WEBVTT

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[music]

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The Northern Atlantic Coast

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is a remote and barren land,

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locked in ice for much of the year,
and surrounded by bitterly cold seas.

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[music]

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It is almost unimaginable that
ancient people could have survived

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in this desolate region. But a
series of archeological discoveries

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in the United States and Canada has
uncovered startling new evidence,

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that a previously unknown culture more
advanced than anyone had believed possible

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flourished here near the edge of the
Arctic circle many thousands of years ago.

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The discovery of this early civilization

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is changing our vision of ancient North
America, and challenging long held assumptions

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about the development of
native American culture.

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[sil.]

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The story begins just over a century
ago with an accidental discovery

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on the coast of Maine. It gradually
unfolds into one of the great quests

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of American archeology, the search
for the lost Red Paint People.

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[sil.]

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In 1882, Augustus Hamlin(ph),

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the mayor of Bangor, Maine, was guided to a
region near the mouth of the Penobscot river

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by Foster Soper(ph), a local farmer. Soper had told
the mayor about a place where blood colored pools

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were rising out of the earth.

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Hamlin was a doctor and a
geologist, but he was also

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an amateur anthropologist, a so called
antiquarian who believed in theories

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about the past that scientists
would later consider impossible.

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This part of the main coast had generated
legends for hundreds of years.

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As far back as the 16th century European
explorers had recorded an Indian myth

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about a fabled place called
Norumbega(ph), which they interpreted

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to be a city overflowing with riches.

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This map of 1569

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placed Norumbega(ph) near the mouth of
the Penobscot river. Hamlin had searched

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but he never found a trace of a lost city.

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He did find accounts of
unexplained stone ruins

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discovered by the settlers who first cleared
the dense forest along the Penobscot river.

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Like other antiquarians of
his time, Hamlin believed

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that these were the ruins of structures built by
Europeans, who arrived in the new world before Columbus

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and suggested that they might the remains
of Vinland, the lost colony of the Vikings.

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[music]

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The stone ruins of the Northeast were
not the only archeological mysteries

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which interested the antiquarians. There
were also hundreds of prehistoric mounds,

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and earth works like these
located in the Ohio Valley.

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As early as the 1700s amateur
scientists had been digging up

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these mysterious manmade hills and
discovering the spectacular remains

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of an ancient culture. These
elaborate barrios(ph) and artifacts

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indicated that the mound builders were more advanced
than the known Indian tribes of the region.

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19th century antiquarians explained
this by developing the theory

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of a lost civilization which existed
in America before the Indian

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and then mysteriously vanished.

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The earliest mounds were
simple circular forms,

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but later examples evolved into precise
geometric designs built on a vast scale.

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The geometry and surveying skills

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needed to construct these ritual landscapes
seemed to be unknown among the Native Americans.

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Because there were ancient mounds throughout Europe, other
scholars who do not believe in the theory of lost races

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suggested that the American mounds were built by colonists
from the more highly developed cultures of the old world.

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They believed in the theory of
diffusion that early voyagers

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brought the mountain building
tradition across the Atlantic.

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Eventually, both of these antiquarian
theories would be abandoned as the new

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discipline of scientific archaeology developed. By
the mid 20th century, professional anthropologists

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would firmly deny that ancient
people navigated across the ocean,

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and they would dismiss as
well the idea of lost races.

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But here in the landscape forming the
heart of the old Norumbega myth,

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Hamlin the antiquarian was about to make a
discovery which would eventually change

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scientific beliefs. Though its real significance
was not understood for one hundred years,

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what he found here was the first
evidence of a completely unknown

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ancient race of skilled seafaring people
who once lived along the Atlantic coast.

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[sil.]

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As a geologist Hamlin realized

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he was looking at a high grade
of red ochre, iron oxide.

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The ochre had been turned up by the plough

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and the red pools were formed when
it mixed with the night rain.

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Buried in the ochre Hamlin found
artifacts made of polished stone.

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They knew that Native American peoples

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used red ochre for war paint and for
their rituals, but what surprised him

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was the quality and the perfection
of the polished artifacts.

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The stone woodworking tools were honed to a sharpness
rivaling a metal blade and they were far superior

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to the artifacts found at
Indian sites in Maine.

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Hamlin brought the tools to the Peabody museum at Harvard,
and the search for the mysterious red paint people

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was taken up by professional
archaeologist Charles C. Willoughby.

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When Willoughby investigated
Hamlin’s site, he discovered a mound

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at the water’s edge and began to dig that has
been called the first scientific excavation

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in America. Willoughby’s careful
measurements and drawings revealed

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that the artifacts had been buried in
ritual patterns. He suspected that

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they were the remains of ancient graves, but
he found no skeletons to confirm his theory.

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He suggested that the graves were so old
that the bones had long ago disintegrated

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in the acidic New England soil.
He built this scale model

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to be displayed at the 1893 World’s
Colombian exhibition in Chicago.

