A Large, Precontact Native American Stone Structure in SW New Hampshire
by Robert
G. Goodby, Sarah Tremblay, Edward Bouras (2014)
"The Swanzey Fish Dam is a large
V-shaped stone structure in the Ashuelot River of southwestern New Hampshire.
One of the few substantial stone sites in New England with clear archaeological
evidence for a Native American origin, it is assumed to have been used for the
harvesting of anadromous and/or catadromous fish. Archaeological data
demonstrate that the dam became a focus of Native American activity by the
Terminal Archaic Period and continued in use into the Contact Period. While one
of the first such dams to be documented in New England, the Swanzey Dam is
shown to be part of a larger pattern of stone dam construction across eastern
North America.
The
Swanzey Fish Dam was known to the earliest Euroamerican settlers of Swanzey.
The most detailed description comes from an 1888 account by Keene resident and
respected naturalist George Wheelock (cited in Griffin 1904:140): “The low
water in the Ashuelot, occasioned by the repairs at the Swanzey mill, has
exposed the old traditional Indian dam two miles above. Indians were lazy, and
this work of theirs is the more surprising on this account...the river at this
point is now almost a rapid and strewn with boulders for thirty rods or so. It
is less than a hundred feet wide, but the dam being in the shape of a harrow
pointing downstream is more than that distance. By skillful stepping it is
possible to pass the point of the harrow, the apex of the dam, and somewhat
farther. It is made of stones such as a man could lift, picked up in the stream
above. It varies from six to twelve feet in thickness, according to the depth
of the water. It looks like a tumble down wall mixed with gravel, but it must
have caused weeks of labor....Below the dam is a flat boulder reached by
stepping-stones....Near by the old dam lives Jonas L. Moore. Here lived his
father and grandfather before him. For one hundred and thirty years this has
been called the Indian dam...The elder Moore dug up a half peck of arrow and
spearheads, all in one pocket....Some twenty Indian fire-places have been
ploughed up here. These were simply circles in the middle of the wigwam, paved
with stones from the river.”
Racist stereotyping
aside, this account is significant in a number of respects, most notably in
dating the recognition of the dam as a Native American creation to the earliest
Euroamerican settlement of Swanzey in the mid-18th century...
Only a handful of wooden fish weirs have been
documented in New England, and prior to this study, no stone dam has been
conclusively shown to be Native American in origin…
… Research at the Swanzey Fish Dam site has resulted in a
detailed description of the dam feature, has shown that the dam was a focus of
Native American activity, and has definitively dated this activity to the
Late/Terminal Archaic and Contact periods. This research has also ruled out a
Euroamerican origin for the dam, and has shown that, as in much of the eastern
United States, substantial stone structures were constructed by Native
Americans in New England."
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