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Journal of the North Atlantic
Brian Scott Robinson - In Memoriam
2017 Special Volume 10
ii
Brian Robinson (b. 23 February 1953) lost a
battle with pancreatic cancer on 27 October 2016.
As an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology
and the Climate Change Institute at the
University of Maine (Orono), his research focused
on coastal adaptations, response to climate change,
and hunter-gatherer cultures of the Northeast from
the Paleoindian to the Contact periods. Brian had
also done much work on Alaskan Pleistocene and
early Holocene collections with Fred West of the
Peabody Essex Museum, so he had the “big picture”
of the peopling of the Americas in mind. Years of
working in Vermont provided region-wide experience
and perspective.
While at the University of Maine, Brian taught
both undergraduates and graduate students. He
was an excellent teacher at both levels, especially
beloved by his graduate students as a mentor for
his style of sharing his knowledge and intellectual
excitement as he provided direction. He worked
closely on many archaeology projects with Passamaquoddy
and Penobscot Tribal Historic Preservation
Officers, and taught tribal members as undergraduates
in University field work and the classroom. He
collaborated with the Tribes on research and fieldwork
design that has benefitted and incorporated
both tribal and professional understanding of the last
few thousand years.
Brian worked well with avocational archaeologists,
and believed that they had much to contribute.
He also demonstrated that museum collections and
older excavation records could contribute much to
current archaeology. His meticulous work over 20
or more years with Bill Eldridge and the other “Bull
Brook boys”, their memories, and their excavation
records in reconstructing a clearly organized sitesettlement
pattern for the Paleoindian Bull Brook
site will be a legendary example of drawing anthropological
meaning from old archaeological data
(Robinson et al. 2009). As with many of Brian’s
projects, graduate students were given critical parts
to play in the research.
Much of Brian’s research had a coastal or Gulf
of Maine focus. Even his Bull Brook Paleoindian
work included a coastal caribou-hunting scenario as
a hypothesis (Robinson 2002). As an undergraduate
at the University of New Hampshire, he began work
on coastal archaeology with Charles Bolian. He then
Brian Scott Robinson - In Memoriam
Arthur Spiess*
North American East Coast Shell Midden Research
Journal of the North Atlantic
*Maine Historic Preservation Commission, 65 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333; arthur.spiess@maine.gov.
2017 Special Volume 10:ii–iv
Journal of the North Atlantic
Brian Scott Robinson - In Memoriam
2017 Special Volume 10
iii
took on the excavation of the Seabrook Marsh (Late
Archaic) site (Robinson 1985a). He subsequently
completed a preliminary archaeological survey of
Scarborough Marsh in southern Maine (Robinson
1985b), again finding preserved formerly terrestrial
sites and features in the intertidal zone. Returning to
Seabrook Marsh recently, he introduced his graduate
students to this ca. 4000-year-old site with preserved
swordfish sword and subsistence remains, now partially
inundated by sea-level rise.
Working with avocational and older museum
collections and obtaining new radiocarbon dates,
Brian spent more than a decade puzzling out the
chronology and environmental and social factors
that animated Archaic ceremonial traditions
around the Gulf of Maine watersheds, the so-called
“Red Paint” cemetery phenomenon, now called the
Moorehead Burial Tradition. This work resulted in
his Ph.D. Dissertation (2001), and several articles
(see Robinson 1996b, 2006), and continues in the
hands of several graduate students. Drawing on his
luck and skill in returning to old excavation records,
he recently returned to limited excavation at the Waterside,
Jones Cove, and Nevin sites on the coast of
Maine. These 3 sites contain Moorehead phase Late
Archaic components originally excavated more than
60 years ago. Relocating the exact grid (including
finding a basketball-sized rock in the bottom corner
of an excavation square profile at the Waterside
site), he and his graduate students have obtained
previously unexcavated samples for “modern” fine
screening, radiocarbon dating, soil micromorphology,
and other analyses. This research directly ties
the old, larger excavation samples to the best of
recent archaeological lab work and stratigraphy.
His work with the Nevin site included mentoring
a graduate thesis by a Penobscot tribal archaeologist
re-examining some of the sensitive associated
funerary objects (burial items), and collaborative
work in 2015 with the Maine Historic Preservation
Commission to assess remaining portions of the site
as part of site protection/avoidance for abutting road
and bridge reconstruction.