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Along with Willoughby, another
archaeologist was presenting his work

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in the hall of anthropology. Warren K.
Moorehead became famous

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when he displayed his discoveries of the Ohio
mound builder treasure at the exhibition.

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He was a self-taught archaeologist whose
less than careful excavation methods

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made him a maverick in the professions eye, but
his uncanny nose for spectacular discoveries

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made his name a household word.

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Moorehead was searching for the origins of the Mound Builders
and he soon became interested in Willoughby’s site in main.

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With a team of excavators
he called the force,

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Moorehead set out on an expedition up
the rivers of Maine to investigate

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Willoughby’s claims of boneless cemeteries.

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These recently discovered hand
tinted glass slides were used

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to illustrate his popular lectures.

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When Moorehead got involved in Maine
archaeology, he elevated the quest

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for the red paint people to high adventure.

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Like Hamlin, Morehead was impressed
by the quality of the tools.

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The workmanship of the polished stone led
him to believe that the red paint people

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had a highly evolved culture. He sent
examples back to museums in the Midwest

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to be shown alongside the artifacts of the
Mound Builders. By the turn of the century

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he had excavated several mounds and
ritual sites, both in the hills

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and along the coast of Maine. Moorehead
wrote that in all his explorations

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he had never examined sites appearing
so old, but like Willoughby,

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he never found a skeleton or a village, without
this evidence there was no way to determine

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who these people were, how they
lived, or where they came from.

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But he did note that some of the
tools were made from a type of stone

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not found anywhere in Maine or New England.
Moorehead daringly suggested

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that its source would someday be located in the
far north and he claimed this was evidence

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of long distance trade. His prediction
was borne out 80 years later

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when archaeologists discovered the source
of this unusual stone in Ramah Bay

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northern Labrador, 1500 nautical
miles from the coast of Maine.

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The stone is now called

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Ramah chert, its beautiful translucence and
sugary texture make it highly distinctive.

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The chert has been found

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in artifact collections as far south as New
Jersey and west along the St Lawrence River

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into Vermont. Ramah bay quarry
was the only place in the world

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where this type of chert could be found, confirming
Mooreheads idea of a link between the red paints

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and the far north. At the time
Mooreheads academic colleagues

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considered his claims to be too
sensational. Some simply dismissed the idea

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of an advanced prehistoric culture and
others thought that the red paints

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actually might have been a group of
marauding Eskimo from the north.

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Eventually, Moorehead’s
career was destroyed.

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Not surprisingly, the next generation
of professional anthropologists

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avoided the question and the
mystery of the red paint culture

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was temporarily forgotten.
It was not until the 1930s

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that another major discovery
occurred in Maine.

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This one was found by chance under an Indian
shell heap on the edge of Blue Hill Bay.

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These heaps of the discarded remains of
shellfish built up by generations of tribes

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are returned year after year to
harvest the ocean creatures.

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They’ve been found in many places along
the Atlantic coast. On Blue Hill Bay

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Red Ochre began eroding from the bottom
of a heap known as the Neven(ph) site.

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It was brought to the attention
of archaeologist Douglas Byers.

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The layers of crushed shell
formed a calcium rich mixture

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that neutralized the acidic soil,
at the bottom buyers found

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the badly disintegrated remains of
full skeletons covered in red ochre

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just as Moorehead and
Willoughby had predicted.

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Byers also found bone artifacts with surprisingly
beautiful decorations and graved into the surface.

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No one had expected to find
such precise geometric designs

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among the red paints. But the
most surprising discoveries

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at the Neven site were toggling
harpoons and the remains of sword fish,

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a deep water ocean species. These
artifacts were the first clue

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that the red paint people
might be a seafaring race.

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At that time, most of American anthropology

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resisted this idea, there seemed to be no
historical evidence for ocean navigation

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among the Indians. But then the next

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major red paint discovery in Maine occurred
on a remote island and Penobscot Bay.

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In the late 1960s Dr. Bruce Bourque of the
Maine State Museum investigated a show he

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on North Haven Island, near the bottom me found
the remains of a red paint fishing station.

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Well, ten years ago, we didn’t really
understand much about the lifestyle of people

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who left these cemeteries. And in 1971,

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I began excavations at the Turner Farm
site and got down near the bottom

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of this deep shell heap to a series of
straight of it related to a village

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of what I call the Moorehead phase,
people who left these cemeteries.

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Dr. Bourque and his crew had a tool which had
been unavailable to early archaeologists,

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they used radiocarbon dating to
determine that the red paint occupation

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of the island occurred over 4000 years ago.

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This surprisingly early date indicated that the red
paint culture predated the mound builders civilizations

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of the Midwest by more
than two thousand years.

