Site RI-118 (also known as Fort Island) is a 17th
century contact period site located on Block Island, Rhode
Island. This site was a palisaded village which was
burned by the English colonial militia in 1636.
While the location of the site has been known for years, this site was not subject to excavation until 1985. Excavations have been conducted since that time by the Public Archaeology Survey Team, under the direction of Dr. Kevin McBride, as part of a long term study of the island's archaeological resources.
The three pottery sherds illustrated above represent the Late Woodland and Contact Period types common in the Long Island Sound region. These types include Shantok Castellated and Niantic Stamped (Rouse 1947; Williams 1972).
Primary historic documents indicate that the Block Island Indians had strong social, political, and economic ties with the mainland tribes New England and Long Island during the early 17th century. Block Island may have served as a focal point for early contact with Dutch and English traders.
Results of neutron activation analysis of ceramics from RI 118 suggest that pots were transported to the site from a variety of locations (Lizee, Neff, and Glasscock 1994). The compositional profiles of the ceramics indicate they originated both coastal and interior sources. In this case, the neutron activation analysis appears to support the ethnohistoric data.
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