Note on Salwen's Comment on “Archaeological Potential of the Atlantic Continental Shelf”

Abstract

In a recent note, Salwen challenges Emery and Edwards, who earlier reiterated a suggestion by Byers and others that absence of marine shells in low levels of some Atlantic Coast middens might record “failure of the local inhabitants to learn to eat marine mollusks.” Salwen's “environmental” explanation for this phenomenon is challenged in turn. Further, in a list of drowned and near-drowned sites in the Northeast that he curiously says “can be considerably expanded,” his most recent citation is 14 years old, and he ignores more recent work. Finally, his belief that peat layers may protect artifact assemblages and preserve drowned coastal sites in “relatively undisturbed” condition is questioned.