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SMITH

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New Evidence for the Paleoindian Occupation of

the Narragansett Basin, Rhode Island and
Massachusetts
Kevin P. Smith, Amy Smith, and Nina Hellebrekers
Keywords: Paleoindian, New England, lithics
The Paleoindian occupation of the Narragansett Basin in Rhode Island and
adjacent Massachusetts is poorly understood. The Wapanucket 8 site produced a small suite of early-Paleoindian diagnostics from mixed contexts
(Bradley and Boudreau 2006a; Robbins and Agogino 1964), and several fluted
points have been identified in Massachusetts collections (Bradley and
Boudreau 2006b, 2008). But only three diagnostic Paleoindian points were
known from Rhode Island before 2002 (Rhode Island Historical Preservation
and Historical Commission 2002).
The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology curates nearly 40,000 stone
tools from Rhode Island and Massachusetts purchased from local collectors in
the early 20th century by Rudolf F. Haffenreffer, Jr., and donated to Brown
University in 1955 (Robinson 1986, Gregg 1994). In a recent reevaluation of
this major collection, we identified 13 diagnostic Paleoindian points, 9
Paleoindian tools, and 4 fluted-point preforms from the Narragansett Basin.
Three additional Paleoindian projectile points and a trianguloid scrapergraver from Massachusetts are also most likely from the Narragansett Basin.
Typological assessment of these previously undocumented objects (following
Bradley et al. 2008) indicates significant early- and late-Paleoindian activity in
the region.
The early-Paleoindian diagnostics include two complete Bull Brook/West
Kevin P. Smith and Amy Smith, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University, Box 1925,
Providence, Rhode Island 02912; e-mails: Kevin_P_Smith@brown.edu
a.e.smith0287@gmail.com
Nina Hellebrekers, Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, P.O.Box 80.021 3508 TA,
Utrecht, The Netherlands; N.Hellebrekers@students.uu.nl

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Athens Hill points from southwestern RI manufactured on Onondaga and

black Normanskill/Mount Merino cherts (Funk 2004); a yellow jasper channel flake and a black Normanskill chert endscraper-graver, both from Diamond Hill, RI; an endscraper on a fractured gray chert fluted-point base from
Attleboro, MA; a green Normanskill chert combination end/sidescraper with
graver spurs from the Palmer River in Barrington, RI; and a rhyolite composite
scraper-graver from North Rehoboth, MA.
During the Younger Dryas, currently inundated portions of Narragansett
Bay were deep valleys carrying rivers that flowed into embayments located 25
30 km south of the present shoreline and 3537 m below current sea level
(McMullen et al. 2007, 2008, 2009). The scattered distribution of earlyPaleoindian materials in the Haffenreffer Museum collections suggests extensive foraging within the upland headwaters of these now-drowned valley
systems. Relying on lithic raw materials originating in formations 150250 km
distant is consistent with high mobility and has regional parallels in assemblages from Bull Brook (Robinson et al. 2009) and Wapanucket 8 (Bradley
and Boudreau 2006a).
In contrast, late-Paleoindian specimens in the Museum collection cluster in
two geographically separate parts of the basin. One clusteron the morainal
divide between the Narragansett and Boston Basins near Attleboro, MA
includes four Cormier-Nicholas points, two bifaces similar to Hi-Lo points
(Ellis 2004), and a finely serrated quartz lanceolate point with pronounced
basal thinning. The second clusterfrom an area bounded by the
confluences of the paleo-channels of the Providence, Pawtuxet, and Taunton
Riversincludes four Cormier-Nicholas points from South Swansea, MA, and
Barrington, RI, as well as an assemblage of five late-Paleoindian projectile
points, three trianguloid endscrapers (one fluted, another on a jasper channel
flake), one composite scraper-graver, and two fluted performs from Riverside,
RI. The Riverside assemblage suggests particularly intensive activity at the nowdrowned confluence of the Pawtuxet and Providence Rivers.
These two clusters, each roughly 15 km in diameter, are separated by a zone
of nearly equal distance from which no late-Paleoindian materials are known,
despite comparable attention by early collectors. Recently, three additional
Cormier-Nicholas points were reported from previously undocumented locations in Massachusetts (Bradley and Boudreau 2006b). All were found within
the geographic boundaries of the two clusters defined here, suggesting that
their coherence reflects more than the collecting preferences of the individuals who made Haffenreffers collections.
Tentatively, we suggest that these clusters represent focal areas for increasingly redundant and/or enduring patterns of settlement and/or resource use
in the uplands and headwaters of the basins drowned late-Pleistocene river
systems. This intensive, focused pattern contrasts with the extensive, scattered
distribution of early-Paleoindian diagnostics from the same region. Significantly, nearly all late-Paleoindian tools in the Haffenreffer collection are made
from fine-grained igneous rocks available within 75100 km of the locations
where they were found, reinforcing a sense of groups settling into the region
rather than moving through it. One Cormier-Nicholas point, however, ap-

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pears to be manufactured from Mount Jasper or Jefferson (New Hampshire)

rhyolite (Pollock et al. 2008), suggesting the existence of some long-distance
interactions.
These new data significantly expand the number of Paleoindian tools
known from the Narragansett Basin; suggest shifts from extensive land-use
patterns during the Little Dryas to intensive, regionally focused strategies
afterwards; and document shifts in raw material preferences at the end of the
Pleistocene. These initial findings provide foundations for future research
and reaffirm the value of curated collections for contemporary research.
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Paleoindian