Augusta - Maine - History

Augusta Maine's Native Americans left no written records, indeed few lasting records of any kind, before the arrival of Europeans. The first historic record of them was written by European explorers in the sixteenth century, so we refer to the archaeology of Maine's Native American inhabitants as "prehistoric" archaeology. To understand Maine's prehistoric archaeological sites, the threats to them, and the means for their protection, the following paragraphs provide an introduction to Maine prehistory and archaeological site location.

The first Native Americans to live in Augusta Maine moved into the area from the south or the west about 11,000 years ago as the land recovered from its glaciation, and as tundra and open spruce woodland vegetation grew enough to support the large and small game that they hunted (including mastodon and caribou). We call these people Paleo-Indian. Because of poorly developed late glacial drainage, and perhaps because of major seasonal runoff and occasional catastrophic drainage of huge interior lake basins dammed by ice or glacial till, these people tended to camp on very well drained (sandy) soils away from river valleys.

Between 10,500 and 9,500 years ago, trees (pine, poplar, birch, oak, with other hardwoods later) covered the Maine landscape, forcing everyone who has resided here since to live and travel along lakes and waterways and otherwise accommodate to a dense forest. One such accommodation is the proliferation of stone axes and gouges during the Archaic Period (between 10,000 and 3000 years ago), indicating exquisite skill in woodworking, examples of which have not survived in Maine's acidic soil. Until 4000 years ago , we have reason to believe that people travelled in dugout canoes on the ocean, on rivers, and on major lakes. Dependence on heavy dugout canoes to some degree limited mobility. Sometime between 4000 and 3500 years ago, the birch bark canoe was developed. Use of such light, back-portable watercraft allowed travel up and down small streams and beaver-flowages, as well as cross-drainage portaging. The birch bark canoe opened up the Maine interior away from major lakes and rivers.

The Ceramic Period in Maine (1000 B.C. to A.D. 1500) is so-named because the state's Native Americans adopted the use of pottery. Pottery with exterior designs increased the number and stylistic detail of artefacts that we can use to understand the archaeological record. After the first European explorers arrived off the Maine coast in the early 1500s and began trading (the so-called Contact Period), dramatic changes in Native American life occurred, and European written records began.

For most of prehistory, Maine's Native American population supported itself by hunting, fishing, and gathering in band-organized societies without complex political organization or monumental construction. In south western Maine, corn, bean, and squash agriculture was added to an existing hunting and gathering base after about 1000 A.D. without drastic change in socio-political organization and with only subtle changes in the use of the landscape. Maine Native Americans always have been relatively mobile in lifestyle and lived in small groups. The largest and most prominent occupations were multi-seasonal villages of several hundred individuals, from which most of the population would disperse over the landscape at certain seasons. Thus, in the absence of monumental architecture or permanent villages and towns, we recognize four types of prehistoric archaeological sites.