EUROPEAN IMPACTS ON THE NATIVE FLORA OF NORTH HAVEN ISLAND, CENTRAL MAINE COAST

Predominantly agricultural North Haven Island lies off the central Maine coast adjacent to the larger and better-known Vinalhaven, and is the locus of the regionally important Turner Farm archeological site. Multiple cores were raised from a small coastal sedge-cattail marsh adjacent to the site in 2010 and 2011, and are subjects of ongoing detailed palynological and macrofossil study to evaluate the impacts of human populations on the native environment over the past 5000 years. Most recent evaluation has been of European impacts on the native vegetation, and comparisons of the modern forest composition to that which existed prior to colonization and near-complete deforestation of the 19th Century, as documented in Core 3 from 2011.

The 5-cm diameter core was sampled at 2-cm intervals for both pollen and plant macrofossils through the uppermost 32 cm (C-14 date pending), which preliminary study indicated would show this transition. Pollen samples of ~1 ml each were taken at odd-numbered depths (1, 3, 5 cm, etc.), whereas plant macrofossil samples consisted of remaining core segments between even-numbered depths (0-2, 2-4 cm, etc.). Plant macrofossil samples thus represent all identifiable remains in a volume of ca. 36 ml; pollen samples were taken from the center of the correlative macrofossil samples.

Dominant identifiable plant macrofossils from the core consist of conifer needles and seeds. Prior to European settlement, forest surrounding the marsh was dominated by balsam fir with subsidiary but common spruce and Eastern hemlock, as well as subsidiary pine. Paper and/or gray birch was an important local hardwood. The European period abruptly begins at a depth of 22 cm, above which needles all but disappear from the sediments. Grass seeds become more abundant here although sedges are consistently represented by seeds across the boundary; rare seeds of raspberries and elderberries are found both above and below the boundary. Modern forest surrounding the marsh consists of white spruce and birch; other conifers are rare or absent.

Ongoing pollen study will add knowledge of hardwoods that may have been present in the native forest but are unrepresented in the macrofossil record; ongoing evaluation of Coleopteran (beetle) remains and foraminifera will yield detailed information of changes in the marsh itself.