11,000-Year-Old Camp Site
Indigenous people found a place with much to recommend it near the Herring Run
On the high bluff that overlooks the trail and now includes Eastwood Road, archeologists have discovered evidence of a campsite used by Indigenous Americans long before European settlers claimed the land. Over the course of several years, the all-volunteer Herring Run Archaeology Project has identified in Herring Run Park one-third of the 15 sites related to ancient Native Americans in Baltimore.
Around 11,000 years ago, Indigenous people occupied the area.
The archaeologists’ artifact analysis determined that the Eastwood site was most likely a seasonal camp, both for short-term and long-term stays, used for hunting, other resource gathering, and tool production.
The location has much to recommend it for those purposes. It is near several freshwater springs, which would both provide water for the hunters and attract game. At the base of the bluff, there was once marshland, which contained plants likely used for medicine and for making cordage, nets, and baskets.
The Herring Run itself offered transportation, fish for food, and its rocky banks provided raw materials for toolmaking. Stone tools made from quartz and quartzite stones from the banks of the Herring Run were found at the archaeological site, as was evidence of toolmaking in the form of stone flakes that were chipped away as people created spear points, knives, scrapers, and other tools.
The majority of the artifacts recovered consist of stone implements and pottery, which ranged from what archaeologists call the Early Archaic period (9500 B.C.) to the Late Woodland period (500 A.D.).
Not all the tools found at the site were made there, however. Several of the spear and arrow points are of relatively exotic materials, like jasper, chalcedony, chert, rhyolite, and argillite, which were likely sourced in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other regions of Maryland. Unlike the tools made from local stone, the tools made from more exotic materials, likely obtained by trade with other groups, appear to have been treasured by the people who used them.
While we are unable to name the tribes who lived and used this site during those early periods, multiple sources suggest that the land was continually used and occupied through the early 1600s by Indigenous tribes, including the Susquehannocks, the Massawomecks, the Nanticoke, and the Piscataway.
Sources:
Shellenhamer,J. and Kraus, L. (2022). Phase I/Phase II Archaeological Investigation of the Eastwood Site, Herring Run Park. Herring Archaeology Project: Baltimore Maryland.
Indigenous people found a place with much to recommend it near the Herring Run
On the high bluff that overlooks the trail and now includes Eastwood Road, archeologists have discovered evidence of a campsite used by Indigenous Americans long before European settlers claimed the land. Over the course of several years, the all-volunteer Herring Run Archaeology Project has identified in Herring Run Park one-third of the 15 sites related to ancient Native Americans in Baltimore.
Around 11,000 years ago, Indigenous people occupied the area.
The archaeologists’ artifact analysis determined that the Eastwood site was most likely a seasonal camp, both for short-term and long-term stays, used for hunting, other resource gathering, and tool production.
The location has much to recommend it for those purposes. It is near several freshwater springs, which would both provide water for the hunters and attract game. At the base of the bluff, there was once marshland, which contained plants likely used for medicine and for making cordage, nets, and baskets.
The Herring Run itself offered transportation, fish for food, and its rocky banks provided raw materials for toolmaking. Stone tools made from quartz and quartzite stones from the banks of the Herring Run were found at the archaeological site, as was evidence of toolmaking in the form of stone flakes that were chipped away as people created spear points, knives, scrapers, and other tools.
The majority of the artifacts recovered consist of stone implements and pottery, which ranged from what archaeologists call the Early Archaic period (9500 B.C.) to the Late Woodland period (500 A.D.).
Not all the tools found at the site were made there, however. Several of the spear and arrow points are of relatively exotic materials, like jasper, chalcedony, chert, rhyolite, and argillite, which were likely sourced in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other regions of Maryland. Unlike the tools made from local stone, the tools made from more exotic materials, likely obtained by trade with other groups, appear to have been treasured by the people who used them.
While we are unable to name the tribes who lived and used this site during those early periods, multiple sources suggest that the land was continually used and occupied through the early 1600s by Indigenous tribes, including the Susquehannocks, the Massawomecks, the Nanticoke, and the Piscataway.
Sources:
Shellenhamer,J. and Kraus, L. (2022). Phase I/Phase II Archaeological Investigation of the Eastwood Site, Herring Run Park. Herring Archaeology Project: Baltimore Maryland.
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