Fish Remains from Southern New England Archeological Sites

Phylogeography of the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) in the eastern United States

“…John Smith noted their presence along the James River in 1612, British settlers hunted them for sport in Maryland in 1650, and William Byrd recorded them in Virginia in 1730 (Linzey 1998). In the northeastern states fossil evidence of gray foxes is recent and sparse, with fossils of U. cinereoargenteus found on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, dating to 400-1,100 years ago (Huntington 1959) and fossils found in southern Connecticut dating to 200-350 years ago (Waters 1965). Gray foxes were observed to be rare by the pilgrims in Massachusetts about 1635, who noted the presence of ''two or three kinds of fox, one a great yellow Fox, another Grey, who will climb up into trees'' (Keay 1901:540).…”

Optimum Diet Models and Prehistoric Hunter‐Gatherers: A Test on Martha's Vineyard

“…Five of the six sites excavated by Ritchie are on ponds which abut the northwest coast moraine. The sixth site, the Pratt site, is on a morainal ridge adjacent to a swamp (Ritchie 1969) and overlooking a northern coastal pond.…”

“…The fish remaining at Ritchie's (1969) sites included only species which would be available during the months of May and June (Waters 1969). Sturgeon (10) and striped bass (12) and make up 22 of 59 individuals identified.…”

“…It is not a hard bone until late summer when the velvet is shed (Wislock 1942). At Ritchie's six sites, Waters (1969) identified the presence of antlered deer. Although not limiting the hunting of deer to the fall, it does substantiate the acquisition of the primary fall resource, roughly, at this time of year.…”

“…Archeological subsistence studies include food species counts at archeological sites (Byers and Johnson 1940) diachronic studies of changing diets (Ritchie 1969;Flannery 1968;Whitehouse 1971), and predictive models of prey selection Keene 1979, Jochim 1975. While the predictive models are based upon optimizing assumptions and some share of the same general theoretical framework with this research, they lack a specific methodology for constructing general return rates, ones not tied to a specific test case.…”