Maritime Culture Patterns and Animal Symbolism in Eastern Maine

Abstract Coastal and maritime environments provide a whole series of environmental and geographical factors that are integrated into our understanding of past cultural landscapes. These include both advantageous factors such as enhanced bone preservation associated with shell, as well as more deleterious factors such as site loss from sea-level rise. Good preservation can provide opportunities to explore archaeologically the ritual aspects of human—animal relationships—distinguished from more utilitarian aspects of subsistence processing—for which substantial records of oral traditions and beliefs exist. Here we focus on examples from recent excavations on Machias Bay and Frenchman Bay in Maine, spanning 4000 years.