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And we were surprised to
find that most of the

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bone or great deal of the bone
related to maritime activity,

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specifically cod fish was very
abundant and… and very surprisingly

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swordfish was tremendously abundant.
Now both these animals

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swordfish and cod fish
are deep water animals.

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The people of the Moorehead phase were very skilled
at going out and traveling the several miles

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necessary to get to the ideal hunting and
fishing places for these two species.

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The gouges which are so prominent
in the red paint graves

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suggest to us great skill at working wood.
And when you combine

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the evidence we have here for dependence
on deep water marine species with

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apparent importance our skill in woodworking,
a sense then is that these people were

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maritime hunters and may…
very competent sea craft.

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And the boats that these people use were of sea worthy and
they were rugged, probably large dug-up in this perhaps not

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too different from those we know from the
northwest coast during the historic period.

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The Sea Peoples of the Pacific
Northwest have recently become a model

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to help anthropologists visualize the
way of life of the red paint people.

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This rare footage of Northwest coast Indians
was produced at the turn of the century

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by photographer Edward Curtis.

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Curtis worked with the Kwakiutl people

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and the famous Indian ethnographer George hunt to
build and photograph examples of their traditional

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boats and houses.

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Here George Hunt demonstrates
the woodworking tools

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of the Northwest coast that are similar
in shape and function to the tools

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found in the red paint barrios(ph) of
Maine. Although the red paints predated

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these northwest coast people by thousands
of years the similarity of their tools

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suggests how advanced the red
paint culture must have been.

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This island village located 200 miles
off the coast of British Columbia

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was abandoned a century ago and has
already begun to disintegrate.

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If these wooden structures had been built 4000
years ago, by now they would have disappeared

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without a trace. Like the Sea
Peoples of the Pacific Northwest

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the red paint people of the Northeast
built their villages at the water’s edge.

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Unfortunately for archaeologists, the edge of the
ocean is one of the most abrasive environments known

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and there is very little left
of the red paint way of life.

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At the same time as Dr. Bourque’s work in Maine there
was an accidental discovery at the edge of an island

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in the Canadian Maritimes. Port
au Choix is a fishing community

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in northwestern New Finland. In 1968
construction began for a new movie theater

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on the outskirts of town. A bulldozer
cut through a patch of red ochre

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and the work was stopped as Dr. James
Tuck from Memorial University in St Johns

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was called in.

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I came up to see the… what have been found.
It was something that we’ve been looking for,

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for a long time because it’s
apparently the remains of a

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burial cult that we are interested in.

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Finally archaeologists had found skeletons
which were preserved well enough to identify,

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enabling doctor Tuck to give the red
paint people a new scientific name,

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a maritime arcade. Eventually,
it turned out to be a site

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that I guess people had been looking for… for hundred
years, uh… there were red paint cemeteries in Maine,

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but almost never had there been any bone preserved.
And when we first found the human bones,

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we asked ourselves questions like, are
these people Eskimos or were they Indians.

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It sounds almost silly now fifteen years later, umm… those
were questions that were very real and important then.

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Jim Anderson, a physical anthropologist
who studied the bones immediately

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after they’d come from the field was able to
distinguish that these people were in fact racially

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American Indians, North American Indians
rather than Europeans or Eskimos.

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I think the European question is… is hardly
important at all and doesn’t bear discussing,

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but there are biological traits in the skulls and
else and infracranial skeleton of these people

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that allow physical anthropologist to distinguish
between people we’d recognize as Eskimos

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and those we’d recognize as Indians.

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The site proved to be over 4000 years old,
about the same age as the sites in Maine.

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When I first saw them I couldn’t
believe they were as old as they were,

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the preservation was almost beyond belief, they
look fresh, new and covered with red ochre.

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When we completed our analysis
of the Port au Choix material

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we had for the first time a real good look at
the sophisticated sea mammal hunting technology

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or sea hunting technology that these
people had. Their weapons included

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toggling harpoons and barbed
harpoons, these were used to harpoon

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sea mammals that Polish slate and bone
lance points were probably used to

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dispatch sea mammals, seals and
walrus and so forth. There were

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specialized fish Spears, things called
leisters, and of a very sophisticated

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and well developed technology for exploiting
the resources of the Gulf of St Lawrence.

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I think that the analogy is probably
pretty good between East and West.

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So it certainly had a boarding technology of
which we know a great deal on the West Coast

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but very little here because of
preservation. You get the impression though

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from looking at the collections from both
areas that the British Columbia material is

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much more rich say in
terms of wood technology.

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
I bet though if you found a maritime archaic site with the
same kind of preservation as you find in British Columbia

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
would really be a surprise, knock your
socks off some of the stuff they had.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
If the Native American cultures of
the northwest coast already guide,

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
the spiritual beliefs of the
maritime archaic were shaped by

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
powerful forces in the natural environment.
Anthropologists use the term

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
shamanism to describe the religion of
hunting cultures around the northern globe.

