Archaeological study reveals Vergennes artifacts> UMM-sponsored study takes students back 5,000 years

INDIAN TOWNSHIP — The woods bordering Lewey Lake were full of game, herds of caribou roamed the area and beaver colonies provided meat and furs. It was a perfect spot, and about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago a group of native Americans lived at that site on Lewey Lake directly across from what is now the town of Princeton.

Since July 15, a group of students have been enrolled in a five-credit archaeological field study that is part of “Project Wolaku” or Project Yesterday. During the course, which is sponsored by the University of Maine at Machias, they have conducted an archaeological examination of the site located on the Passamaquoddy tribal lands near Indian Township.

The course was funded with a $5,000 grant from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, and a $35,000 grant to the Passamaquoddy Tribe from the National Park Service.

The 10 students in the course, which includes seven Passamaquoddies and three non-Indians, use UMM’s Greenland Point as their base of operation. At the midpoint of their five-week adventure, the students said they had grown more interested in their endeavor each day.

“It is like an Easter egg hunt,” said student John Stanley.

Mindy Lank shared his enthusiasm. “I’d like to know if this was just a camping place, or if they stayed here year-round. … It is almost addictive; when you find one thing you want to find more,” she said.

The Archaeological Field School is a joint effort of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, UMM and the Maine State Museum. The course instructor is Dr. Steven Cox, a professor of anthropology at the Center for Northern Studies in Vermont and a research associate at the Maine State Museum.

Cox explained that he had discovered the site of the dig when he conducted a survey of lake shores in the area for the Georgia-Pacific Corp. He said the spot was one of the more important sites he had discovered and that because of the steady erosion, he and the Passamaquoddy Tribe decided to organize a project to salvage the historical materials.

Cox said the students had discovered a variety of materials that gave them clues about the ancient people who lived for a time at the site.

“(The site) is very old, and it contains materials from a culture we call Vergennes that is poorly known but seems to be central within the sequence of Indian cultures in prehistoric Maine. … We are finding bones of deer, muskrat, beaver; some fish that we think is shad, and some turtle. When you take the fish and turtle and add it to the large number of pits that they dug in the ground, we think it probably was summer occupation based on both hunting and fishing,” he said.

Cox said the site, an area about 100-by-40 yards, was a significant settlement and had produced samples of the tools the early residents used.

“We have found a lot of points and whetstones that were used to make other tools,” he said.

It was their discovery of ancient tools that the students seemed most eager to discuss. They displayed a quartz point they had recently discovered.

“We have found a lot of bifaces. They can be tips that are either preformed or fully developed. They can be arrows, or an adze that was used for chopping,” Lank said. Joe Socobasin explained, “A biface is a rock that has been worked on both sides.”

The students said the distinction between artifacts and ordinary rocks was not difficult to make.

“You work through various levels and after a while you begin to recognize the difference between a tool and a rock. You can tell if it’s been worked and where it has been chipped away. On the whetstones you can see where they were scraped and how they were worked on,” Lank said.

Wayne Newell, a Passamaquoddy and the assistant principal at the Indian Township Elementary School, was at the site Thursday. He said the field school was part of what he hoped would be a long-term project to study and preserve the culture of native Americans who have lived in the area. He stressed the importance of such studies to today’s young native Americans.

“It is one thing to know who you are as an Indian, but to have more information and be able to make your own definition of who you are is important. The kids are all bonding to this project. Even if they don’t become archaeologists, they will take the experience with them for the rest of their lives,” he said.

Newell said that the exploration of their culture was an important component of education, and he said that the students in the course also sampled a variety of Indian experiences.

“In addition to the dig, we have been doing some fun stuff. We have gotten together and told Passamaquoddy stories and we speak the language here. We teach the non-Indians,” he said.

UMM President Frederic Reynolds, who also visited the site Thursday, said he was proud of the cooperative effort between the university and the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and he said the university stood ready to join in other joint projects.

“We are ready to cooperate in future projects where there is something to offer Native American tribes. That is part of our responsibility,” he said.

Cox said the course had opened up the possibility of further cooperation between archaeologists and native Americans in the state.

“In the past there has been some hostility between Indians and archaeologists because people think all we do is dig up their ancestors. Basically we are trying to learn about the past cultures that are part of their heritage and they are interested in that, too,” he said.