Archaeological sites along the Maine coast show that swordfish existed in the Gulf of Maine between approximately 5,500 and 3,700 years ago. Excavations at multiple Maine sites have produced swordfish rostra, vertebrae, and other remains, indicating that Wabanaki ancestors harvested and processed these large fish for millennia. In this presentation, Dr. Bonnie Newsom will discuss the presence of swordfish in Wabanaki homeland and what these archaeological data reveal about past marine conditions, Wabanaki fishing practices, and how climate change affected local ecosystems. Through archaeological study of swordfish remains from the Gulf of Maine, we can appreciate the sophisticated relationship Indigenous peoples had with swordfish specifically, and the marine environment more broadly.

Dr. Bonnie Newsom is a member of the Penobscot Nation and an archaeologist interested in the pre-contact lifeways of Wabanaki peoples. She is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Associate Faculty in the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine. She and her husband Les are both military veterans and they live in Eddington, Maine.

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