When he focused on the Ceramic/Woodland period,
Brian’s attempt to draw anthropological meaning
was steady, with the additional satisfaction of drawing
on Maine tribal ethnographic information and
continuing traditional knowledge. Looking at penecontemporary
Ceramic/Woodland triangular versus
side/corner-notched points from coastal sites, Brian
noted a substantial shift in frequency between western
and eastern coastal Maine, postulating a possible
cultural difference (1996a). This perhaps underappreciated
observation contrasts with a coastal/interior
ethnographic divide postulated on the basis of
Ceramic period Z versus S cordage twist direction as
shown on ceramic vessels (Petersen 1996). The west
versus east coastal stone point distribution matches
ethnographic data, while the postulated coast versus
interior ceramic difference does not. Working primarily
along the Downeast Maine coast, in close collaboration
with the Passamaquoddy Tribe, Brian and
his students have examined the details of construction
of archaeologically preserved wigwam house
floors, as well as noting some non-random deposition
of right- versus left-side seal bullae (ear bones)
and sea mink mandibles among faunal remains. Both
topics contribute to understanding the organization
of domestic space and labor, and possibly to ritual
retention or disposal of certain faunal remains.
Perhaps most importantly as a bridge between
archaeology and tribal traditional culture, joint
Passamaquoddy–University of Maine excavation
and analysis of shell midden sites located near or
behind tableaux of bedrock petroglyphs around
Machias Bay was ongoing at Brian’s passing. Some
of the archaeological features encountered were not
mundane, such as a deep pit with an upright elliptical
small boulder placed deliberately at the bottom.
Certainly, routine habitation functions were occurring
in these sites, but with the addition of behavior
that somehow might be tied to the sacredness of the
petroglyphs.
As part of a general interest in fish as a subsistence
base on Gulf of Maine drainages for both the
Ceramic and Archaic periods, and his concept that
certain localities had both special functional and
social significance, Brian continued work on the Sebasticook
fish weir site begun by James B. Petersen
(d. 2005). This work includes more radiocarbon dating
of fish weir stakes, and description of non-weir
artifacts. We will not see those results until someone
picks up the work again.
An esteemed colleague who shared his thoughts
and preliminary research in long dialogues and
email exchanges, he was often an innovative thinker
who added anthropological or behavioral insight to
archaeological data. Because of his intellectual rigor
and deliberation in moving from archaeological
evidence to conclusions about human behavior, and
working to consider the theories and data of his colleagues,
sometimes the process took years. It was always
worth the wait for those of us who knew about
his various projects, and we are left with wonderful
insight but an unfinished process on several lines of
research. We deeply regret losing Brian, as a friend,
teacher, and colleague who was leading the way forward
on many intellectually challenging paths.
Journal of the North Atlantic
Brian Scott Robinson - In Memoriam
2017 Special Volume 10
iv
Literature Cited
Petersen, J.B. 1996. Fiber industries from northern New
England: Ethnicitiy and technological traditions during
the Woodland Period. Pp. 100–119, In J.B. Petersen
(Ed.). A Most Indispensible Art: Native Fiber
Industries from Eatsern North Amreica, The University
of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN, USA.
Robinson, B.S. 1985a. The Nelson Island and Seabrook
Marsh Sites: Late Archaic, marine-oriented people on
the central New England Coast. Occasional Publications
in Northeastern Anthropology (9)1.
Robinson, B.S. 1985b. An intertidal archaeological survey
of the Scarborough Marsh. Maine Archaeological Society
Bulletin 25(1):17–40.
Robinson, B.S. 1992. Early and Middle Archaic Period
occupation in the Gulf of Maine region: Mortuary and
technological patterning. Pp. 63–116, In B.S. Robinson,
J.B. Petersen, and A.K. Robinson (Eds.). Early
Holocene Occupation in Northern New England. Occasional
Publications in Maine Archaeology, Number
9. Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Augusta,
ME, USA.
Robinson, B.S. 1996a. Projectile points, other diagnostic
things, and culture boundaries in the Gulf of Maine
Region. Maine Archaeological Society Bulletin
36:2:1–24.
Robinson, B.S. 1996b. A regional analysis of the Moorehead
burial tradition: 8500–3700 B.P. Archaeology of
Eastern North America 24:95–148.
Robinson, B.S. 2001.Burial rituals, groups, and boundaries
on the Gulf of Maine: 8600–3800 B.P. Ph.D. Dissertation.
Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
Robinson, B.S. 2006. Burial ritual, technology, and cultural
landscape in the far Northeast: 8600–3700 B.P.
Pp. 341–381, In D. Sanger and M.A.P. Renouf (Eds.).
The Archaic of the the Far Northeast. University of
Maine Press, Orono, ME, USA.
Robinson, B.S. 2012. The Bull Brook Paleoindian site and
Jeffrey’s Ledge. Pp. 182–190, In C. Chapdelaine (Ed.).
Late Pleistocene Archaeology and Ecology in the Far
Northeast. Texas A&M University Press, College Station,
TX, USA.
Robinson, B.S., J.C. Ort, W.A. Eldridge, A.L. Burke,
and B.G. Pelletier. 2009. Paleoindian aggregation
and social context at Bull Brook. American Antiquity
74(3):423–447.