By Brian D. Jones, Ph.D. Field Archaeology Supervisor, MPMRC
Archaeology staff and trained contractors spent the past year excavating sites at the Lake of Isles property, approximately 900 acres of rugged upland terrain dominated by a central 90-acre man-made lake, located across Route 2 from Foxwoods Resort Casino. The property was home to the Lake of Isles Boy Scout Camp from the 1950’s through the 1980’s.
After the tribe purchased the land in 1993, testing was conducted to establish the location of significant archaeological resources there and more than 9,300 artifacts were recovered during the excavation of 5,500 shovel test pits. Among 55 sites located during this initial phase of testing, 33 significant ones fell within the footprint of proposed golf course construction. Eleven of these will be protected and avoided, but the remaining twenty-two sites required archaeological excavation to record data that would otherwise be lost. Tens of thousands of additional artifacts, many as small as stone flakes from tool making, were recovered from the recent excavation of approximately 550 square meters (5,900 square feet).
The sites varied from small early prehistoric camps dating to at least 8,500 years ago to large eighteenth and nineteenth century farmsteads and industrial operations. Collectively, they provide an opportunity to examine changing relationships between human settlers and their natural, social and economic environments. Prehistoric locations appear to reflect primarily short-term resource collecting camps established by foragers pursuing game, plant foods, and other useful materials available in local upland and wetland habitat. The larger residential locations supported by these camps were probably within a day’s walk, in Preston Plains and Poquetanuck Cove, for example. The function of these upland support sites is expected to have shifted with climatic and demographic change over time. The Lake of Isles sites therefore provide information concerning an important aspect of the overall economic system of these prehistoric foragers on the broader landscape. An exciting example of this was the discovery of two small sites with stone tools and a selection of raw materials identical to those seen at the extensive 9,000 to 8,500 year old base camp site at Mashantucket known as Sandy Hill. These two sites are the first evidence in Connecticut of this culture off the Reservation and suggest that the Sandy Hill base camp was supported by hunting forays into the nearby hills.
The historic period finds reflect changes in the use of this upland area during the post-colonial era. The land was initially valued for its timber, but as the Euro-American population rapidly increased during the eighteenth century, family subsistence farmers found ways to make a living here despite the rocky soils and steep hillsides of most of the area. By the turn of the nineteenth century individuals dammed the waters of Main Brook and its tributaries to take advantage of the rugged relief of the land by constructing mills. After an apparent population withdrawal, possibly a result of the migrations of the 1820s to the Ohio Territory, commercial farmers appear to have bought up the land and focused production on cattle and sheep herding. Butter, cheese and wool were produced for local markets, though the land still supported the families, their farm hands and their livestock with agricultural products. The historic period sites of the Lake of Isles project area help to document the critical period of economic and social transition that occurred in Connecticut from the pre-Revolutionary War era through the mid-nineteenth century.
Related Article
Historical Research of Lake of Isles Senior Researcher Jason Mancini writes about the companion research conducted on the Lake of Isles site through examination of historical records and documents.
