-distance trade. Coastal sites were probably seasonal, while the more inland occupations were probably used for most of the year.
The Maritime Archaic is one group of Archaic stage people who slowly evolved into the Native American groups who inhabited the subarctic at the time of European contact, such as the Beothuks, the Innu, the Cree, the Ojibwa, as well as Athabaskan-speaking groups.
The Maritime Archaic period is best known from a mortuary site in Newfoundland at Port au Choix. This site revealed over 100 graves embellished with red ochre. The graves contained many elaborate artifacts, including barbed bone points, daggers of ivory, antler, or bone, toggling harpoons, shell-beaded clothing, and a burial suit made from more than 200 skins of the now-extinct Great Auk, indicating a stratified society with trade and some level of social complexity (Tuck, 1976).
[edit] References
- Fagan, Brian (2005): Ancient North America: 188-189. Thames & Hudson, London.
- Tuck, J. A. (1976): Ancient peoples of Port au Choix. The Excavation of an Archaic Indian Cemetery in Newfoundland. Newfoundland Social and Economic Studies 17.
