Descriptions of village layouts, locations and sizes are virtually
nonexistent. What information there is, along with some suggested
interpretations, is offered as follows:
Both Champlain’s map and drawings of Wampanoag houses at Plymouth
harbor suggest that the summer coastal settlements were laid out with
each family’s house (or in some cases, probably each wife’s house)
being located amid or beside its field.[317] Average field size was
probably about one acre.[318] Drawings made by Champlain show fields
fenced with parallel poles placed upright in the manner of a low
stockade.[319] It was in these summer villages that the Wampanoags
spent the most time during the year.[320] Actually, a family might
make one or two moves during the summer, although staying in the same
general area. When the fields planted later in the season were too
far away for convenience, the family would move into another house
near the field they were currently cultivating. Another resident of
southern coastal New England, the flea, sometimes prompted a shift in
residence during the summer. Fleas lived in the dust in the houses,
and when they became unbearable an Indian family would move to a
fresh dwelling.[321]
Reports of visitors to the southern New England coast prior to the
plague give the impression that settlements of the “summer village”
type were strung out all along the coast.[322] Settlements apparently
were variable in size.[323] Writers who made this observation may
have been looking both at actual variation in total group size and
at seasonal variation in population concentration and dispersal.
The most concentrated settlements were the winter villages.[324]
A longhouse in one of the winter villages might shelter 40 or 50
people; there is no indication as to the number of longhouses that
might have been found in such a village.[323]
Fall hunting encampments were, like the summer settlements,
dispersed. Men moved onto the lands to which they had the hunting
rights. Since more land was needed for hunting than farming, the
spread of dwellings would have been much thinner. As for the spring
fishing camps, it is known only that large numbers of people gathered
at them; sources give no hint of settlement pattern.