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
Shamanism is not so much a formalized religion,
but a way of relating to the spirits of nature.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
To the shamans each
particular object, animal,

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
and place has a spiritual identity, and
the shaman communicates with these forces

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
through a state of trance, often
experienced alone in the wilderness.

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
This altered state of consciousness
is brought on by starvation,

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
physical exertion, or psychoactive substances.
The ritual is often accompanied by drumming,

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
chanting, and dancing. The
shaman gains intuition

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
and uses it to guide the community
curing illness and ensuring success

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
in hunting and war. These spiritual techniques
have existed for thousands of years

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
and have been documented into modern
times, this 16th century European print

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
of a sorcerer in a trance was one of the
first visual records of native life

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
on the Atlantic Coast. 400 years
later anthropologist Franz Boas

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
documented a similar event when he
filmed this north west coast shaman

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
for his study of ritual gestures.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
Edward Curtis in his film work dramatized the
shaman’s ritual. With the help of George hunt

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
he recreated a sacred place in the
wilderness. The Indian selects the skulls

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
of certain ancestors who will
share in the experience.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
The dancing may last a few hours or a few days,
but it is followed by a trance like sleep

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
in which the shaman speaks with
the spirits of the natural world.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
At some point in history that natural
world and its spiritual realm expanded

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
when people began to communicate
with the animal spirits of the sea.

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
A good example of that might
be the killer whale effigy

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
that was found in the chest of a young
adult male, it’s probably speculation

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
but we know that others seem animal
hunters have had killer whale cults,

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
uh… why not the people at Port au Choix.
Communication with the spirits of the sea

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
was a major step for these ancient cultures
which had been dominated by land spirits

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
for countless millennia. The
recognition of these new

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
and powerful spiritual forces released people from
their bondage to the land and opened up a wider world

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
of maritime travel and trade.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
For these traditional cultures we can
imagine that navigation was a ritual,

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
with the shaman pilot consulted the whims,
the waves, the animals, and the stars.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
Along with the whales

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
several artifacts from the burials at the Port au
Choix indicate that water birds were also important

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
to the maritime archaic. The birds habits and migration
patterns would have been especially important

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
for piloting and navigation.
The image of the water bird,

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
here carved on a comb was a common motif.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
Dr. Tuck also found burials covered with the
beaks of a species known as the great Auk.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
These flightless penguin like birds
once traveled in huge flocks

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
which swam across the ocean from their home
in Iceland to the shores of North America.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
They spread out in a mass which extended
for miles across the surface of the ocean

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
as they moved slowly along their migration
route from Labrador to the Carolinas.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
The species were so easy for sailors
to hunt that it became extinct

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
in 1844. Perhaps by following
the slow moving Auks,

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
the maritime archaic first explored the
remote shores of northern Labrador.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:38.000
[music]

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
Dr. William Fitzhugh of the
Smithsonian Institution

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
has him self been exploring the coast of Labrador searching
for the northern limits of the maritime archaic.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
If remains of the red paint
people could be found here,

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
it would confirm that the maritime archaic
were skilled long distance navigators.

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
In 1980, on the desolate
beaches of Nulliak Cove

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
Dr. Fitzhugh found what it eluded every
other researcher for a 100 years,

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
the remains of red paint house foundations.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
Nulliak is the largest settlement
location that we have found and I expect

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
it’s very near the northern
limit of this culture.

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
The reason that they were able
to live so far north in a area

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
that’s pretty harsh with was very rigorous winters and ice
cover on the sea for eight months of the year at least

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
is because of very intensive
maritime adaptation.

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
It’s a type of adaptation which probably
extended with variations into New England,

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
but yet there was a homogeneity to the
style of life, a kind of a similarity

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
certainly in the ceremonial cultures
to some extent in artifact forms

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
which bound this entire area of the north east.
All the way from north of the forests for range

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
down into the temperate zones.
And it’s been a puzzle

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
for archaeologists, because
they could not understand the

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
complexity of burial ceremonialism,
the rather elaborate artifact types,

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
in terms of a northern… typical
Northern Indian way of life,

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
something characterized by Cancun
culture by Montagnais, Naskapi Indians

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
and the Indians we know ethnographically
from this area. Who traveled in small bands,

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
who hunted Caribou but never got
into this intense kind of life

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
which we see indicated
by the maritime archaic.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:53.000
[music]

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
Caribou come down to Nulliak
off the hills up here

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
and they tend to follow each other frequently
so that there’s a trail which develops.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
Uh… You can see beaten into the ground here
and these things last for a long, long time.

