Nantucket Forests - Wampanoag - Canoes, Long House, The Forest

Canoes, Long House, The Forest

Indigneous peoples likely did not have access to New England until the Wisconsin Glaciation began to retreat ~16,000 BC. At its maximum advance, the great ice sheets had reached Nantucket and Martha's Vinyard islands. There is evidence that Paleo-Indians settled on Nantucket, those people who were present at the end of the last ice age throughout North America. Radiocarbon dating indicates a first appearance in New England, ~10,000 BC. Water was essential for fishing and longer distance trade. Early Woodland period cultures persisted until ~0 AD. On Nantucket, and indigenous tribes had access to forest trees tall enough to provide long tree trunks for canoes and the lodge until ~0 AD as indicated above.

The Wampanoag predominated among the indigenous peoples of Nantucket upon European contact. They acquired this identity from John Smith in 1616. At this time. there were ~ 12,000 Wampanoag living in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Martha's Vinyard, Nantucket and Elizabeth Island. Their language places them within the Algonquian family of Native Americans.

Wampanoag resource procurement was based upon the seasonal cycles of plant and animal foods.

There is little information available about Wampanoag maritime craft. Their boats were small and assuredly used frequently on coastal waters, rivers and streams when the Wampanoag were fishing and hunting. Canoes were also used for occasional trading trips to other islands and the mainland. The short trees of Nantucket could provide logs from which to make a small canoe. Birch was very rare, if present at all, and if birch bark canoes were on Nantucket, they were imported.

The largest building in Wampanoag village architecture was the long house that housed several families during winter in sheltered valleys. Long house construction did not require the large building timbers that were necessary to build English style houses and town buildings. As with all indigenous peoples who were both hunter/gatherers and agriculturalists, resources in all ecological niches that provided food were treated carefully with an understanding about conserving habitat and breeding populations for the long run. The very ancient Nantucket forests that had tall trees disappeared for reasons that had nothing to do with Wampanoag ancestor's utilization of the forest.

We can only conclude that architectural and ship building timber of large size was not available to the early European and American colonists of Nantucket island, nor to the first nation Wampanoag people who frequented offshore waters, rivers and streams to hunt and fish throughout the year.