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Landscape and Indigenous History
What is known today as the Damariscotta River has played an important role in people’s lives for thousands of years. The culture of the indigenous people who live in the region is inextricably linked to the productive and dynamic estuary system. The timeline below is adapted from the Maine Memory Network (MMN), which is developed and managed by the Maine Historical Society (MHS).
Traditional indigenous territories in and around present-day state of Maine The region was covered by massive ice sheets as much as 5,000 feet thick. Everything was covered except the very tip of Mt. Katahdin, which would have looked like a tiny rock.
Approx. ice margin 14kya
0
Gulf of Maine
100 km
Approximate sea level extent post-glacier
12,000 years ago
The physical character of Maine (both above- and below-ground) was shaped by a changing climate and melting glaciers. This carved out deep estuaries and long, rocky peninsulas, wide valleys, lakes and bogs. The emergent coniferous forest was inhabited by woolly mammoths, herds of mastodons, and giant beavers that built their homes in the wetlands. The first people arrived to Maine, and they followed the caribou using the Saint Lawrence River and the coastal plain of the Maritime Peninsula.
10,000 to 7,000 years ago “Early Archaic Period”
A transition from tundra to boreal forest characterized this period, where the tundra grasses turned to open woodlands. This new environment radically changed how people lived. A more temperate climate allowed deciduous trees to move north and increased the biodiversity of Maine's landscape. People lived in oak-grove, wetland, and floodplain environments. Oaks became the dominant species in the forests and a stable environment changed the lifestyle and culture of indigenous populations. People shifted from a nomadic life to moving in seasonal cycles to specific locations to hunt, fish, and collect food. Patterns of anadromous fish movement became more predictable and abundant, and people on the coast gathered shellfish and captured seabirds, ducks, and geese.
Sea levels became stable and the flow of water brought more fish and shellfish to the coast. Archaic people quickly adapted to the more diverse food chain, and society became more complex. A trade network connected Maine to Massachusetts, Eastern New York, Labrador, and Newfoundland. Technology like the mortar and pestle was used for processing and preserving seeds, nuts, berries, and roots.
2,700 years ago, “Early Woodland Period”
The advent of agriculture, ceramics, and birch-bark canoes created rapid cultural changes and expanded trade networks, and permanent settlements started to emerge in Maine. Today, the most visible evidence of some of these settlements are middens (massive heaps of shells and other debris), the largest of which are found on the Damariscotta Peninsula. The middens give evidence of a varied diet of nuts, berries, waterfowl, deer, moose, bear, beaver, muskrat, porcupine, wolf, fox, otter, marten, fisher, skunk, raccoon, bobcat, alewives, finned fish, shellfish, sturgeon, seal, porpoise, and assorted other foods from this diverse Maine landscape. Maize came to Maine and supplied about 65 percent of the Abenaki diet. In southern Maine, maize combined with a richly productive coastal environment led to a population increase. The Micmac of eastern Maine and New Brunswick were skilled mariners and constructed huge canoes as long as 28 feet that could withstand ocean swells.
16th century
Europeans encountered the native Wabanaki peoples when they arrived on the coast of Maine in the early 1500s. Prior to European arrival, the Wabanaki – "People of the Dawn" – were part of an Algonquian confederation stretching from New England west to the Great Lakes. Technologies were in flux and complex societies had emerged.
17th century to present
French and British colonists conflicted with one another and with native Wabanaki peoples in the century before the American Revolution. European settlements infringed on native land and lifestyles; many Wabanaki were killed or forcibly removed. Maine became an independent state in 1820, and developed an economy based on its natural resources, including industrial manufacturing, lumbering, shipbuilding, fishing, and farming. As “Vacationland,” Maine continues to attract tourists and new residents who are drawn to the forests, waterways, and rugged coastline. The Wabanaki peoples who still inhabit the land are working to renew traditional practices and relationships with culturally significant places in their homelands.
Round Top Farm Land Use History
Round Top Farm is both a working and a recreational landscape. During the colonial period the region was rapidly cleared for farming, and Round Top Farm was no exception. The fields have been farmed for at least 250 years, and at the entrance of the farm is a cemetery with gravestones from the late 1700s. After World War I the farm turned into a dairy operation and opened a locally famous ice cream stand in Damariscotta. In the region, the river supported industries like fishing and shipbuilding, which helped turn the small town of Damariscotta into a regional destination important enough to host the Lincoln County fair until about the 1950s. By 1997 the farm was turned into an arts center where artists used the property to perform, exhibit, and study art. Today, Round Top Farm continues to be a community gathering space, and many stakeholders in town view this place as a valuable community resource. As the newest owners, Coastal Rivers intends to uphold the tradition of being a welcoming community space. The organization offers the land at no cost to local farmers for a weekly farmer's market in the summer, and the farmhouse and barn remain available for both public and private community events and activities.
