A new look at an old topic: that is, the bewildering scarcity of Atlantic-salmon bones in our Northeastern archaeological record.
Actually, the discovery is not all that old, first coming to light in Catherine Carroll Carlson’s groundbreaking 1992 UMass doctoral dissertation “The Atlantic Salmon in New England Prehistory and History: Social and Environmental Implications.” With expensive federal and multi-state salmon-restoration programs in existence and failing to produce encouraging, upward-trending migration numbers after some 25 years, Carlson’s findings buttressed opponents’ cries that the altruistic, much-ballyhooed Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon-Restoration Program (CRP) was doomed from the start. I myself spoke many times to New England state anadromous-fisheries experts who were brave enough to present this argument at early salmon-restoration meetings only to be silenced by the likes of former Connecticut River Coordinator Stephen Rideout, a true-believer and ardent supporter of restoring salmon to the Connecticut and its many suitable tributaries.
First word of Carson’s troubling findings, gleaned from archaeological research of 75 known ancient Northeastern fishing sites, was published in 1988 as Chapter 3, “Where’s the Salmon: A Reevaluation of the Role of Anadromous Fisheries in Aboriginal New England,” in a book of academic reports titled “Holocene Human Ecology in Northeastern North America,” edited by husband and former UMass/Amherst Anthropology Department colleague George P. Nicholas. The report was greeted with catcalls and boos from salmon-restoration advocates, who went into their kill-the-messenger mode. They avoided mention of the critical assessment when they could, and when they couldn’t they questioned her methods and conclusions.
But Carlson had done her homework and accurately portrayed what she had found from excavation and analysis of more than 30,000 fish bones gathered from coastal middens for her 1986 UMaine/Orono master’s thesis, then comparing her data with a repository of related reports in the regional archaeological record. Her conclusion was that colonial reports of Atlantic salmon numbers in New England were greatly exaggerated and that salmon presence here was a temporary phenomenon that came and left with the Little Ice Age (ca. 1300-1850).
On the one hand, it was not what salmon-restoration officials and advocates attempting to downplay pathetic migration numbers wanted to hear; on the other, early internal critics, such as my sources, were saying “I told you so.” So divisive was these early critics’ position that they were unwilling to face the internal consequences of going on the record.
“Ignore the numbers; they’re not important,” said the likes of Montague’s Conte federal fish-research lab honcho Dr. Henry Booke, trying to defend dwindling returns.
“How can that be?” I wondered. “Are not numbers the foundation of such scientific experiments?”
Anyway, all these years later, vexing questions remain. Yes, we accept Carlson’s hypothesis that salmon numbers were exaggerated by New World promoters attempting to lure more European emigrants to our shores. Yes, “white salmon” were American shad and not salmon at all, and indeed this anadromous fish, a member of the herring family, was the most prevalent and important spring migrator in the prehistoric Connecticut Valley. But there were Atlantic salmon, too, and they were utilized as a prize food that would have been eaten fresh and preserved in earthen “barns” for year-round and particularly as winter fare. So where are the bones?
Well, having read a lot of Native American literature — that is oral deep-history legend and tales recorded by English-speaking translators — it is clear that Indians across the North American continent held salmon with special reverence and practiced a ritual of throwing the bones back into the river or sea to assure that they would continue their annual migrations. Now, a new book by archaeologist author Brian Fagan (“Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization”) identifies similar worldwide rituals concerning salmon bones. Plus, he hypothesizes that salmon bones are scarce not only because fish eaten at fishing camps were thrown back into the river, but also because most of the fish caught were dried for storage by sun and smoke and eaten at upland, winter village sites miles away from their river of origin. It is likely that many such village seasonal-encampment sites have yet to be discovered in our own uplands and others in the Northeast and even Great Lakes country.
Carlson, reached Monday night at her British Columbia home, isn’t so sure either factor described by Fagan applies to the Northeast. She’s very much aware of the ubiquitous, deeply rooted “first salmon” ritual practiced by Northwestern indigenous people, who ritualize the first harvested salmon of the seasonal migration by ceremonially depositing its bones back into the water it came from. “But that doesn’t mean they threw all the bones back in the water,” she said, strongly suggesting she believes otherwise.
Also, she notes a stark difference between the incidence of salmon remains in the Northeastern and Northwestern archaeological record, writing:
“There are a few new sites in Maine with a very few salmon, which might suggest a very small number of pioneering pre-Little Ice Age colonizers, which makes sense. The quantities of salmon bone are minuscule compared with other fish bone found in New England, and in comparison to Pacific Northwest sites.
“I analyzed over 30,000 fish bones from shell midden sites along the central Maine coast but none were salmon. Lots of fish bones are well-preserved in shell middens in New England. Comparable sites in British Columbia would have lots of salmon bone. I would continue to argue that Atlantic salmon had a brief increase in numbers in New England as a result of the Little Ice Age, and then disappeared when the climate warmed up.”
It makes perfect sense but, still, where are the bones? Perhaps scattered throughout the hinterlands, at yet undiscovered small winter village site, at overnight camps along the cross-country trail, and, yes, long-ago dissolved and otherwise vanished in waters they were thrown into for one reason or another.
That would include simple acts of respect by folks eating lunch at a trailside mortar-stone boulder next to a spring brook. Familiar with the ritualistic practice of throwing bones from the first or maybe a particularly large salmon back into the stream to salute the cycle of life, why not into any stream where natives would have stopped for rest and a quick bite to eat?
Recorder sports editor Gary Sanderson is a senior-active member of the outdoor-writers associations of America and New England. Blog: www.tavernfare.com. Email: gsand53@outlook.com.