Discovering the Chesapeake: The History of an Ecosystem

SIX: Living along the “Great Shellfish Bay”: The Relationship between Prehistoric Peoples and the Chesapeake

chapter six Living along the “Great Shellfish Bay” The Relationship between Prehistoric Peoples and the Chesapeake henry m. miller The relationship between American Indians and the Chesapeake Bay ecology was dynamic. The Indians demonstrated remarkable resilience to environmental changes. In the early Paleo-Indian period, they hunted large game and collected plants. Chesapeake Indians focused on white-tailed deer and smaller game in the subsequent Archaic period. They harvested shellfish increasingly in the Late Archaic and Woodland periods. During the Late Woodland, cultivation of corn and other crops began. These new patterns and Chesapeake ecology encouraged significant social changes accompanied by the rise of new political systems by the time Europeans arrived. The magnificent estuary we call the Chesapeake Bay is intimately connected with human history and prehistory. Before there was a Chesapeake Bay, people lived on the land that now forms its channels, shores, and marshes. As the Chesapeake developed, the people adapted to the many new possibilities it offered. These people are the American Indians , and their lives were intricately bound with this largest of the estuaries in North America. In this chapter, one aspect of the human relationship with the Chesapeake Bay is presented. It is a story assembled by archaeologists from the often faint and always fragmentary traces left by Native Americans over a span of 12,000 years, since the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age. A Changing Environment Perhaps the most salient factor influencing the experience of Native Americans in this region is the dramatic environmental changes over the last 12,000 years. The Chesapeake region was transformed by climatic forces from a cold, glacier-influenced landscape covered by spruce and fir forests to today’s temperate climate and landscape dominated by oak, hickory, and pine forests. The transition was not smooth, for numerous periods of wet or dry conditions and higher or lower temperatures were common and represented challenges for the people living in the region. At the end of the Pleistocene epoch,melting glaciers released huge quantities of water which produced very rapid sea-level rise for thousands of years. Geologists estimate that about 15,000 years ago sea level was 325 feet lower than it is at present. At that time, the Atlantic shoreline was more than 60 miles east of its present location, at the edge of the continental shelf.These lower water levels allowed the Susquehanna River and its tributaries to cut deep channels as they flowed toward the sea. By 7000 years b.p., the ocean had filled these channels, now flooded, rising to within 40 feet of present sea level, and by 4000 b.p. to within 16 feet. Estimates are that the sea rose 3 feet or more per century from 11,000 to about 8,000 years ago but only increased at a rate of one-half a foot per century at 4000 b.p. These dramatic changes had significant consequences for people living in the region. Prehistoric Peoples of the Chesapeake Archaeologists divide the span of human prehistory in eastern North America into three segments: the Paleo-Indian period (c. 13,000–10,000 b.p.), the Archaic period (10,000–3000 b.p.), and the Woodland period (3000–400 b.p.). These are defined by general cultural traits, key artifacts , and the prevailing environmental conditions. The Archaic and Woodland periods are subdivided into three segments, which are believed to reflect changes in development of native culture. These same divisions will be employed here for organizational purposes. The Paleo-Indian Period Evidence indicates that people reached America by the end of the last glaciation, if not earlier. Called Paleo-Indians, these people have long been portrayed as hunters of woolly mammoth, mastodon, and other 110 Discovering the Chesapeake now extinct Pleistocene megafauna. New research suggests that this is not an accurate picture. Some megafauna were probably taken when the opportunity arose, but hunters in the Middle Atlantic region more likely specialized on the less exotic white-tailed deer, elk, and caribou. Evidence from the Shawnee-Minisink site along the upper Delaware river valley shows that they hunted smaller game, collected a variety of plants, and caught some fish. Available data suggest they traveled over large areas in bands, following food sources and visiting quarry sites to obtain stone for tool manufacture. Paleo-Indians hunted and camped in some areas now inundated by the...