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
You get projectile points
primarily, and broken frequently.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
In this case here we found one that’s right
in the caribou trail just as it’s dropped,

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
for 4000 years it’s been right there, and I don’t
know how many caribou have ever stepped on that,

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
but certainly more than one. The
Smithsonian crew began by excavating

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
a small stone mound which was the first clue
that the red paint people had occupied the site.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
Here the whole floor is just covered in red ochre.
Generally it’s found right at the bottom of the deposit.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
But probably extends up out
of the pit over here a ways.

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
The archaeological team set up
their camp below the beach terrace

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
where the maritime archaic had once lived.

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
The ancient settlement was preserved because geological
forces raised the beach away from the ocean’s erosive edge

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
thousands of years ago.

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
When the melting glacier receded from the ocean at the
end of the last ice age perhaps ten thousand years ago,

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
a river channel was formed. Relieved
from the Great way to the ice,

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
the landmass rose out of the sea and a beach
developed at the mouth of the channel.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
At some point after the maritime archaic first
settled on the beach, continued geological uplift,

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
raise the terrace above sea level and
the channel was blocked forming a pond.

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
Scientists now had their first chance

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
to see how the maritime archaic lived,
before the discovery of the Nulliak

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
practically everything known about the red paint culture
had been learned from their burials of the dead.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
The first place where people could live

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
was up on this side of the pond where they
raised beaches come down from the hillside

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
to the level of a pond. When
we first visited the site

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
I was attracted by a number of older lines
features in the earth which can be seen here.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
There are roughly two
parallel raised ridges

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
of beach stones about two metres
apart stretching away from us.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
And they seem to be unnatural not the
normal kind of geological features

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
which would form as a beach ridge. And
when we started looking at these things,

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
we began finding evidence of human activity
in… throughout the interior of these

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
two Boulder lines and such things as

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
flakes of Ramah chert,

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
uh… pieces of slate with bulb of precaution, where
they’ve been snapped off the original block,

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
fragments of artifacts like this stem

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
from a maritime archaic standpoint.
And one of the problems we have

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
is the shape and size of
this particular feature.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
Now the probability is that these raised
ridges isolate living areas within this house.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
We can see as we come down
the inside of the structure,

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
ridges here, here.

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
And two more till we get to the… the end.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
The Smithsonian crew found the remains
of 26 multi roomed structures,

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
some measuring 19 metres in length.
The radiocarbon dates

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
indicate that over 4000 years ago
large groups of people were living in

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
well organized communities here
at the edge of the Arctic.

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
Along the front of the ancient Beach
terrace the Smithsonian crew also began

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
to excavate a foundation that was
near a mysterious upright stone.

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
[sil.]

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
This is a typical deposit
containing fire crack rock,

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
chips of Ramah chert, fragments
of tool making activity,

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
pieces of broken tools that have
been burned uh… in the fire,

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
charcoal flex, red ochre. This
whole arrangement of artifacts

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
is little interesting because of this
big stone here which may have been

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
a structural feature of the house or a
seat or have sort of some other purpose

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
but it is interesting that the material
is… is distributed in a cluster

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
around this… this large rock.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
Like the small standing stone Dr.
Fitzhugh found on the beach at Nulliak,

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
there are other stone monuments
in Labrador that also remain

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
an archaeological mystery. Found
primarily along the coast,

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
these stone pinnacles may have had both
a spiritual and a practical purpose.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
Some are single slabs

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
propped into vertical position and others
or cans built up with smaller boulders.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
[sil.]

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
The Eskimo refer to these monuments as a nook
shooks. Their traditions say that the stone markers

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
point the way to settlements. Boat
pilots can navigate along the coast

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
by using a simple technique of alignments and
angles to identify their positions offshore.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
These basic principles of
geometry may have been developed

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
thousands of years ago by the first
cultures adapting to the sea.

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
The technique is still useful
today, especially in the far north

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
where modern navigational instruments
are not always trustworthy.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
[sil.]

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
Here we have a grinding slab of some sort
probably for polishing ground slate axis

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
and gauges, implements such as

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
stemmed projectile points and knobs.
They had a whole variety of standpoints

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
from large to small perhaps to hunt for
hummingbirds, others for sea mammals

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
and in addition, a very
distinctive artifact,

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
soft stone plummets which are
found in large numbers in

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
southern Labrador maritime archaic sites and seem
to be restricted to the 4000 year old time period.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
Plummets have often been
found in red paint burials

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
and they were probably used as fishing weights. But
the smallest examples are often beautifully crafted,

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
sometimes decorated, and may have
been used for other purposes.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
This engraved pendant from
Nulliak is a rare discovery,

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
a complex geometric design along with other markings
indicate a high level of intellectual development

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
among the maritime archaic
over 4000 years ago.

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
[sil.]

