Muskeeta Cove 2: A Stratified Woodland Site on Long Island

Abstract

AbstractMuskeeta Cove 2 is a stratified, two-component Woodland site on the north shore of Long Island in Glen Cove, Nassau County, New York. The earlier occupation, in the upper 6 in. of a glacial sand zone, is attributed, on the evidence of its ceramic content, to the earlier segment of the Windsor tradition, most probably its North Beach focus. The second occupation, in a thin layer of black midden earth and shell overlying the sand, is more difficult to identify culturally. By many criteria, most of its pottery can be assigned to the Bowmans Brook focus of the East River tradition, but this assemblage is most distinctive for the disconcerting way in which it blends Bowmans Brook ceramic traits with those of the contemporary Sebonac (Windsor) and Canandaigua (Owasco) foci—often on the same sherds. This mixture of traits has prompted the suggestion that, in this boundary region at least, the generally accepted invasion-replacement relationship between East River and Windsor must be reexamined. After analysis of the pottery from this site, in which the distributions of individual modes as well as their combinations into whole types are considered, a new hypothesis is tentatively advanced: Early East River pottery is seen as the result of the blending of Sebonac, Canandaigua, and central New Jersey decorative modes on vessels with the constricted necks and elongateglobular bodies that were the dominant formal horizon markers throughout the entire region at this time level. Diffusion, rather than invasion, would appear to be the central process here.