| Two central questions are explored: (1) Were New Jersey's coastal lands inhabited by significant numbers of Lenape people in the period when European explorers, traders and colonists were arriving? (2) Or were the Lenape merely nomads, transients or summer visitors with no lasting homelands near the bay and ocean coasts?; Focusing mainly on Monmouth County in the period 1600-1750, the dissertation assembles and analyzes seven kinds of data in order to explore these questions. The data consist of archaeological findings, land sale deeds, early maps, place names, trails information, historical accounts, and Lenape oral history.; Additional data are used to compare coastal ecology and Native American settlement patterns between Maine and Chesapeake Bay, and consider settlement models that scholars have developed in recent decades.; The Monmouth County data are vetted for evidence of hunting, gathering, fishing, food processing, tool-making, cooking, trash disposal, ceremonial functions, burials, shelter, trade, socio-political organization, land-selling strategies, and other indications of lifeways and locations. The evidence is inter-woven geographically to identify significant clusters, weigh the comparative diversity of archaeological artifacts and features, and trace apparent inter-relationships and divisions of labor. Indicators of sedentism, settlement and subsistence are used to identify likely locations of habitation and connected resource sites.; The principal findings are that: (1) no eyewitnesses exist for the old tale that the county's coastal areas had a mostly temporary population that made summer treks from the Delaware Valley; (2) these areas were well-suited for year-round life by the Lenape; (3) the density, volume and variety of data about Lenape life and locations are enough, by themselves, to confirm a substantial native presence; and (4) at least eight probable habitations are identified and documented, and likely patterns of land use and subsistence patterns are hypothesized in detail for two of them.; The conclusions are that earlier ideas about limited coastal settlement were based on historical, archaeological and ecological misconceptions, that the coastal zone was regularly inhabited by relatively sedentary population up to early colonial times, and that two sets of Lenape people seemed to have two different settlement strategies along the Delaware River and along the coast. |
