The Site / The Project
Taft Point is one of only a handful of coastal sites with a record of human occupation extending back several thousand years, a time period referred to as the Archaic. Archaic Period sites date to 3,000 years ago or older.
Wendell Hadlock excavated Taft Point under controlled excavation conditions. A table in the site report illustrates the pattern of artifact distribution.
Archaeologists uncovered a pilot whale skull during the 1937 excavation at Taft Point. The pilot whale skull, pictured here, was excavated from the Taft Point site in 1937. In 1997, Dr. Greg Early from the New England Aquarium in Boston confirmed that it is a pilot whale (Globicephalia melaena). The pilot whale is also known as a blackfish or pothead whale.
At the time, Dr. Early said that this archaeological specimen was 10-15% larger than the Aquarium’s living pilot whale, a young female. Pilot whales are medium-sized whales, weighing 360-900 lbs and reaching a length of up to 16 feet. This toothed whale feeds primarily on squid.
What did they want to know?
Hadlock observed that the upper levels of the site contained pottery, while the lower levels were pottery-free. He also saw differences in the kinds of tools represented in each zone.
"How old were the lowest levels of Taft Point and did they represent a culture different from the upper level?"
What have we learned?
The lowest level of Taft Point did represent an older, distinctly different culture from the upper levels.
The earliest level at Taft Point produced an assemblage of tools including plummets, ground stone tools, slate points, hammerstones and stemmed projectile points. This tool kit grouping is associated with the Late Archaic Period by archaeologists and dates to between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago.
We have also learned that the pottery-bearing levels of Taft Point date to the Ceramic Period. Dating to the most recent 3,000 years of the archaeological record, the Ceramic Period tool kit includes clay pottery, small notched projectile points and bone tools.
What did they find?
Ceramic Period artifacts
Archaic Period Artifacts
Site map
The site was mapped with a grid system and profiles of the stratigraphy pictured here, that enabled Hadlock to pinpoint the exact location of artifacts horizontally and vertically.
References: The Taft's Point Shell Mound at West Gouldsboro, Maine. Wendell S. Hadlock. Robert Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME, 1939.