Human-environmental relations are one of the most important issues in archaeological research and, together with the analysis of ecological and climatic changes, can make an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the social processes that shaped past cultures around the world. The volume under review addresses these issues alongside the following themes: the human impact and exploitation of maritime and terrestrial resources since the occupation of the eastern North American coastline; how climate and environmental changes shaped human settlement and subsistence; and the relationship between environment and culture in the evolution of different societies.
The book is a collection of papers from a session conducted at the 81st Society for American Archaeology Meeting in Orlando, Florida, in 2016. It consists of ten chapters, each devoted to a different region. Every chapter covers a huge timespan, from the Paleoindian period and beginning of the Holocene (c. 10 000 BP or earlier) through the Archaic, Woodland and Mississippian periods to the historic and even modern times. It represents a synthesis of the coastal and maritime archaeology of the eastern North American Atlantic seashore, an area that stretches more than 6000km, from subarctic Canada to Florida. The authors present various types of data, including archaeological, environmental and palaeo-climatic, to show human-environmental dynamics in this area over time. By focusing on these data, the book provides an invaluable insight into the Indigenous cultures from this area.
Chapter I (by the editors) outlines the geography, ecology and history of archaeological research in the region, including a very well-presented comparison between the modern shoreline and the estimated shoreline at 10 000 BP. Though a brief summary, it clearly introduces some of the key points made in the volume and familiarises the readers with the content of the following chapters, which are regional studies. Chapter II is devoted to the northernmost regions included in this volume: Newfoundland and Labrador. From this area there is evidence for the hunting of marine mammals such as seals and walrus as well as land hunting of caribou that could be dated from at least the early Archaic period (c. 8000 BP). A maritime-focused economy remained the main source of subsistence through the next few thousand years for native groups there, including the Paleo-Inuit and Dorset cultures and historic Inuits and Beothuks. In this chapter we also learn about the European habitation of this area, starting from the sixteenth century, although the first contact between native societies and Europeans dates to the tenth/eleventh centuries AD, when Norsemen (Vikings) travelled from Greenland to continental North America; a Norse settlement, L'Anse aux Meadows, was discovered in Newfoundland, and the Vikings potentially voyaged farther south to the present states and provinces of Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia at least.
Chapter III brings us to the Gulf of Maine and the Scotian Shelf, located slightly south of Labrador and Newfoundland, but with different environmental conditions and human responses to them. One of the most notable features was human exploitation of swordfish there (as well as other land and river species). The areas from New Jersey to Massachusetts, including the famous Chesapeake Bay, Rhode and Long Islands, are explored in Chapters IV–V; these chapters review how the Algonquian Indians and other native societies adapted to, and exploited, different ecological zones. The authors describe archaeological sites including shell middens—one of the most characteristic anthropomorphic features in maritime settings. In Chapter V, the environmental context is examined not only through the archaeological data, but also from the accounts of the first European colonists/explorers, such as John Smith and others—an approach that could have proven useful in other chapters too.
Chapters VI–VIII discuss several coastal areas, from North Carolina and Georgia to north-east Florida, and societies that were very different from those located to the north. These societies shared the same cultural traits that can be identified across the whole south-east region of North America: developed agriculture, extensive trade, stockaded settlements, public architecture (plazas, platform and burial mounds) and complex social structures. These attributes were present initially at least from c. 1000 BC and were stimulated by great traditions, such as the Hopewell and Mississippian mound-building cultures. Little mention is made in the broader literature of the manifestation of these cultural traditions in the coastal areas or the cultural-environment dynamics in these regions, and this volume addresses that lacuna. Chapter IX describes the completely different subtropical/tropical coastline area of south-eastern Florida (including the Everglades) and the chain of small islands known as the Florida Keys with cultures that were—like the northernmost coastline cultures—inland hunter-gatherers or based on maritime subsistence on the shorelines and with no agriculture.
Chapter X attempts to reconcile the diversity of the Atlantic coast (the differences in climate and environment and the dates of first settlement) with the commonalities (such as physical geography and the adaptation to maritime and terrestrial resources by different cultures). The author of this chapter goes further and puts the Atlantic coast in the broader context of other coastal regions, such as the Northwest Coast, and of different issues such as trade, rituals and the socio-political organisation of societies. This is a very good synthesis, but, like other chapters, it would have benefitted from more illustrations and tables to offer a clearer overview of the complex data.
This volume provides a valuable insight into how Indigenous societies have interacted with the environment along the North American Atlantic coastline, as well as offering analogies to ancient cultures around the world. The authors call for the conservation and documentation of coastal erosion for the future protection of archaeological sites on a coastline that is still shaped by weather and human activity. Almost every chapter echoes the significant concern about rising sea levels and climate change today, and offers direction for the management of these areas on the shorelines of North America and beyond.
