NYSAA Bulletin No. 52 — Archaic Sites: Croton Point & Dogan Point — Passage 3 (part 28)

[Various (1971)] It is also weakly represented in southern New England (Ritchie 1969b: 55, 85, 219, 222, 223, 230). In eastern and southern New York, at least, the Orient phase, C-14 dated on Long Island between 1043 B.C. ± 300 years (M--586) and 763 B.C. ± 220 years (W-543), probably overlapped the Frost Island phase, from which it may in part have been a regional development in the New Jersey-northeastern Pennsylvania region, while apparently attaining its climax with an elaborate mortuary ritualism on Long Island (Ritchie 1959: 1965a: 163-177; Kraft 1970; 133-137). I suspect that the burial cult was a later addition to the culture after it became established on Long Island. The known cemeteries are all located in the eastern part of the island, and I believe the burial ceremonialism was adopted, as part of a religious ritualism, from southern New England groups, by Orient voyagers who crossed Long Island Sound for the purpose of obtaining steatite vessels made at the large quarry sites in Rhode Island and Connecticut (Ritchie 1959: 62-64; 1965a: 173).

In southern New England mortuary observances comprising all or most of the attributes known for the Orie nt cemeteries had been well established since Late Archaic times (Dincauze 1966; Robbins 1968; Ritchie 1959: 76-77; 1965a; 173-177). Moreover, certain of the basic mortuary traits survived widely into Early and Middle Woodland cultures of the Northeast (Ritchie 1955; 1965a: 195-198).