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Reprinted from American Antiquity, April 1971, Volume 36, Number 2
 

NOTE ON SALWEN'S COMMENT ON
"ARCHAEOLOGICAL POTENTIAL
OF THE
ATLANTIC CONTINENTAL SHELF"

B.W. Powell
 

ABSTRACT

      The oceanographers Emery and Edwards (AMER. ANT. 31:733-737, 1966) have repeated an earlier suggestion by Byers (AMER. ANT. 24:229-256, 1959)that absence of marine shells from low levels of some Atlantic Coast middens might mean early people had not learned to eat marine mollusks.  Salwen (AMER.  ANT. 32-.546-547, 1967) challenges this "cultural" explanation with an "environmental" one.  Since Emery et al. have stated only that absence of shells in some middens may be attributed to this "cultural" attitude, they cannot, as such, strictly be challenged.  Their position still admits of other explanations for absence of shells in some (other) middens.  Thus Salwen does not reply to the issue in advancing an "environmental" explanation against their "cultural" one.  And, by limiting his "environmental" explanation, in turn, to apply only to some middens (which ones?), he offers little more than a truism.

      As both Emery et al. and Salwen cite the same negative evidence - lackof shells - to support their respective views, the problem is really one of how to know when a "cultural" explanation and when an "environmental"explanation obtain in a given case.

      Though he fails in his reply to specify what an "environmental" explanation is, Salwen (AMER.  ANT. 28:46-55, 1962) has elsewhere held for a close relationship between local geomorphology, sea level, and presence of marine shells in aboriginal middens.  For instance, in his analysis of midden components at the Stony Brook Site on Long Island, Salwen (1962) suggested that variation in shellfish species present might be related to eustatic sea-level fluctuations.  Bloom and Stuiver (SCI. 139:332-334, 1963), who made extensive geological studies of shoreline genesis in Long Island Sound, deny such fluctuations ever occurred in the Sound during the time in question.  Stating that a "reexamination of the data, both cultural and environmental from many coastal sites," strongly suggests local environmental factors "explain" the lack of shells, Salwen (1967) may imply in his reply that distance from presumed early shorelines determines whether shellfish were utilized.  What this distance might be is not stated, but I have elsewhere noted (Powell, AMER.  ANT. 30:460-469, 1965) presence of marine shells, probably attributable to indigenes, in fields over thirty miles inland from the Connecticut shore.

      Probably "environmental" conditions do determine whether shellfish are exploited at some times and in some places. (If shellfish are not somewhere physically present, they cannot be utilized.) Some "environmental" conditions might include, in addition to Salwen's local geomorphology, such factors as water temperature, climate, and presence of shellfish predators (as the common starfish, Asterias, and the gastropods known as "oyster drills" or peri-winkles), as I have previously suggested (Powell, 1965).  Also, "blooms" of harmful micro-organisms, like dinoflagellates, when ingested by shellfish, could render them unfit for human consumption even when present in local waters.

      At other times and in other places it is likely that "cultural" attitudes determine whether shellfish are consumed.  Taboos concerning foodstuffs in all societies are widely known (for example, Hindus and beef, and the Jewish dietary laws).  Indeed, "culture" probably largely "explains" why, on a per capita basis, the present inhabitants of the Atlantic Coast may be said to largely ignore the shellfish in their waters.  Researchers many years ago, noting the lack of shells in some Archaic period coastal middens, first advanced the view that early dwellers along the coast were bearers of inland or continental traditions, hence insensitive to the potential of shellfish.

      It would seem, then, that far more specific criteria are needed to determine when the absence of shells in coastal middens may safely be attributed to culture or environment.

      Referring to sites in the Northeast now wholly or partly under water, Salwen (1967) says the list "can be considerably expanded." He then cites the Boylston Street Fishweir, Grassy Island, and Saugus sites in Massachusetts, and Grannis Island and Pilots Point sites in Connecticut.  The most recent two of these were reported in 1953.  A more up-to-date listing of these unusual sites might include the author's Spruce Swamp site in Connecticut (Powell, 1965).

      Salwen may also be overly optimistic about the role of peat in preserving sites of former human occupancy.  A problem overlooked by some coastal researchers is the possibility (I feel probability in many cases) of artifact migration through peat.  Inspection of peat layers exposed along the shore today reveals their surfaces are often densely pitted.  At the bottom of these small pits lie pebbles, shell fragments, and bits of broken glass and metal.  A conclusion is that these objects are migrating downward into the peat.  Bloom (personal communication) told me that numerous objects found at depth in peat may have migrated there from higher levels.  Thus, the possibility exists that some archaeological materials reported from within or beneath the thick peat stratum at Pilots Point and elsewhere, may be intrusives from later, higher levels.  Also, mechanical upset may obtain in some peat layers from the burrowing activities of marine pelecypods (Emery, Wigley, Bartlett, Rubin, and Borghoom, SCI. 158:1301-1307, 1967) and the marine crab, Uca, whose activity in drowned midden deposits I have previously mentioned (Powell, 1965).

      With Salwen, I "optimistically hope" that ancient sites may yet be found that have been protected from the force of advancing seas through late postglacial times, but their interpretation is sure to be most complex.

End
 

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