ARCHAEOLOGY AND SALT MARSH PROBLEMS 

 IN MASSACHUSETTS 



by 



Frederick Johnson 

 Phillips Academy 



New England Paleo-Indian hunters previous to about 8000 B.C. did not, as 

 far as is known, utilize the sea shore. Much later aboriginal settlements, 

 which can be attributed to an Archaic Stage of culture development, were built 

 along the sea shore, inundated by a rising sea (with reference to the land), and 

 in three instances, at least, were covered with deposits of salt marsh peat. 

 The Boylston Street Fishweir, located some 40 feet below the street in Boston's 

 Back Bay, is probably evidence of several weirs built along the shores of a bay 

 when high tide level was about 18 feet lower than its present stand. When sea 

 level was lower than this, the surface of the bay was covered in part by a 

 forest and in part by a wet meadow. As sea level rose, the bay was flooded 

 with salt water and Spartina alterniflora grew for a short period of time. The 

 Spartina alterniflora was smothered by silt which also probably caused the 

 abandonment of the fishweirs. Extensive studies of the geology, biology and 

 chemistry of the underlying peat and the silt produced a wealth of information 

 concerning the history of the development of Boston's Back Bay. ' Radiocarbon 

 dates indicate that the fishweirs were built about 2500 B. C. 



Grassy Island, in the Taunton River estuary, is a peat island, the compli- 

 cated history of which is described by Dr. H. M. Raup. The peat covered 

 499 stone artifacts and at least 2 hearths. The artifacts belong in the later 

 phases of an Archaic culture which flourished along the coastal plain as far 

 south as Georgia. Artifacts similar in many ways to the above had been found 

 beneath 27 inches of peat at Stewart's Island in Marion Harbor on Buzzard's 

 Bay, Massachusetts and under about 5 feet of peat at Grannis Island on the 

 Quinnipiac River across from New Haven, Connecticut. The collaboration 

 among botanists, zoologists, geologists, archaeologists and others in the study 

 of sites of this nature produces data of wide interest and significance. 



DISCUSSION 



Russell: This work involved several things. It started up on Cape Hatteras 



and one of the initial problems was to find the Mason-Dixon line 

 of Indian times. The northern Indians come down and stop very 

 a bruptly along the coast, not so much inland, but along the coast. 



1) Johnson, Frederick and others. 1942. "The Boylston Street Fishweir". 



Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation, Vol. 2. 

 Johnson, Frederick, Ed. 1949. "The Boylston Street Fishweir U". Papers 



of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation, Vol. 4, No. 1. 



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