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This past week students and faculty from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maine in Orono took up residence at the Schoodic Education and Research Center as they began excavation of a shell midden site in Gouldsboro. The lead researcher is Dr. Brian Robinson, an archaeologist specializing in prehistoric northern and coastal hunter gatherers and in the cultural history of North Eastern North America. The site they are excavating, which is located on private land, is of interest because its integrity is threatened by steady increases in sea level. The goal is to study and catalog the contents of the shell midden site before its contents and organization are lost to erosion. The research team consists of a dozen students and four faculty members, lead by Dr. Robinson. Robinson’s special interest is in the interaction of natural and cultural boundaries for different groups of hunter gatherer people living between 9.000 and 4,000 years ago. Robinson has had experience excavating in a wide variety of conditions including deeply stratified fluvial deposits, shell middens, and saturated freshwater and marine sites. For this project, the researchers worked with the Mi'kmaq and Passamaquoddy tribes in advance of the excavation to plan the work.
Even though the actual research site is outside of Acadia National Park, the researchers have worked with Acadia throughout the process because of Acadia’s broad interest in the cultural history of the area. The researchers decided to base their operations at SERC because of its relative proximity to the site and because of the facilities available at SERC. Acadia Partners and the Acadia National Park staff, working with help from Friends of Schoodic, a committee of Friends of Acadia, have created a workspace in the former medical/dental building on the SERC campus that the archeologists can use to wash and organize artifacts recovered from the shell midden. The researchers are staying in apartments at SERC and will join the summer community of researchers and artists at SERC.
For more information on Dr. Robinson’s research, see his web page at the University of Maine.
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