(…from  Man in the Northeast, Vol.13, Spring  1977)

 

OBSERVATIONS ON  "THE LOWER HUDSON: A DECADE OF SHELL MIDDENS"

B. W. Powell

 North East Archeological Researchers

IN A STIMULATING recent article, L. A. Brennan (1974), presents still further views (cf. Brennan, 1962,1963, 1972) based on his intensive work in the Lower Hudson River shell middens. In general, his synthetic approach is defensible, but critical to all interpretations of ancient shell middens or heaps along the Northeast Coast is the still-unresolved matter of sea level and/or eustatic fluctuations, as Brennan acknowledges.

Less than 50 miles to the east of the Hudson, I and other researchers have studied shell middens, too - along the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound - in many cases going back nearly two decades. Our observations and inferences sometimes differ and sometimes agree with those put forth by Brennan.

Relative to his latest work (1974), I would like to offer a few observations that seem pertinent to this whole matter of shell middens, oysters and ancient ecological practices of the Archaic and (in Connecticut) Woodland people who left these heaps.

Brennan goes to somewhat elaborate lengths to suggest just when oysters may have begun to grow in the Hudson estuary, and thus to have become available for harvesting by early people. After a tour de force of the involved postglacial geology of the Lower Hudson, he posits (1974:83) "Oysters must have been growing in the Lower Hudson about 12,000 B.P ..." and (later), "Beginning at 12,000 B.P. and for the next 9,000 years, the Lower Hudson afforded the basic conditions for a thriving oyster population". This seems perilously close to demonstrating the obvious: valves of Crassostrea virginica have been reported at more than 70 stations along the Continental Shelf from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod, in situations suggesting their in situ occurrence in long-drowned lagoons or estuaries, and radiocarbon-dated anywhere from 8000 to 11,000 years ago. (Merrill, et al, 1965).

Of artifactual content of the various Hudson middens, he says (1974, p. 84) that "We have learned, on our years of digging in shell middens, that diagnostic cultural materials do not occur within shell heaps" (Italics mine). He then proceeds to qualify this statement by noting that said artifacts occur on the surface beneath (preceding?) the heaps, or "... on the surface of the heap after it has weathered and, by soil overlay, had become "a surface", which is not altogether clear to me (He cannot imply heaps have no surfaces until they have been weathered, and covered by soil - can he?).

In any event, he has certainly elsewhere written to the opposite of his statement that shell heaps lack diagnostic artifacts, as for example, his statement "The lower Parham midden produces a few points that are authentic small Lamokid..." (1962, p. 147), and (p. 145) "What must be pointed out here is that the entire inventory of upper-midden points very closely resembles that of the Wading River site..." (Italics mine).

Curiously, he has also written subsequent to this cited reference, a report (1972, p.4.) which seems to contradict the earlier statement about the locus of the Lamokoid points. I quote: " ... as had been the situation for the same horizon (A GO horizon – insert mine) at Parham Ridge, no projectile point or other diagnostic type of artifact came from the digging".

I am unclear as to the status of these various finds.

We along the Connecticut shore corroborate his observation of what we call the "internal fabric" of  midden structure. We agree some (but not all) middens are not simple, horizontal sheet dispersions, but rather accretion of (sometimes) complex "... collection of individual shell heaps" (1974, p.85). Still-unpublished midden profiles drawn at our Sasqua Hill Site at East Norwalk, Connecticut, show this with some precision.

I am interested in Brennan's novel suggestions on how oysters may have been opened (1974, p.86) and further that sticks or bone splinters (the latter common in the middens) may have been used to paralyze the oyster by jabbing. I am not sure what the results of such "paralysis" might be: perhaps the adductors might contract rather than relax, thus preventing the compressed resilium from operating normally (Twenhofel, et al, 1935). Experiments or expert opinion here would be welcome.

The matter of the reliability of shells, especially marine shells, as being suited for radiocarbon dating in the first place, seems on the basis of current reports to have been decided favorably on their behalf and Brennan's citation of "personal communication" from Minze Stuiver, then director of the Yale Geochronometric Laboratory that such shell is completely reliable up to 20,000 years, seems unchallengeable. One remains curious, however, over what was undertaken in the "specific project" he refers to (Brennan, 1974, p.86) to ascertain this, and surmises it had to include the problems of recrystallization in the shells ...

As to trusting the dates derived from these midden shells, Brennan says (1974, p.86) "We have found no significant artifact so indubitably within the matrix of a shell heap that a test of the surrounding shell could be trusted as a true date for it". Whether he means for his reader to accept or reject such dates, or whether he is holding this as a disclaimer for future interpretations (or misinterpretations by his audience!) is not clear. Consider, for instance, that he has written (1972, p.9) "The cluster of points was on or in the humus at the time of deposit and thus the date of 5075 years ago on shell taken from immediately around them must also be a stop date forward. But here I believe it is the approximate age of the points". (Italics mine).

How indubitable is "indubitably" and how approximate is "approximate"?

Regarding stratigraphy and the middens, Brennan again writes in an equivocal fashion (or in a fashion which invites equivocal reading... ). Consider this statement: "Nor are there any strata in the middens of the Lower Hudson" (1974, p.86). (Italics mine). What are we to make of this when we note he has earlier suggested: "There had been stratification in the Parham midden; it was in the size of the oysters; the lowest were distinctly the largest". (Brennan, 1972, p.3). And the following seems clear to this reader to state presence of layers, levels, strata or something that was discriminated in the middens: "It became apparent from the first five foot square excavated that the midden was stratified as to size of oysters... The GO midden was topped off by a 3 inch to 4 inch layer of badly shattered shell..." At Croton Point the shell midden on top of the GO midden also yielded much quartzite. A quartzite chipping floor... was in association with it... this type of tool is found at every midden level etc. (Italics mine). (Brennan, 1963, p.16). Brennan may mean "artificial level" or control level as dug, in the last instance cited, but if so, this is unclear from his writing.

