Archaeology on Hurricane Island
2025 Dates
August 17-23
Program
The remains of late nineteenth century granite mining and finishing operations at Hurricane Island are a testament to a very recent instance of humans' enduring relationship with stone. In 1870 this island was transformed into a "company town," providing finished granite structural and architectural components for buildings and monuments across the United States. Several millennia earlier, coastal tribes such as the Micmac and Abenaki -- using stone tools -- fished and hunted in the same areas where Maine's granite business was later active, including the works at Hurricane Island. This transition allows us to consider the legacy of human beings as stone-working creatures across time, and how the many varieties and processes involved in stone quarrying and refinement inform sociality and social structures, such as trade, consumption and population. Taking an historical-ecological approach, this summer's archaeological field program will embrace the challenge of looking at humans' relation with stone across millenia, as made manifest by the material remains at Hurricane Island.
Course Objectives
In this four day course, students will become familiar with the archaeological history of granite production and Wabanaki presence at Hurricane Island as well as the wider coastal environment. We will continue to survey and map the island’s many remaining anthropogenic features, with a particular emphasis upon botanical remains and questions pertaining to public health. We will also conduct excavation work on selected locations in order to determine the extent of Wabanaki presence, and also to gain a more nuanced understanding of the lives and habits of the significant granite working population which peaked in the late 1800’s, and which has limited historical documentation.
Reports from Previous Programs:
Instructor:
Jeff Benjamin Jeff Benjamin is an archaeologist and artist living and working in the Catskill Mountains of New York. His work is concerned with the sensory and emotive aspects of American industrialization. He holds a PhD in archaeology from Columbia University.
Cost and Logistics
$1,250/adult for the week ($125 non-refundable deposit due at time of registration). This cost includes transportation between Rockland and Hurricane Island, all food and housing, all programming, and all facilities use during the week. Please plan to arrive at the Rockland Ferry Terminal early enough to check in with us to get your (provided) ferry tickets, and prepared to board the ferry on time for the 1pm departure (an hour ahead is recommended). You will need to find and, if necessary, pay for vehicle parking. More information can be found on our website here.
““Archaeology has the propensity to collapse time; to bring researchers into direct contact with the time periods of the objects and sites being researched. In a certain sense, artifacts carry their respective temporalities with them, causing the archaeologist themself to live in a temporal space consisting of multiple textures, paces, horizons. For this reason, archaeology can bring the past into the heart of the present, and archaeological finds are often relevant to contemporary narratives and concerns.””
About Hurricane Island's Granite Quarry:
By 1826 the quality of Vinalhaven's granite was discovered, which started a 100-year period when the area was one of Maine's largest quarrying centers. The granite quarry on Hurricane Island opened in 1870 and operated until 1914. During that time, the island hosted thousands of people who lived and worked on Hurricane. The remnants of their life can be easily spied all over the island in the form of granite foundations, large iron quarrying equipment, and discarded granite carvings, but no formal inventory has been made to document the smaller artifacts around the island.
