The precontact village at St. Croix (BfDa-1), Nova Scotia: explorations of site size and stratigraphic integrity

Milner, Cameron A. (2014) The precontact village at St. Croix (BfDa-1), Nova Scotia: explorations of site size and stratigraphic integrity. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The St. Croix site in Hants County, Nova Scotia, offers archaeologists a glimpse into life among Native communities during the Woodland Period. Within the modern community of St. Croix, a small clearing in an undisturbed forested area was excavated in 1990 and 1993 and found to be rich in cultural material dating to the full breadth of the Woodland Period. Field work in 2012 expanded on earlier work by extending the excavation to the end of the undisturbed forested area and into the larger St. Croix community. Areas affected by modern activities such as plowing were tested to determine the quality of the archaeological record after decades of domestic cultivation. Analyses of recovered ceramics, lithic artifacts and palaeoethnobotanical remains are comparable to previous work, revealing a site utilized throughout the Woodland Period. Currently known boundaries of the site within the undisturbed forest area are extended approximately 60m north and areas once thought irrevocably destroyed are now archaeologically viable with the discovery of a thin undisturbed occupation layer. St. Croix continues to represent a place of great archaeological wealth and represents one of the most important Woodland Period sites in the province.

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