In archeological literature, the name Boylston Street Fishweir refers to ancient fishing structures first discovered in 1913, buried below Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts. Reports written in 1942 and 1949 describe what was thought to be remains of one large fishweir, 2,500 years old, made of up to 65,000 wooden stakes distributed over an estimated of the former mud flat and marshland in what is now the Back Bay section of Boston. A different interpretation of these findings is offered by new evidence and contemporary archeological research techniques.
Fish weir description and use
Throughout the world, fish weirs, wooden fence-like structures built to catch fish, are used in tidal and river conditions as a passive method to trap fish during the cycle from low to high tide, or in river flow. Fish weirs built in places of large tidal change, between ebb and flow, are built with vertical support poles holding woven nets. Fish weirs in shallow estuaries water, or in small streams, may be built with vertical stakes and the horizontal structure, called wattling, made of brushwork to form a rough barrier at mid-tide depth.
Fish weirs have been used in coastal areas by indigenous peoples in all parts of the world. Fish weirs have been discovered dating back to 7,500 years BP. In some locations, such as in Yap, Federated States of Micronesia, fish weirs are still built and used today. Along the coast of developed areas of North America and Europe permits are now required to build a fish weir. Depending on fish populations in an area, and local maritime use, fish weir construction may be prohibited entirely. This has been an issue of concern to Native American tribal groups along the New England coast.
History of discovery in Boston
In 1913, subway workers tunneling under Boylston Street to extend Boston’s early subway system discovered wooden stakes in the blue-gray glacial clay, below street level. Workers destroyed many of the stakes, but enough evidence was gathered at the time that researchers thought they had found one large fish weir, thought to have been built 2,000 years earlier. This discovery was first described in a report by the Boston Transit Commission in June 1913.
Fish weir discovery continued in 1939, with archeological investigations led by Frederick Johnson during foundation excavation for the New England Mutual Life Building at 501 Boylston Street. Long sequences of wooden stakes, buried under tidal silt and an additional of 19th-century Back Bay fill, were found passing through the site and continuing on under surrounding streets. Maps were drawn that described a fish weir covering more than of the former marshland below Boston's Back Bay – suggesting the existence of one very large fish weir with over 65,000 wooden stakes. The imagined scale of this fish weir led scholars to speculate that it was built at one time by a community of appreciable size. This fish weir was described as the earliest known large-scale engineering effort in North America. Drawings and models were made based on the findings and show the fish weir built in deep water, maintained by men working from mishoons (log canoes). This interpretation may have been informed by the type of fish weirs known to be still in use in the 1940s by Native peoples in the Canadian Bay of Fundy.
Archeological research continued in 1946 during the construction of the John Hancock Building. At this site, vertical wood stakes, long, were found in parallel linear orientations. Researchers thought they were seeing remains of long wooden structures built across streams on ancient tidal flats. This evidence suggested weirs built to trap seasonal spawning fish in shallow water tidal areas. Harvesting of fish was now thought to have been done by hand, by wading out from shore, or waiting until low tide to collect the stranded fish.