Abstract

During the past two decades, exploring patterns of lithic material acquisition and exchange has become a significant focus of prehistoric archaeological research on the Maritime Peninsula. Studies have determined sources of specific lithic materials, as well as local and subregional exploitation patterns of those materials. Progress also is being made in tracing distributions of specific exotic materials, and defining suites of lithic materials within specific periods and subregions. Although the details are only now beginning to emerge, it appears that, through time, Native people participated in a series of lithic material acquisition and exchange systems. These systems varied in scale and duration; they sometimes developed within the Maritime Peninsula, and sometimes intersected it from outside. Here we examine variability in the lithic material assemblages of a single point in the Maritimes landscape-the Bliss Islands group, Quoddy Region, N.B.-produced through Native participation in lithic material acquisition and exchange systems from the Terminal Archaic through the Late Maritime Woodland.