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Archaeological Potential of the Atlantic Continental Shelf*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

K.O. Emery  and
R.L. Edwards
K.O. Emery
Affiliation:
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution And Bureau Of Commercial Fisheries, Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
R.L. Edwards
Affiliation:
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution And Bureau Of Commercial Fisheries, Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
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Abstract

Early man lived in eastern United States 11,000 years ago when most of the now-submerged continental shelf was exposed. The shelf almost certainly was ranged by nomadic hunters and possibly by marine fish- and mollusk- eaters. As the sea level rose at the end of the latest glacial epoch, the advancing water disrupted and submerged any habitation sites.

The oldest radiocarbon dates for kitchen middens of marine refuse along the present shore appear to be younger than the oldest dates for kitchen middens of non-marine content. Older marine middens may be deeply submerged far out on the continental shelf. Greatest success in future exploration for these sites is likely in areas of the shelf which have received little or no cover of postglacial sediment and where rivers formerly crossed the shelf.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 31 , Issue 5Part1 , July 1966 , pp. 733 - 737
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1966

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