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
The surprising discovery of this advanced
sea culture living in North America

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
has encouraged fresh comparisons with the
ancient sea peoples of northern Europe.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
The shores of Scandinavia

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
have supported maritime cultures for thousands
of years, this fact has been recognized

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
by European archaeologists for decades. In Norway
Professor Paul Simonsen of the Tromso museum

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
has studied the remains of cultures that
once lived above the Arctic Circle.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
At the very beginning of the human
habitation after the Ice Age

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
up here people came along
the coast simply because

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
the whole of the inland still
were covered by the ice sheets.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
It’s impossible to imagine people
walking up along Norwegian coasts

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
because of the (inaudible)
and because of the ice.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
So it’s absolutely necessary
that they had a boat

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
and well, in some way adapt it to the sea.

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
Like the house foundations of Nulliak
the remains of these storage dwellings

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
at Varanger Fiord were also raised above the
present shoreline by geological forces.

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
The site was discovered in the 1930s

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
and Professor Simonsen began his excavation
of the structures in the early 1950s.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
At some dwelling places you have
fish bones of deep sea fishes

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
and on the same place as you
have very large and heavy

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
sinking stones meaning that
they could fish up to perhaps

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
100, 120 metre deep. In North
America, use of the plummet vanished

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
with the mound builders, but in
Europe it evolved as a Mariners tool.

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
This 16th century print shows how the weight
attached to a line was used to determine

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
the waters depth. Eventually, the
plummet became a basic element

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
of navigational an astronomical instruments.
Along with the sea hunting equipment,

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
Professor Simonsen’s crew also recovered
beautiful tools made out of polished slate.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
During the excavations of the ‘30s
Norwegian anthropologist Gutornt Jessing

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
was the first to recognize that the tools were
very similar to examples from North America.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
He wrote, \"Nowhere on the globe are there
to be found remains as closely related

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
as those of Norway on the coast of Maine.\"

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
During World War II, Jessing retreated
to his office to work on a theory

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
suggesting that these cultural developments
spread in the far north by diffusion.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
The similar tools maybe Jessing to believe

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
that there had once been a single circum polar
culture that originated in central Russia

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
and diffused across the land masses to the coasts
of Europe and the eastern shores of North America.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
Because you must remember

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
that he was devoted diffusionists,

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
a man who saw that one thing
can only be invented one time

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:15.000
and from this place spread out over.

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
If people living one in New
England and the other in Norway

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
make two things quite alike. We
are glad to say they had… had

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
invented them, independent.
But if people are living

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
very near to sore and then are making things
quiet alike. We say that one must have learnt it

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
from the old, but we don’t know for sure.

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
More important than tools Jessing
identified what he believed to be

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
deeper connections between the
spiritual beliefs in both hemispheres.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
For example, this engraved bone
from Norway has a geometric design

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
created by mapping out an alignment of dots and
then connecting them to form a straight line.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
This same technique of aligned dots was
also used to engrave the decorations

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
on the bone daggers found at the
Neven site on the coast of Maine.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
These traits which are very, very alike

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
are not only traits for practical purpose,

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
they’re ornamentation, they are
patterns, they are spiritual things.

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
[sil.]

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
Along with the artwork Jessing carefully studied
the spiritual traditions of Northern cultures.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
This archival footage of a Lappish shaman
was filmed in the Norwegian Arctic.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
It shows a ritual involving a standing
stone which may be thousands of years old.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:58.000
[music]

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
Jessing understood that similar
tools shapes might be coincidence,

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
but he believed the deep rooted shamanistic
traditions, so similar around the globe

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
could only have been a result of diffusion.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
At first, Jessing’s
theory of land diffusion

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
was widely hailed by his colleagues.
It seemed to finally explain

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
the extraordinary similarities which
existed among the circum polar cultures,

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
but appealing as the theory was
there was no proof to back it up.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
During the 1950s archaeologists
working in central Russia

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
and Western Canada could not find any evidence
that a circum polar culture had diffused

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
across the central land masses. Eventually, his
theory was put on the top shelf to collect dust,

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
but Jessing never gave up
his idea of land diffusion.

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
According to Professor Simonsen, Jessing never
considered the possibility that ancient peoples

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
could have been skilled Mariners. I’ve
never seen the word maritime adaptation

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
in his papers, I don’t think
that just this perspective

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
was a part of his active concepts.

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
To me this tale is

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
a lot of sense in his series.
I’ll not speak about

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
a circum polar stone age, I’ll not speak
about a circum polar culture at all,

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
but a circum polar connections
and communications

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
from people to people surely exist

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
and some cultural traits
will be transmitted

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
over very, very long east
west distances in the Arctic.

