The Swordfish Hunters: The History and Ecology of an Ancient American Sea People Hardcover – October 17, 2012

I use "The Swordfish Hunters" as a reference in my own archaeological research.

Great book. Easily relatable to local sites. Well written and easy to understand.

This book is about the red paint people that hunted swordfish in the northern east coast. Very interesting of what they left behind and don't know what happen to them.

I think anyone reading this book should understand that Bourque's theories are not only controversial, but are at the center of the State of Maine's legal arguments attempting to undermine Penobscot Indian treaty rights to the Penobscot River and other related issues being undermined by this state archaeologist's assertions that the living tribes of Maine are later arrivals who replaced a more advanced "Red Paint" culture. It reminds me of the 19th century historians who claimed the Indians of the Mississippi Valley could not be descended from the "Mound Builders" who were more civilized. Beware anthros who claim to be the ultimate authority of other cultures, especially the ones who represent the state's agenda. Interesting read, but I think the skepticism of a majority of archaeologists is well warranted.

Excellent write up on the subject. Very thorough and thoughtful book on the Swordfish hunters. Illustrations also good. Recommend to those interested in the subject.

The Swordfish Hunters, Great book, Good Author, I've enjoyed all of Bruce Bourques books!!!!They make me homesick for Maine's awesome historical and archaeological history!!!Bill Cote

I purchased this book expecting to learn of a unique ancient culture that once existed along the coast of Maine. I learned very little about these people. Instead, I felt as if I were reading Bourque's doctoral thesis and his defense of it. The bulk of the book seemed to be more concerned with analytical techniques, suppositions and premises than it did with the ancient peoples themselves. Perhaps my expectations were misplaced. After all, this was an apparently localized group along the mid-Maine coast that lived about 5,000 years ago. Nevertheless, if you are hoping to find out who these people were, what their culture was like and how they lived, you, as I, may end up disappointed.

About 3,800 years ago the "Red Paint" peoples of Maine seem to have left their homes of the previous thousand years, and faded away. Building a picture of their lives, customs and how the tribe fitted within the overall evolution of Native American lives in the North-East was made more difficult for two significant reasons. The first is that the coastal region of the time, where many of their encampments were built, has now been submerged and subject to the stormy erosion of the North Atlantic, so that little of that evidence remains. Further the chemistry of the soils tends to dissolve bone remnants, so that there are few skeletal remains that have survived the millennia. There is thus very little evidence of either their lifestyle, or the causes of their departure from the scene. Fortunately some of the burials were made in the large shell middens found along the coast, where the shell chemistry prevented bone dissolution, and helped show that the lenses of red ocher that had been found along the rivers and coast of the state were often all that was left of early cemeteries.Dr. Bourque builds a credible, and lucidly explained case for his analysis of their lives, based on excavations of these cemeteries. He ranges outside the simple archaeological descriptions of the grave contents into an integrated analysis that includes the likely habitat, and cultural significance of the swordfish, whose remnants are associated with the camps. Swordfish hunting is not normally a part of early Native American life, nor that any other culture of the time, and the likely reason for it is explored. It is integrated with the presence of Ramah chert projectile points, which come from Labrador, in the graves, to show the seafaring nature of the peoples, a conclusion strengthened by their use of stone gouges, which would hollow out their canoes.The book well compliments the historic displays at the Maine State Museum in Augusta, where Bruce Bourque is the Curator of Archaeology, yet can stand alone as giving an easily read story of the detective work needed to describe a peoples long gone and almost forgotten.