The Seboomook Lake Field School, under the direction of Dr. Richard Will and Abbe curator Rebecca Cole-Will, continued the Abbe’s archaeological research.

Seboomook Lake is located in northwestern Maine, north of Moosehead Lake. It is a manmade lake, created when the Penobscot River was dammed to create a sluiceway to carry logs downriver in 1893. Historically, the area was important to the lumbering industry and Great Northern Paper Company logged it for many years.

But for thousands of years before that, Native people traveled along the Penobscot River and this area was important to them. Seboomook Lake is located at the confluences of the North and South Branches of the Penobscot River. Think of it as one of the large rest stops off a very long stretch of highway.

Native canoeists camped at the junction of the river’s branches. From here, they could travel north to the St. John River, and eventually to the St. Lawrence River. Paddling east, they could follow the West Branch of the Penobscot and end up in Penobscot Bay.

From many years of surveys done along lakes and rivers in Maine, we know that people lived and traveled these watery highways. At Seboomook Lake, sites are found at “intersections” - places where the rivers met or where a stream emptied into a larger river.

Burned turtle bones were preserved in the shallow, acidic soils at the site. The bones are tiny pieces of the shells of painted and snapping turtles. From this information, we know that people were living there during the summer when they could easily catch swimming or basking turtles.

The people traveled or traded to get distinctive red rock from the Munsungan Lake region to make their tools. This rock, a fine-grained shiny stone called chert, outcrops in a region northeast of Seboomook Lake visited by Native flintknappers for 12,000 years. They prized the rock for its fine qualities to make tools. They could reach Munsungan Lake by canoe routes.