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UVM Archaeologist Suggests Abenaki Had Company in Pre-European Vermont B y K Evi n J . K ELLEy
SEVENDAYSVt.com 09.25.13-10.02.13 SEVEN DAYS 14 LOCAL MATTERS
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iny shards of pottery in a dis play case at the University of Vermont might seem a brittle basis for a controversial theory about the population of the Champlain Valley in the centuries before Europeans arrived. The style of these f ragments suggests to some archaeologists that the Abenaki were not the only early in habitants of what today is designated as northwestern Vermont. Evidence of the presence of St. Lawrence River Iroquoians — a people distinct f rom the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki — may not be conclusive, but it’s certainly compelling, says state archaeologist Giovanna Peebles. The nature of archaeology of ten involves degrees of speculation, she notes. Furthermore, there may be more guesswork in Vermont than in some other parts of North America because “preservation here is awf ul,” says John Crock, head of the UVM consulting ar chaeology program. “Our soil is so acidic that it eliminates 95 percent of material culture f rom the view of archaeology,” he explains. Buried organic substances such as wood and fiber break down and meld into the Vermont earth. But Crock and his crew did manage to unearth those Iroquoian pottery bits as well as arrowheads that are now kept under glass or sealed in plas tic bags in Delehanty Hall on UVM’s Trinity campus. They are among the “groundbreaking discoveries” that Peebles says Crock will highlight on Thursday in a public lecture that’s part of Vermont Archaeology Month. The St. Lawrence River Iroquoians, who are known to have lived in today’s Québec, produced pottery characterized by ridges — said to resemble ears of corn — protruding above the rim. Crock’s finds, mainly from a dig in Alburgh, date f rom 200 to 300 years prior to Samuel de Champlain’s 1609 voyage on the lake that now bears his name. The corn-earmotif pots discovered on Grand Isle are by no means unique, Peebles points out. “A great deal of St. Lawrence Iroquoiantype ceramics have been f ound all over northern Vermont, f rom Newport to Alburgh,” she says. Significantly, Abenaki vessels don’t have that feature.
HISTORY
John Crock with cataloged fragment
Does that mean that Iroquoians settled in proximity to Abenaki in the Champlain Valley? “One of our challenges,” Crock says in an interview in his office, “is to determine whether the corn-ear motif represents the presence of a distinctive people or is representative of a trade relationship.” One possibility, he posits, is that the St. Lawrence Iroquoians may have come
to the Champlain Valley as ref ugees. The sizable settlement of Iroquoians encountered by French explorer Jacques Cartier in the 1530s on today’s Montréal island had disappeared by the time of Champlain’s visit 70 years later. What happened to the inhabitants of that big village, known as Hochelaga? Did they migrate to what’s now Vermont? And if they did, they may have been welcomed as friends or allies,
because, Crock points out, no remnants of native fortifications have been found in the Champlain Valley. Some Abenaki are rankled by claims of Iroquoian habitation 500 or more years ago in today’s northern Vermont, notes Fred Wiseman, chair of the Native American studies department at Johnson State College. He f rames the issue by way of a question: “If ar chaeologists say that people centuries ago in northwestern Vermont were not Abenaki but were St. Lawrence River Iroquoians, does that mean the people here today are not really heirs to the land?” The controversy occasioned by that hypothesis is not nearly as intense as it would have been a decade ago, notes Wiseman, who is himself of Abenaki descent. Four bands of Abenaki in Vermont have received official recognition from the state in recent years. Af ter having repeatedly rejected Abenaki claims of being indigenous to and long settled in Vermont, state authorities finally acknowledged in 2006 that archaeological evidence does show the tribe to have been living in the Champlain Valley and in other parts of the state f or several hundred years. “We have recognition now,” Wiseman says. “And that makes a huge difference.” None of the Abenaki bands has achieved federal designation. Crock affirms that the archaeological record shows a native presence in today’s Vermont f or more than 12,000 years. And recent discoveries are deepening researchers’ understanding of Abenaki patterns of settlement, he notes. One especially rich and, in Crock’s view, “very exciting” site adjoins Burlington International Airport. A dig made prior to the recent reconfiguration of a Vermont National Guard roadway uncovered pieces of corn that can be dated “with 95 percent confidence” to about 700 years ago, Crock says. The site appears to have been a large village used in late autumn or winter, suggesting that its inhabitants lived along the banks of the Winooski River on a year-round basis, Crock relates. “It looks like they may have stayed put and not migrated away,” he says — a potential ref utation to claims that