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
Like the trade patterns along
the coast of North America,

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
there were extensive networks which
link the people of Norway with other

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
sea adapted cultures to the south.
Artifacts have been found in Norway

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
that were manufactured here on
the coast of Denmark. In 1975,

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
at a site called (inaudible), archaeologist
from the Danish National Museum

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
discovered the remains of a sea adapted culture
that was once part of this trade network.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
Thousands of years ago there was a channel
where these yellow flowers now Bloom.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
On the hills that surrounded the
water they discovered 19 burials.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
Radiocarbon dates

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
indicated that the graves were
over seven thousand years old,

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
three thousand years older than the maritime
archaic sites found in North America.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
Some of the burials may have
been ritual sacrifices.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
This woman wore a large
necklace of teeth to her grave.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
A small child, perhaps her
own was placed at her side.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
When the woman and child were first
discovered, they were covered with red ochre,

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
a round polished stone lay near
the woman’s fractured skull

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
and a knife blade rested at
the midsection of the infant.

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
In all these burials we
find the great ochre,

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
that of course has been open to those speculation
what… what the meaning of the red ochre,

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
how that’d be understood.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
The use of red ochre goes back at least seventy
five thousand years into early Neanderthal times,

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
but the existence of red ochre cemeteries is
especially prominent among seagoing peoples.

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
Like the maritime archaic burials in North
America, the red ochre cemeteries of Europe

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
are found along the shore. In 1927,
here on the island of Téviec

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
just off the coast of Brittany. French
archaeologists Martha and Saint-just Péquart

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
discovered red paint burials
near the bottom of a shell heap.

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
Like (inaudible), the Téviec cemetery
proved to be over 7000-years-old,

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
and the burial rituals were similar.
But what was unusual about Téviec

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
was that several of the burials had been placed in
small stone structures beneath the shell mounds.

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
The Péquart’s believed that these might have been
early examples of the mysterious stone megaliths

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
left throughout northern
Europe and the British Isles

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
by an unknown ancient people. The megalith builders
of Europe like the mound builders of America

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
were often considered a lost race
by 19th century antiquarians.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
The Piqué art suggested that the red paint people of
Téviec were the ancestors of the megalith builders.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
At the time their idea was considered
too radical. Most anthropologists

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
believed that the chambered mounds and
alignments of standing stones had been built by

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
Neolithic farming peoples of a much more
recent time period. But further north

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
along the rocky coasts of Western
Sweden conditions made it necessary

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
for the ancient inhabitants to live
primarily by fishing not farming.

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
Cambridge University archaeologist Graham Clark
has studied these ancient maritime peoples,

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
his research also suggests that
the early megalith builders

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
were a seagoing culture. And it is
interesting that among quite a number

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
of maritime sediment dwellers

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
we find the appearance of
quite elaborate tools.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
Something with which until
recently we had always thought of

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
as being a special feature
of Neolithic man,

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
Neolithic and later, so that’s how it is.
For example, we have

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
a standing steel cans in the maritime
archaic context of Labrador,

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:58.000
taking from several thousand years before
Christ. One of the first things that

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
attracted me to the site was
the boulder constructions

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
in a roughly circular arrangement.
This was suspected as a burial

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
and we’ve now opened up the
center of the burial feature

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
revealing a pit about two
meters in diameter filled with

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
dark humus stained earth, flakes
of Ramah chert, bits of Mica

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
and other signs of cultural activity. This
is ochre stand, older ochre stand down here.

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
Can we get on to the… the bottom? So
I suspect may be we will get down

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
below this layer of slates, we might… we might
come down on top of it, the… the feature.

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
Have there been any flakes or charcoals,
flakes or anything like that.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
There’s flakes mixed in the burial
field, but not charcoal here.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
So how much deeper? Good luck boy.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
Over here. On the east side
of the mound there is a

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
crypt of some sort of chamber
built out of stones.

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
In a rather unusual way
for a maritime archaic

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
culture we’ve never seen anything like this before,
and it is very unusual in this lintel stone

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
on top of these carefully
chosen flat rocks.

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
And of course it’s an interesting
fact that if you plot

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
the distribution megalithic
tombs on the map, you will find

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
a large proportion of them Téviec cost.
This in the past

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
was in interpreted in terms of diffusion.
It is equally possible

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
that such megalithic statues
were built by people

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
whose economy was based
fundamentally on fishing

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
not on farming.

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
Just as antiquarians once believed that the
stone ruins in America came from the old world,

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
anthropologists also once believed that the
megalithic tradition in Europe spread by diffusion

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
from the Middle East. For
antiquarians and scientists alike,

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
the stone ruins along the Atlantic coast have
remained a provocative problem in human prehistory.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
But Professor Clark’s work suggests that a new
understanding of these early maritime cultures

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
may offer answers in the future.
Over seven thousand years ago

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
these early sea going people may have been
the first highly evolved civilization

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
to inhabit the European coast.
Across the Atlantic

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
where the awareness of an ancient maritime culture
along the northeast coast is a brand new idea,

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
the phenomenon of the red paint people may
also help to explain the antiquarian mysteries

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
of the New World. As
researchers discover more

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
about the maritime archaic they’re beginning to
realize that these early see peoples may have

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
left a legacy with far ranging affects on the
development of Indian cultures in the north east.

