Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Orient Burial

The Orient Site is one of four known Orient Period (1,300 - 1,000 BC) burials on eastern Long Island. The cultural period receives its name from the fish shaped projectile points with distinct shoulders. During this period, the areas used for ceremonial burials were greatly removed from habitation areas, suggesting a reverence for their preservation. Oral stories support this hypothesis. Early communities of the Orient Period deliberately chose high hilltops separated from their daily villages to inter their dead with distinctive fishtail projectile points. Recognizing this intentional geographic separation of sacred spaces from domestic ones reveals the deep spiritual care and complex cosmologies guiding Long Island's earliest Indigenous inhabitants. The Orient Site is one of four known Orient Period (1,300 - 1,000 BC) burials on eastern Long Island. The cultural period receives its...