An Analysis of Lithic Materials and Morphology from the Late Maritime Woodland and Protohistoric Periods at the Devil’s Head site in the Maine Quoddy Region

Archaeologists have reached different conclusions about hunter-gatherer settlement-subsistence strategies during the Maritime Woodland period (3150-550BP) in Maine and New Brunswick’s Quoddy Region. These debates hinge on questions of how seasonal migration, resource exploitation, and trading relationships evolved both spatially and temporally during this period. The subsequent Protohistoric period is little known archaeologically. The Devil’s Head site in Calais, Maine, is germane to this discussion because it contains three spatially discrete and structurally distinct areas with radiocarbon dates spanning from the Late Maritime Woodland (1350-550BP) to the Protohistoric period (550-350BP). This provides opportunities for both inter-site comparisons with Maritime Woodland artifact assemblages elsewhere, as well as intra-site diachronic comparisons between dated features. The lithic assemblage from the 2014 excavations at Devil’s Head consists of 45 formal tools and 3274 pieces of debitage among three features. Using simplified regional petrographic seriation schemes, the artifacts were sorted by material type with the purpose of distinguishing between materials obtainable from local outcrops and materials only obtainable outside the Quoddy Region—mostly red and yellow cherts. The proportions of these materials by weight and flake count, as well as the proportions and morphologies of formal tools in each feature, serve as a proxy for hunter-gatherer settlement or interaction strategies. Tool morphology is also reported and compared. These results are useful in that they both establish a baseline of Late Maritime Woodland to Protohistoric period site structure and composition in the Quoddy Region, and contribute to broader questions of regional change