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
Scientists are unsure of where the
maritime archaic tradition began,

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
but the earliest evidence has been
found here on the coast of Labrador.

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
When the French fishermen settled here
in the 17th century they named this bay

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
L’anse AUX Mort, the Bay of death.
The name gradually changed to

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
L’anse Amour, the Bay of love.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
Ironically, the primary attraction of
L’anse Amour today is this burial mound.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
Excavated by Dr. James Tuck and Professor Robert McGee
the site proved to be one of the most important

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
maritime archaic discoveries
in North America.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
When we first came we saw only a corner of it that had been
exposed by this road construction and subsequent erosion.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
We excavated the mound in quadrants and in,

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
near the center there was this rectangular
stone cyst made of upright stones,

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
we were a little disappointed because there
was no skeleton nor any artifacts in there,

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
a little bit of red ochre. But
when we dug below the cyst,

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
just to make sure there was nothing there, we were
really surprised to find the skeleton of a child

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
about twelve or thirteen years old,
buried face down, head to the West,

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
we don’t know it was a male or female, because it was
too young to be able to tell. It’s an unusual burial

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
especially for so much time and
effort and expense to have been

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
lavished on a young child.
It might be that these are

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
not quite so much or not entirely for the
disposal of the dead, but represent as well

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
we know all rights for the community
holding the… the community together.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
A large flat rock lay across
the burial and ritual fires

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
had been set due north and south. The
charcoal samples were radio carbon dated

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
to about seven thousand five
hundred years ago making this

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
the earliest known maritime archaic
burial site in North America.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
The almost identical dates in both Europe
and America were a surprise to scientists.

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
Previous theories about cultural development
from the antiquarians and to Jessing

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
were based on the assumption
that diffusion had to originate

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
among the more advanced races of Europe.
But this new evidence suggests that

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
cultural development may have been parallel on both
sides of the Atlantic over seven thousand years ago,

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
the evidence also compels
diffusionists to ask whether these

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
ancient ceremonial traditions were
once carried from North America

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
to the shores of Europe along the prevailing
northern route of the Gulf Stream.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
The L’Anse Amour burial is also an important
clue to the mystery of the Mound Builders

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
in North America. It predates the mounds of
the Midwest by more than five thousand years.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
I suppose you could consider this
the start of a mound tradition

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
in the new world, this burial and
the ones at Border and elsewhere

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
are more than seven thousand years old. I
think therefore that the, they are the oldest

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
burial mounds certainly in this part of
the world maybe in most of North America.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
The artifacts themselves
included toggling harpoon

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
of a design we have never seen before since and
since it’s seventy five hundred years old it’s,

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
if not the oldest one of the oldest
toggling harpoons that’s ever been found.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
So these guys are pretty
sophisticated sea mammal hunters.

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
From the L’Anse Amour the red paint people
flourished for about four thousand more years,

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
then without explanation the
traces of their culture vanish

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
from the archaeological record. Most of the
artifacts we have seen were never intended

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
for our eyes, but of all their remains the most
intriguing are those which they wanted us to see,

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
the ritual monuments they left in
the landscapes of the Northeast.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
Dr. Fitzhugh believes that these ancient people,
the first to live on these sub arctic coasts

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
have left us a glimpse of
an early ritual tradition

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
as it appeared in the new world. And one of the
interesting features of the maritime archaic

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
in Labrador at least is the
association between ceremonial sites,

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
burial sites and eminent prominent
locations, and it seemed as though

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
people were selecting these locations
for qualities of the land.

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
High Hills, sweeping vistas,
magnificent scenery,

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
as well as conditions that were suitable
for excavating burials, sandy terraces

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
and things like that. The early maritime archaic
mound seemed to be individual structures

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
with single burials in them,
on these prominent locations.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
They’re always at the front of the terraces very
near the sea, very near the most sweeping panorama

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
that you can get, the Ballybrack
situation is probably

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
the most dramatic I’ve seen, but we
have located a maybe ten or twelve

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
maritime archaic burial areas and all
of them have these characteristics.

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
They’re not putting the ceremonial sites
back in under the hills hiding them away.

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
It’s as though the individual is buried, you know, wanted
to be placed in such a position. So that he could see out

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
across the sea, and I think the people
were interested in this kind of

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
concept of beauty and landscape
mixed with mountains

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
and waterfalls and everything else.
There’s a lot of that in Labrador,

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
but the sights that they choose to live in are
really rather special and like you don’t find that

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
with other cultures either with the Eskimo
cultures of the other Indian cultures.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
The discovery of the maritime archaic

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
represents one of the rare instances when
antiquarian mystery and scientific exploration

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
have merged. Together, they have
revealed an unknown chapter

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
in the ancient history of North America.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:05.000
[sil.]

00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:15.000
[sil.]