Also pertinent, I feel, is Brennan's rejection (personal communication received 2/7/64) of "trampling layers" as one possible cause of the layers he noted both at Montrose Point and at Croton Point. Invoking weathering and weathering-plus-wave-action as possible causes of these layers within middens, his footnote (Brennan, 1962, p.151) clearly reflects his puzzlement of how beaches can have formed the same layers 40 feet apart vertically but only 3 miles apart horizontally!

I do not understand further, Brennan's statement (referring to the perhaps inexplicable shell deposits located at some elevation at Dogan Point) how they may have possibly come into being because "... all the camp sites lower down had been used up; ..." (Brennan, 1974, p.90). He goes on to qualify this as meaning the ground was strewn with oyster shell heaps. But this is not clear how this is "used up"; I submit it is not demonstrated, and not even a likely inference that presence of earlier heaps deterred later occupations. Formation of tells and heaps worldwide attests to multiple-occupancy as a widespread human trait!

In general, I am in agreement with Brennan as to probable arrival of Piedmont-type cultural influences, and more specifically their artifacts, in the latitude of New York by 9500 C-14 years ago. Whether presence of such remains on Staten Island, which he notes have been reported by Ritchie and Funk (1971) "...positively suggest that deciduous forest..." (Brennan, 1974, p. 91) was here, may - too - be questioned. Several researchers have suggested advance bands or penetrations of northern deglaciated landscapes by humans before arrival of the Carolinian biome, and I feel we are safer to infer presence of Piedmont-like cultures in this area on the basis of proof of arrival of the Carolinian biome, rather than the other way around.

His statement (Brennan, 1974, p.91) "Nowhere along the East Coast does there appear to be such a pattern of the exploitation of resources of the open sea comparable to the pattern along the Northwest coast, where large sea mammals and fish were hunted from seagoing craft" may profitably be contrasted with the published views of Dean Snow (1974), a leading student of the Maritime Archaic Tradition centered in Upper New England and the Maritimes, which we take, without further quibbling, to fall within the geographical designation of  "East Coast".

Brennan, as the author, notes his puzzlement over lack of net sinkers and related fishing gear in the Hudson Estuary middens. This parallels our findings on the southwestern Connecticut shore, and like Brennan, we offer no explanation for it. We do, however, know that all manner of fish and from all manner of habitat: surface waters, bottom feeders, migratory species, etc. - were taken, as we have identified their remains. Included are eel, tautog or blackfish, wrasse, shark, migratory sturgeon and others (Powell, 1958). Weirs somehow seem insufficient technical devices for taking all these types, but I really have no hard data to offer.

In passing, I would like to suggest here that possibly among other foods known to both Archaic and Woodland Indians of this region, but never reported, is the grain of Zostera marina, or eelgrass. This marine flowering plant iswidely found on the coasts and in the estuaries of North America. A recent reference describes gathering and consumption of its grain - in the Spring - by the Seri Indians of Sonora, Mexico (Felger, et al, 1973). Unless fortuitously charred and waiting to be found on an unexcavated site, or else perhaps recorded in an as-yet unstudied record of some European observer in this area at the time of Contact, utilization of Z. marina may never be established - but it remains a distinct possibility, and perhaps a very important one.

Finally, Brennan's comparison of the life cycle of the Plateau Sanpoil to the hypothesized cultures of the Lower Hudson Estuary is illuminating, and presents some interesting insights. However, I must demur from his comparison of "time that the buttercups bloom" with the "month of crocuses" here - for crocuses are native to Europe and Asia only (notably the Italian peninsula) and of course, cannot have figured in Precolumbian cultural events in the Lower Hudson Valley.

In sum, as I have indicated, Brennan presents a challenging and intriguing summation of his long years of work in the Hudson Estuary shell heaps and we are indebted to him and his associates. That certain inferences and expressions are less-than-clear, marks only that for Brennan, as for all of us:  Ars longa…Vita brevis.

References Cited

Brennan, L. A.

1962. A Beginning in Chronology for the Croton River Area. Pennsylvania Archaeologist, 32:3-4,
Pittsburgh.

1963. A 6000 Year Old Midden of Virginia Oyster Shell at Croton Point, Lower Mid Hudson. The Bulletin, New York  State Archaeological Association, 29. Ossining.

1972. The Implications of  Two Recent Radiocarbon Dates from Montrose Point on the Lower Hudson River,
Pennsylvania Archaeologist, 42:1-2, Ann Arbor.

 1974. The Lower Hudson: A Decade of Shell Middens. Archaeology of Eastern North America, The Eastern States Archeological Federation,(1),  Ann Arbor.

Felger, R. and M. B. Moser

1973.Eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) in the Gulf of California: Discovery of Its Nutritional
 Value by the Seri Indians. Science,181:355-56. Washington.

Merrill, A. S., K. 0. Emery and M. Rubin

 1965. Ancient Oyster Shells on the Atlantic Continental Shelf. Science, 147:398-400.

Powell, B. W.

1958. Preliminary Report on a Southwestern Connecticut Site. Bulletin of The Archeological Society
  of Connecticut, 28: 12-29.New Haven.

Ritchie, William A. and R. E. Funk

1971. Evidence for Early Archaic Occupations on Staten Island. Pennsylvania Archaeologist, Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, 41, No. 3. Ann Arbor.

Snow, D.

1974. The Changing Prey of  Maine's Early Hunters. Natural History, XXXIII, 83:14, p.14. New York:
American Museum of Natural History.

Twenhofel, W. H. and R. R. Shrock

1935. Invertebrate Paleontology. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, p.13.