The Falls Island Collection: A report on a collection of late Maritime Archaic through Protohistoric period artifacts from Falls Island in Cobscook Bay, Maine.
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Date
2025-02
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University of New Brunswick
Abstract
Falls Island is located in Cobscook Bay, Maine, in the western Quoddy Region. Between the 1930s and 1950s, local avocational archaeologists John and Douglas Knapton visited the island and collected artifacts from eroding shell middens and intertidal zones. Their collection was donated to the Robert S Peabody Institute, where they are currently curated. I analyzed the artifacts using a culture-historical approach. The collection suggests an extensive period of occupation from the Late Maritime Archaic through Late Maritime Woodland periods (ca. 5500-550 cal BP). In this thesis I place the artifacts chronologically using typology from the Quoddy Region, the Atlantic Northeast, and New England. I also conducted a pedestrian survey of Falls Island, which revealed two remaining archaeological sites, and two eroded sites. This thesis uses collections research and pedestrian survey to analyze coastal archaeological sites in the Quoddy Region.