Additional Information on the Bull Brook Site, Massachusetts

Extract

Due to the kind invitation of William C. Eldridge and the Vaccaro brothers, discoverers of the site, I have had opportunities to visit and excavate in this flutedpoint site during the current spring. In part of the work I was accompanied by Theodore L. Stoddard.

In April we went to examine a possible hearth area where concentrations of charcoal had been reported in association with fragments of artifacts and chips of the stone used by the paleo-Indian occupants of the site. The surface which was exposed lay about 12 inches below ground level and well within the horizon of yellow-brown sand. Concentrations of charcoal were irregular in outline and density, and as one trowelled downwards they appeared to separate into fingers suggesting roots. Associated with some of the better preserved charcoal were bits of carbonized bark. We therefore concluded that the charcoal represented the remains of stumps which had burned out in rather recent woods fires, and that association of charcoal and fragments of paleo-Indian artifacts was purely fortuitous.