Rising relative sea level since circa 12,500 cal BP has submerged all archaeological evidence of Paleoindian, Early and Middle Archaic, and early Late Archaic use of the Gulf of Maine shoreline.  We are left with stone tools and some fossil shellfish beds on the submerged landscape.   The submerged archaeological record is primarily investigated by scallop draggers recovering stone tools and archaeologists recording the locations and other information, a fact realized by David Black and others in the 1980s.  Subsequent diving and geological characterization of several “site” locations provide some context to Archaic use of the inundated shoreline.  This paper reviews the inundated archaeological record of the Gulf of Maine and speculates about subsistence and settlement patterns.

Writing the history of archaeology involves a systematic study of past events and the development of archaeological theories and practices. It also involves analyzing the contributions that individual archaeologists have made to the development of archaeology through time. Historians of archaeology use various sources such as diaries, letters, published works, and archaeological reports to reconstruct the history of the discipline and its contributors. However, another path to study the contributions of researchers is through the use of a biobibliography. A combination of a biographical sketch and bibliography, biobibliographic analyses can provide a comprehensive overview of an individual's life and work. This approach is particularly useful in shedding light on the social, political, and intellectual contexts in which archaeology developed, and helps to provide a more nuanced understanding of the history of archaeology and the development of archaeological theories and practices. In the history of New Brunswick archaeology, one of those contributors is David Black who over the last four decades, has greatly expanded our knowledge and understanding of the archaeological history of the Maritime Peninsula. In this paper, I take a biobibliographic approach to re-examine David’s published works and discuss their influence on archaeological thought and practitioners in the region.

Many archaeologists believe that culture history is a paradigm whose time has come and gone and should be “excise[d]…from contemporary archaeology” (e.g,. Feinman and Neitzel 2020). The many critiques of classic culture history are valid, especially aspects of cultural uniformity, biological and cultural correspondence, and processes of cultural change. While we do not argue for retaining such outmoded and refuted aspects of the paradigm, we believe that culture history, as a means of description, classification, and time-space systematics, is critical to archaeology as a discipline. Moreover, in the Atlantic Provinces Region, where so much of the variability in the archaeological record remains to be assessed, a commitment to culture history is crucial. Building on the seminal work of Dr. David Black, we present a culture history of the Maritime Woodland Period based on recent comparative archaeological work in the region and supported by rigorous radiometric dating. As we hope to demonstrate, such models are critical ontological tools, which are vital for framing the way we analyze, describe, teach, present, and indeed, explore, the past.