The Jones Cove site generated a great deal of interest both about archaeology and about the Abbe Museum. Visitors came to watch and the New York Times reported on the excavation.

The Jones Cove shell midden in eastern Maine was the Abbe Museum's very first excavation. The excavation took place in August 1928, the same month that the museum opened at Sieur de Monts Spring. The dig, along with the new museum, generated a great deal of interest in both archaeology and local Indian history.

Dr. Warren K. Moorehead directed the dig for the Abbe. Moorehead was curator at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology in Andover, Massachusetts, and had conducted archaeological surveys and excavations in Maine for 20 years.

"Did they chew gum?"
We don't know. Today many people enjoy spruce gum—the resin from the spruce trees that hardens into a bitter, chewable gum. This gum, also known as pitch, was historically used by Native Americans to seal their birchbark canoes.

"Did they hunt whales?"
You will find evidence in this online exhibit that indicates that Native Americans made use of whales, either hunted or scavenged as beached carcasses.