An item of interest was discovery of several fulgerites (fused tubes of sand grains about the size of a man’s finger, and caused by lightning) sticking up in the surface of the mound at Station 7. Contrary to ancient speculations on the origin of artifacts, these fulgerites did not terminate in "thunderstones", (de Jussieu, 1723)!

          Fire.  Frequent throughout the dunes are long, dipping streaks of dark sand, with charcoal grains, although Redfield, on a separate survey, failed to confirm presence of charcoal.  The streaks are interpreted as cross-sectional exposures of ancient burned-over dunes, many of which lay about five feet below the current dune surfaces.

          In the pine thickets and elsewhere, vegetation is dense enough to support brush fires, and the same condition may have prevailed in the past.  Fires, driven by the ever-present wind, could have been natural in origin, or manmade.  If started by humans, land clearing is not a likely explanation, since the sandy surface is evidence against agriculture.  Perhaps fire was used in game drives, for, with water on three sides, the topography of the Neck would certainly have favored game drives to the east.

          Summary.  Several aboriginal shell heaps occur in dune hollows on Sandy Neck on the north shore of
Cape Cod.  Presence of pottery, but without Contact material, most probably places them in the Woodland
(Ceramic) period prior to full European settlement on the Cape.  This is Bullen, et al.'s view, and essentially that of Byers and Fowler.  Although sites described by Moffett (1965) and his published material (1957), suggest presence of the Archaic horizon elsewhere on the Cape.  Also, current research by Ritchie (n.d.) on Martha’s Vineyard perhaps twenty-five miles SW,  reveals the Archaic tradition at coastal sites there; no archaic level on Sandy Neck was detected either by me or Bullen, et al., although the latter felt that some of the lower deposits at their Site 1 were earlier than the overlying material.  However, the geology of Sandy Neck, proposed by Redfield, precludes the possibility of sites antedating 3,200 B.P. (Archaic Stage) anywhere east of about my Station 4, assuming current time estimates for the Archaic in southern New England.  The formation of most of the Neck in post-Archaic times thus answers Bullen, et al.'s questions on when the Neck became usable to man, and explains their failure to detect developed Archaic horizons.

          The creators of the shell heaps may have visited the Neck periodically to work the rich cobble deposits of the bayside beach.  Pottery may be evidence of women in the group, or semi-permanent occupancy, perhaps seasonal.  The wood butts, if contemporaneous with the heaps, may derive from windbreaks or shelters and further the hypothesis of semi-permanency.  Stations 2 and 5 contain the most stone remains; the other stations appear to be mainly shelling or cooking sites.

          Presence of women, and therefore presumably children, extends the hypothesis for semi-permanency, and may be evidence for migrants from more inland sites, or more distant coastal sites, perhaps needing safety in numbers.  Locus of the sites on the upper Cape near the mainland may favor this supposition.

          The relative lack of finished artifacts despite liberal stone remains at several stations, may support the inference that finished pieces were either cached or carried away, thus furthering the view that these people really came from somewhere else in the vicinity.  Treks to workshop and quarry stations by people on these presumed time levels have been postulated previously by Powell (n.d.) and other researchers in the Northeast.  Absence of finished pieces may also reflect unsuspected surface hunting by pot-hunters.

          The black sand may indicate smothered fires, which drove carbons into the white sand.  This may also attest the "clambake" method of shellfish steaming beneath seaweed, well documented among the historic Indians of southern New England.

          It would be interesting, if support were available, to investigate the possibility that the easternmost stations are younger than the western ones.  It would also be interesting to check for artifacts made from the colorful stones of the bayside beach at sites elsewhere in Massachusetts and New England, but their heterogeneous nature probably precludes this.

          Acknowledgements.  I thank Dr. Arthur Bloom of Cornell University, Dr. Douglas Byers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, Dr. David Hill of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, and especially Dr. Alfred Redfield of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for various comments and courtesies.  I also thank Dr. William S. Fowler of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society for the same.

                                                                                                                                                              Norwalk, Conn.
                                                                                                                                                              February, 1966
 

* Illustrations accompanying this website reprint preserve the idiosyncratic numbering sequence in the original Journal, whose style at that time, was to number ALL illustrations serially from first to last in any given edition – across however many articles were included.  There are only three here with this report (7-9) and nothing is “missing.”                                                                                                                                                       BWP, 8/00
 

REFERENCES

 

BULLEN, RIPLEY P. AND EDWARD BROOKS
          1948   "Shell Heaps on Sandy Neck, Barnstable, Massachusetts." Bulletin, The Massachusetts
                     Archaeological Society, Vol. 10, No. 1, p. 7-13.  Attleboro.

DE JUSSIEU, ANTOINE
          1723   "De l'Origine et des usages de la priere de foundre." (in) Man's Discovery of His Past:
                     Literary Landmarks in Archaeology.  Robert F. Heizer, 1962, Prentice-Hall, Inc.  Englewood
                     Cliffs, N.J.

FOWLER, WILLIAM S.
          1963    "Classification of Stone Implements of the Northeast." Bulletin, Massachusetts Archaeological
                      Society, Vol. 25, No. 1, Attleboro.

HAYDEN, JULIAN D.
          1965    "Fragile-Pattern Areas." American Antiquity, Vol. 31, No. 2, Part 1, p. 272-276.  Salt Lake
                      City.

MOFFETT, ROSS
          1957    "A Review of Cape Cod Archaeology." Bulletin, Massachusetts Archaeological Society,
                      Vol. 19, No. 1. Attleboro.

          1965    "The Archaeology of Cape Cod .”  Talk before Massachusetts Archaeological Society.
                      April 10, 1965.  Hyannis.

POWELL, B. W.
           n.d.      "An Aboriginal Quartz Quarry at Samp Mortar Reservoir, Fairfield, Connecticut."  Bulletin,
                      Archaeological  Society of New Jersey.  Trenton. (in press).

REDFIELD, A. C.
          1965     "Ontogeny of a Salt Marsh Estuary." Science, Vol.147, No. 3653, p. 50-55.  Washington.

RITCHIE, W. A.
          1961    A Typology and Nomenclature for New York Projectile Points.  Bulletin No. 384, New York
                      State Museum and Science Service.  Albany.

          n.d.      "Early Man to Iroquois". In press.

WILLOUGHBY, C. C.
          1935    Antiquities of the New England Indians, Peabody Museum of American Archaeology
                      and Ethnology. Harvard University.  Cambridge.