2004 University of New Brunswick Archaeological Field School

The Sam Orr's Pond Project

The 2004 UNB Field School at Sam Orr’s Pond, was the first UNB archaeological field school in over a decade. The field school was directed by Dr. Susan Blair, and Ms. Pam Dickinson, and involved 10 undergraduate and graduate students.

The major themes of the project were community-based archaeology, coastal site salvage, and geoarchaeological research. During the project we explored several pre-contact era coastal sites that are located within the Caughey-Taylor Nature Preserve, one of the preserves of the Nature Trust of New Brunswick.

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This preserve is in Bocabec, near St. Andrews, New Brunswick. It contains most of Sam Orr’s Pond, a unique ecological setting consisting of a set of interlinked brackish-water systems. At the primary excavation site, BgDs-15, we discovered an actively eroding midden deposit that contained large quantities of soft-shelled clam, utchered animal bones, and the remnants of a small open hearth. Preliminary analysis suggests that these may represent a specialized food processing area, a place where approximately 1000 years ago, ancestral Passamaquoddy people rought shellfish, small bony fish, and large game to be butchered and smoked or dried.

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