Transitional Archaic Period (3,600‐2,500 years ago)

Indigenous peoples during this period began to live in smaller groups that were more spread out. In what is today southern New England, they spent most of the year at camps in coastal areas such as Boston Harbor where they collected shellfish (clams and oysters) in tidal estuaries and mud flats. This transition between the Archaic and Woodland periods also was a time when cultural traditions were changing. Tools were made from locally sourced beach cobbles and other types of stone brought from farther away.

Cultural traditions were changing. As part of what archaeologists call the Susquehanna tradition, ceremonial sites began to be used. Skeletal remains of ancestors, deliberately broken tools, and animal bones were burned and placed into small pits. A red mineral pigment called ocher and black charcoal have been found in the pits. Archaeologists suspect that those rituals may have been done in special places to communicate connections with others in the group and with ancestors. These traditions were considered “sacred” and “historical” and remembered by future generations.

New technology included the quarrying of soapstone to make large and heavy cooking vessels. Findings of pieces of carved soapstone vessels may indicate that people gathered and ate at that place, because travelling with those heavy stone pots would make travel difficult. Pieces of such cooking pots have been found in many places in the lower Merrimack River drainage, and vessels made from New England soapstone have been found in distant places to the southeast.