U & D

The economy is on the mind of everyone it seems. When I was growing up, I saved pennies. One by one, they were counted – and they counted for something (usually candy or ice cream…). Today we are again counting pennies in our house. Which has brought to mind The Maine Penny. If you have never heard of it, check out Wikipedia – we’ll come back to the quality of this source.

First of all, this could not be a “Maine” penny. There was no Maine when the coin was coined over 965 years ago. Furthermore, “penny” was not the name of a Norse coin – the word itself has its roots in Old English. Uh oh – that could come from Norse, couldn’t it? It turns out there is a connection, although all connections run through Britain or Ireland. There is, of course, the famous silver penny of Anlaf Guthfrithssonon, which dates from around 11,000 BP, even before “our” penny. So we have to allow “penny,” whatever that means.

A Journey Through Maine calls our penny the Norse Penny and labels it an important primary source. It is, yes, a primary source, more because it is an original, an artifact, than because it tell us much of anything. Or does it?

According to Journey, “a Viking coin from about A.D. 1000 was found in Brooklin…The Vikings settled in Greenland and Iceland, and even lived for a time in several places between Newfoundland and Massachusetts. Indian tribes who lived in what is now Canada probably got the coin from the Vikings and traded it to the Wabanaki (p 47).” What are about and probably doing in a history text? And didn’t the Micmac and the Passamaquoddy live in both what is now Canada and in what is now Maine? Does this validate that the Wabanaki were (at least) in what is now Maine shortly before 1000 BP? Can we rely on a probably?

Does a text saying it is so make it so?

Some archaeological reports name important artifacts from their site names. This particular coin was found at what is called the Goddard Site. We learn this detail from Finding Katahdin (p. 25), which tells us that the coin was minted between 1065 and 1080 (943-928 BP). It also gives us another probably: “The coin probably traveled to mid-coast Maine through the early Native trade networks.”

early Native?? Were the Wabanaki then a late arrival at Blue Hill Bay? This does not jibe with our timelines, which place the Natives in what is now Maine well over 12,000 BP. Or with the Native memory, which places them here from creation. Perhaps this text means that the trade routes were “early.” That makes more sense, but what about trading over the previous 11,000 years? One little word can be demeaning and misleading, especially in a text

From The Maine State Museum’s article on the Goddard Norse Coin (they have the coin in their collection), we learn that “there is a good deal of evidence that the Goddard village was an important hub within a far-ranging native trade network, one which brought goods from as far away as Pennsylvania, the Great Lakes and Labrador to the site. Thus, we think the most likely explanation for the coin’s presence is that it was obtained by natives somewhere else, perhaps in Newfoundland where the only known New World Norse settlement has been found at L’Anse aux Meadows, and that it eventually reached the Goddard site through native trade channels.” This works nicely with Journey’s side note and map of Wabanaki Trade Routes (p 49). When we study the canoe route maps in The Wabanakis of Maine & the Maritimes (D 20-21), we can see that this trade would certainly have been possible – by water. Were canoes available to the Wabanakis 1000 BP?

Yes, for at least 1200 years before 1000 BP (verify this at any or all of the timelines for Wabanaki studies). So we are beginning to see some credible evidence for widespread trading based upon canoe routes, well before the Vikings appeared on the coast of Newfoundland.

From Vinland Archaeology’s review of the L’Anse aux Meadows site, we learn that the silver penny was indeed a Norse coin, and also that this important Viking site contains carved stone artifacts from Newfoundland’s Dorset Eskimo culture – and so does the Goddard Site. Therefore, “archeologists believe this penny probably arrived in Maine as an interesting curio by native trade from Labrador or Newfoundland rather than by a Norse ship.” If you want to view the Viking site, you can do so in 360 at this wonderful Unesco site, WHTour.org. Take the time to create a free account, then click on Planisphere, then Eastern Canada. You will find a popup link (one of the circles) for Anse aux Meadows.

From Historic Newfoundland and Labrador (selection), and from Exploring Our Past, we learn that the Dorset Eskimo culture, from its paleo-Indian beginnings, was noted – and distinct – for carved stone tools and animal figures. Moreover, we learn that the Dorset living in Newfoundland 1000 BP, at the time of the Norse explorations/settlements, coexisted with at least two different cultures, the Recent Indian (that is the real name!) culture and the Beothuk. It was the Recent Indian culture that further evolved, in Labrador and then south along the cost, the use of Ramah chert, a stone first used extensively by the Middle Dorset from northern Labrador, with whom they must have traded. The Beothuk were devastated by diseases shortly after European contact and became “extinct.” Or perhaps the Recent Indians, with whom they culturally overlapped, assimilated the Beothuk. There is a great deal of confusion about these three cultural groups (read about it here) – but not about the fact that Ramah chert was actively traded over a wide range, by a variety of Native cultures and over at least 1000 years.

At any rate, the Recent Indian culture survived Contact and Ramah chert tools have been found in coastal Maine. There is an image of a Ramah chert long knife available from both Windows on Maine and Maine Memory Network and you can find a map of chert trade distribution here and a more extensive discussion of why Ramah chert was so widely traded at the Canadian main site. Good readers will enjoy this discussion of flaking a large piece of chert – and will be rewarded with a clue as to why it was so actively traded.

We learn more about the trade of stone and other artifacts in Lesson 7 (.pdf download) of the Passamaquoddy Kit.

It is looking more certain than probably that the Wabanakis traded with either the Norse, the Recent Indians of Labrador/Newfoundland, the Beothuk, or the Middle Dorset. Or with all of them.

Now – back to Wikipedia. Their entry on the Maine Penny ends: “The most plausible explanation is that the coin was purchased by a collector and planted at the Goddard Site.”

As an educator, you know that Wikipedia is the most common “reference” for most middle and high school students. In this case, it is not correct. And we have two Maine history texts and a Canadian online history that imply that the Wabanakis were recent additions to the Native landscape. History is certainly uncertain, but it should not diminish the value of a culture or population.

Lesson? Send students on a research journey, like the one I have taken. Push them to ask questions about their reading, especially about Wikipedia and about “fuzzy facts.” Make sure that they cross-reference and make use of timelines and artifact-rich resources. Guide to them find keywords in each piece of text – call these “Clues.”

There is more online that educators might think, although some of it will require translation.

I will be following other topics this summer – and you might do so too. Please share your journeys and the resources they uncover.