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Algonquin
oyster harvest
In
the United States, there is a vast number of Native American
groups, some of which share certain characteristics. One
such group is the "Algonquins," which share
a similar language and are in the Algonquian language
family. Many of the groups that inhabited the land around
the Chesapeake Bay belonged to this group, including the
Powhatans of Virginia and the Piscataways of Maryland.
The Algonquins, however, were found not only in the area
surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, but inhabited quite a
large area that stretched form the Atlantic Ocean to the
foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and from Canada down
to North Carolina.
Many
of the tribes had permanent villages, but would migrate
seasonally to coastal areas to harvest the abundant resources
such as oysters and fish. Groups of Piscataway Indians,
for example, would migrate from their permanent villages
outside of Washington, D.C. to an area near the Rhode
River in Edgewater, Maryland.
Picture:
Piscataway
Camp. For
over 2,000 years, Piscataway Indians hunted and fished
near the Rhode River in Edgewater, Maryland. These Native
Americans chose their temporary sites carefully. (For
more information, visit SERC's website and read the newsletter
article "People
of Early Chesapeake History.") Picture
courtesy of SERC/Tim Kestel.
Every
year the indians would set up temporary campsites and
spend the warmer months collecting enough food to take
back with them for the winter. Besides hunting deer, catching
fish, and picking berries, they would harvest oysters.
Picture:
The river supplied
the Piscataways with much of their food. Men caught fish
in many different ways. They used spears, hooks, traps,
and weirs. They also caught eels and turtles, and collected
clams and oysters.
Picture
courtesy of SERC/Tim Kestel.
Trash
heaps
When
the oysters were harvested, the Native Americans would
throw the shells onto a large trash pile called a "midden".
Much of the coastal area around the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center on the Rhode River is
actually a giant oyster midden! If you walk around the
grounds and kick up a little dirt, you might find fragments
of oyster shells right at your feet. Archaeological digs
at the research center unearthed oyster shells that were
hundreds of years old. These trash heaps are a favorite
spot for archaeologists because the trash can tell so
much about people's everyday life.
At
an archaeological site on the Magothy river, archaeologists
found not only oyster shells, but also many other things,
including the spearheads made from green jhtmler that must
have come from New York. Digging in the dirt can unearth
many clues to the history or the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
References
and further reading
Various
Watershed Radio stories have more information about Native
Americans in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. You can find
them by using the search engine in the archive.
Archaeology:
To
find out more about archaeology in general, visit the
FAQ
about archaeology
.
Algonquin
sites:
Magothy
River links:
Other
Native American Links.
