ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY
Embedded Files
Bibliography of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) studies I completed in Massachusetts during the 1970s
Although the National Historic Preservation Act was passed in 1966, it was not until the early 1970s that federal agencies demonstrated much effort at compliance. No agencies, except the National Park Service, even employed historic preservation personnel with specialties in standing structures or archaeological sites. In 1973, when I was working in the archaeology lab at UMass-Amherst, someone on staff at the local Soil Conservation Office walked in and asked if anyone could do an EIS. My query was, "What's that?" His response was, "Well, I don't know. We've just been told by Washington that we have to do them for a number of flood control projects that the agency is planning." After further discussion, it was clear that what he wanted was a survey of various project areas to determine if any significant historic sites would be affected by their undertakings. I volunteered that we could certainly do such a study, and thus began a career in cultural resource management. For the next few years, I arranged contracts to do such work and hired fellow students to act as historical researchers or archaeological field and lab personnel to explore potential site areas in western and central Massachusetts. This endeavor lasted until 1978 when I secured an appointment in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Vermont. Here, I was expected to bring the Consulting Archaeology Program on line to assist the Vermont Agency of Transportation and other state and federal agencies in meeting their compliance responsibilities under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, following the guidelines establish in 36 CFR Part 800.
CRM_MassBiblio.pdfBIBLIOGRAPHY (1973-1978)
Fort Hill - ESAF - November 2007 - Paper - editing 1-19-2025.pdfThomas, Peter A.
2007 "The Squakheag's Village at Fort Hill: An Archaeological Records". A paper presented as the annual meeting of the Eastern States Archaeological Society, November.
WillsHillMASJournal1978.pdfThomas, Peter A.
1978 "The Wills Hill Site: A Middle Woodland Hunting-Gathering Camp". Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society 40(2):39-54.
This site was originally described as part of a cultural resource management study. See next entry.
WillsHillBest.pdfThomas, Peter A.
1978 "Archaeological and Historical Impact Statement, Part II. Archaeological Field Investigation, 1975 for Northeast Utilities Corp., Montague Nuclear Power Station", 50 pp.
The WMECO Site - 1980.docxThomas, Peter A.
1980 "The Riverside District, the WMECO Site, and Suggestions for Archaeological Modeling." Early and Middle Archaic Cultures in the Northeast. Edited by David R. Starbuck and Charles E. Bolian, Rindge, NH. Northeastern Anthropology, No. 7, Department of Anthropology, Franklin Pierce College, 73-95.
This article was developed following a survey for a wastewater treatment system throughout the Riverside residential district in Gill, Massachusetts.
The Pinnacle Site, Deerfield-Cold River Confluence - 09-02-2017.docxLog from a Site Visit on the Deerfield River conducted on September 2, 2017.
Bedrock Mortar and Broken Stone Pestle 5-19-2019 (1).pdfReport of a Field Trip with Members of the Conway Historical Commission, May 19, 2019
NarrativesOfBloodyBrook2022.pdfPeter A. Thomas and Barbara A. Mathews,
2020 "Narratives of Bloody Brook; From Recording the Providences of God to Efforts to Decolonize History." The New Hampshire Archaeologist, 62:67-79.
SITE SURVEY-RIVERSIDE-REPORT 7-17a-2023.pdfReport following a visit to the Spaulding Site in Gill, Massachusetts, conducted on July 13, 2023
Stuart Fiedel and I are currently working on a greatly expanded study of Riverside as a National Register Historic District within which intensive and extensive occupations occurred for at least 9,000 years. 1/6/2025
CASTING OUR NETS WIDE_PT final 9-24-2025.docxThis article will soon be published in the new hampshire archeologist - 10.19.2025
This article will soon be published in the new hampshire archeologist - 10.19.2025
fishingandhuntingatthefalls (1).pdfStuart J. Fiedel, Peter A. Thomas and David "Bud"Driver, Fishing and Hunting at the Falls: New Persectives on Connecticut River Valley Archaeology and Ethnology, published on line at ResearchGate, 10/15/2025.
This extensive study of Native fisheries and related settlements in the Connecticut and Merrimack River valleys of southern New England led us to the indentification of "focal settlement areas" - areas where Native settlement occurred throughout thousands of years. Such areas contain dense archaeological deposits, including organically enriched middens. Such deposits reflect the overlapping remains of camps, base camps and villages at and surrounding primary fishing falls.
Our research also produced much interesting and relevant but somewhat peripheral information that we present in eight appendices: Appendix 1, Contact-era Native Clothing (On the Necessity of Deer Hides); Appendix 2, The Language and Landscapes of the Pocumtuck; Appendix 3, Weirs and Fishing Rituals; Appendix 4, Were Fishing Falls Sacred Sites? Bellows Falls vs. Turners Falls; Appendix 5, Columbia River Salmon-Fishing Sites; Appendix 6, 18th Century Fishing in the Merrimack: Matthew Patten’s Diary; Appendix 7, 1664-1725, the 1676 Attack at the Falls, its Prelude and Aftermath (including historical data, mainly from primary sources, on the May 19, 1676 battle that left archaeological traces just east and north of the Spaulding site); and Appendix 8, A Brief History of Gill and the Stoughton/Sornborger/Spaulding Property.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse