Eastern North American Archaeology

If belief drives behavior, what did first nations peoples believe? Though a material approach attempts to bridge the gap, other disciplines such as philology may be of assistance and compatible with a strict material diagnostic. This paper marries material evidence and current theory with immaterial evidence from other disciplines for a working model to understand the most basic questions as to why there were people in America before Columbus.

This report describes the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (CMNH) Archaeology Department excavations at the White Fort site (33Ln2) in Lorain County, Ohio from 1995 through 1998 and finally in 2002. White Fort is series of late Precontact village components dating between AD 1200 and 1550. All field work was carried out in conjunction with the Archaeology Department's Field Experience and summer Field School programs in cooperation with the Lorain County Metro Parks. The project was directed by the author with the assistance of the late Barbara Barrish and Mark Kollecker.

Sophisticated diagnostics have allowed archaeologists to make great inroads in understanding America's First people. At the same time, modern archaeology has assumptions about reality that have limited its scope and ability to integrate other disciplines into its theories, disciplines that would clarify and cement a harmony of the disparate and isolated work sites into a model of global proportions. If beliefs determine behavior, it runs near impossible to paint a holistic picture as to what drove the complex peopling of America from the material record alone.  This paper marries material evidence and current theory with immaterial evidence from other disciplines for a working model to understand the most basic questions as to why there were people in America before Columbus. This paper was originally submitted for scholastic review in 2014.

Bassett, Hayden F. (2021). Book Review: The Archaeology of Virginia’s First Peoples. edited by Elizabeth A. Moore and Bernard K. Means, Richmond, The Archaeological Society of Virginia, 2020, v, 301 pp., ill., maps. $40.00 (paper), ISBN: 979-8696091860

This paper is a remembrance of the Slack Farm site (15UN28). It considers the 1987 events that led to its looting, the work of collecting evidence for the Kentucky State Medical Examiner's Office carried out by archaeologists and the volunteers who helped them, the role Native people played in the project, and what ultimately happened - to the looters, the artifacts, the site protection laws in Kentucky and surrounding states, and the site itself.  This essay was submitted to the Archaeology For the People accessible archaeology writing contest sponsored by the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University in 2014. It was selected as one of five meritorious runner-up essays from a field of about 150 entries.

My dissertation focuses on the Paleoindian period in the New England and Canadian Maritimes region [NEM].

Using a multi-scalar approach, this dissertation investigates the Paleoindian occupations of the NEM with a focus on adaptive strategies related to environmental factors and the potential role that caribou played in Paleoindian subsistence. I analyze individual sites, geographic clusters of sites, sub-regions, and regional study areas. A data set inclusive of southern New England was obtained through three methodologies: my own excavations in Connecticut; reanalyses of Connecticut Paleoindian sites; and collaboration with researchers who shared data on Paleoindian sites in the Northeast. By bringing to bear a plethora of analytical methodologies on a wealth of data from sites throughout the NEM, this dissertation intends to illuminate the adaptive strategies central to Paleoindian life in the NEM.

The archaeological record of Northern Iroquoian peoples contributes to global questions about ethnogenesis, the emergence of settled village life, agricultural intensification, the development of complex organizational structures, and processes of cultural and colonial entanglement. In the last decade, the rapid accumulation of data and the application of contemporary theoretical perspectives have led to significant advances in Iroquoian archaeology, including new insights about how demographic, ecological, and cultural processes intersect at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Internal and external factors accelerated processes of cultural change, particularly during periods of conflict, coalescence, and encroachment. This review considers the historical development of Northern Iroquoian societies from the beginning of the Late Woodland through the colonial era. The dynamism of the settlement landscape is highlighted, together with the fluidity of sociopolitical identities

Proponents of a Solutrean colonization of the New World, and a pre-LGM occupation of North America's Mid-Atlantic region, cite as evidence a bifacially flaked, bi-pointed stone blade allegedly dredged from the continental shelf by the crew of the vessel Cinmar, along with portions of a mastodon skeleton later directly dated to 22,760 ± 90 RCYBP. However, our investigations into the discovery found several significant inconsistencies with respect to what is currently reported in the literature and raise serious questions that must be addressed before the Cinmar artifact can be considered evidence of anything pertinent to archaeology. In this article we present evidence and questions regarding the history of the Cinmar discovery, the location of the Cinmar discovery site, and the nature of the Cinmar vessel itself.

The chapter appears in the 2018 publication In the Eastern Fluted Point Tradition Volume II, edited by Joseph Gingerich. (https://uofupress.lib.utah.edu/in-the-eastern-fluted-point-tradition-2/). 

The chapter compares the Late Paleoindian Hidden Creek Site to the Middle Paleoindian Ohomowauke Site. The chapter highlights aspects of raw material use, toolkit composition, and camp site organization at the two Paleoindian sites.

The Prosperity site (36WH1408) and John I. Dunn site (36GR96/36WH706) were discovered during a cultural resource survey conducted by Christine Davis Consultants in southern Washington County and northern Greene County. A total of 52 archaeological sites were recorded during the survey, including 40 upland "lithic scatters." Additional survey conducted on two of these "lithic scatters" resulted in the recovery of significant Paleoindian components, although neither site conformed to traditional settlement pattern models for this period.

The Culloden Acres site was excavated in 1990 as part of a project investigating small, fluted point related sites. One goal was to correct biases in previous work that had focussed on larger sites, ones dominated by biface recoveries, and locations near the pro-glacial Lake Algonquin strandline. Another goal was to explore characteristics of small sites that others had suggested were advantageous to finding out about past peoples’ lives. Smaller sites are more likely to represent short-term occupations. Hence, they have a greater probability of having intact spatial patterning with tools deposited in locations where they were actually used and inform us about how activities, and potentially labour, were organized. Two main areas of activity were delineated at the site. One area was dominated solely by fluted point manufacturing debris and the other was dominated by trianguloid end scrapers, which many lines of evidence suggest are hide-working tools. Comparable contrasting spatial distributions of this kind are suggested within and between loci at several other Paleo sites in southern Ontario and elsewhere and potential reason for such spatial organizations are reviewed. Although no fluted points were recovered, raw material preferences and comparisons to other site assemblages, notably of the channel flakes and end scrapers recovered, suggest that Culloden is an early dating Gainey Phase associated Paleo site.

It has recently been proposed that lowered lake levels after 4250 BP broadened opportunities for mobility and interaction patterns among hunter-gatherer populations in the Saginaw drainage and in Michigan more broadly ). Here, data are presented on chipped stone reduction strategies as reflected in two site assemblages in Bay City, Michigan (20BY28, 20BY387) that bridge this key point in time. The earliest Late Archaic components of these sites, occupied during the higher than modern post Nipissing recession ca. 3200 BP, are typified by on-site reduction of local cherts, often utilising a bipolar reduction strategy. Subsequent uses of the area largely shifted to lower elevations. The more recent site components contain both more diverse projectile styles, many of which can be linked with Ontario types, and higher occurrences of non-local raw materials, specifically Onondaga chert apparently arriving at the site as preforms. The last use of these sites occurred during the Late Woodland, also during lower water levels approaching modern, and reflecting the highest use of Onondaga chert. We suggest that these changes resulted from shifting mobility and exchange patterns, facilitated in part by lowered post Nipissing water levels.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries A.D., processes of settlement aggregation, population relocation, and geopolitical realignment galvanized Iroquoian communities into formative nations. Socio-political changes were brought about by regional patterns of conflict and migration as well as intra-community reorganization as populations met the social, political, and economic challenges of coalescence. These historical events provided the context for the incorporation of St. Lawrence Iroquoians into the Wendat world. This paper employs a conceptual framework that emphasizes historically contingent and multilinear explanations for the development of social complexity. It is argued that these processes of political development in ancestral Wendat society involved the generation of both consensual and asymmetrical power structures between and within ancestral Wendat communities.

Relatively few farmers today actively maintain crop biodiversity, but for most of the history of agriculture this was the norm. Archaeobotanical analyses can reveal the processes that led to the evolution of crop biodiversity throughout the Holocene, an issue of critical importance in an era of climate change and agrobiodiversity loss. Indigenous eastern North Americans domesticated several annual seed crops, called the Eastern Agricultural Complex, beginning c. 1800 BC. Using population morphometrics, this paper reports new evidence for the evolution of a domesticated sub-species of one of these crops, erect knotweed (Polyongum erectum L.), and its subsequent diversification under cultivation. Morphometric analyses were conducted on archaeological erect knotweed populations spanning its ancient cultivated range, and these were directly dated to c. 1–1350 AD, anchoring the evolution of this crop in both time and space. Domesticated erect knotweed first appears c. 1 AD in the Middle Ohio Valley. A diachronic series of populations from western Illinois shows that this species was domesticated again c. 150–1000 AD. This study shows how agricultural knowledge and material were maintained and shared (or not) by communities during an important era in eastern North America's history: when small communities were aggregating to form the earliest urban center at Cahokia, in the American Bottom floodplain. A distinctive landrace was developed by farmers in the American Bottom which is significantly different from cultivated populations in other regions. Subsequent Mississippian assemblages (c. 1000–1350 AD) indicate divergent agricultural communities of practice, and possibly the eventual feralization of erect knotweed. Archaeobotanical studies have a vast untapped potential to reveal interaction between J Archaeol Method Theory https://doi. communities, or their isolation, and to investigate the evolution of crops after initial domestication.

The impact of the Younger Dryas (12,850–11,700 cal yr BP) on Paleoindian populations has been widely debated in the literature. In the Middle Atlantic region of the United States, fluctuations in alluvial and eolian deposition suggest abrupt environmental changes before and after Clovis (13,100–12,800 cal yr BP). In this case study, we examine changes in fluted point frequencies and sediment deposition. Our results show a decline in post-Clovis fluted point forms compared to Clovis. These data are comparable to other studies that suggest a reduction in human populations or population reorganization following Younger Dryas onset. By examining changes in depositional patterns and fluted point frequencies we see no evidence that landscape stability
influenced the use of select drainage basins by Paleoindians. Judged by a general decrease in fluted points the most parsimonious interpretation is that climatic change affected human populations in the Middle Atlantic region.

The Late Prehistoric period of the central Illinois River valley (CIRV) is perhaps best known from the high levels of conflict and violence seen in burial and cemetery contexts. Yet, comparatively little is known about the social context of these violent interactions. This poster presents the results of a pilot study designed to determine whether laser ablation inductively couple plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) can generate data from which meaningful ceramic and clay compositional groupings can be created in the CIRV. Results suggest that LA-ICP-MS is able to create meaningful groupings, and will allow questions about regional mobility to be explored.

A large series of 56 AMS dates are reported from the Davidson site, occupied during both the “Broadpoint” and “Smallpoint” Late Archaic. The focus is on documenting the occupation history of the site itself. The dates on various features often do not match superposition data or associations with diagnostics and provide a case study of the great potential for component mixing on such sites that can go unrecognized without multiple dates on different materials. Despite that evidence, kernel density function models show that overall the dates fall into two more or less distinctive groupings centered at ca. 2250 cal BC, and the 1150 cal BC, matching previous age estimates of the two main components and also suggest an intriguing ca. 300 year gap between those two intensive occupations. The analyses suggest charcoal dates are overestimating the age versus nutshell by about 120 years and that the consistency of dates from particular feature clusters often indicate they represent “integrated series of events.”  The DOI is correct (despite what the link says). The paper is more easily available for free download at: https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/mcja/article/46/2/157/294028/Dating-the-Late-Archaic-at-the-Davidson-Site-AhHk

Long-term interactions between people and places has been a focal point for archaeologists since the beginnings of the discipline. Monuments are one analytical unit of analysis that archaeologists regularly study and interpret as evidence for the ways people organize cooperative labor and inscribe on the landscape their connections to it. However, it is rare to acquire data that affords a rich and long-term description of the landscape before, during, and after a monument was built. In addition, archaeologists who study pre-textual societies are seldom afforded an opportunity to explore detailed questions relating to how monuments were engaged with after social dis-positions toward them changed. In this article we present diverse datasets obtained from a small Middle Woodland (ca. 200 cal BC-cal AD 500) ditch and embankment enclosure in the Middle Ohio Valley, USA. Drawing on those data, we offer a detailed biographical description of the site that illustrates how pre-construction use of the area influenced construction of the enclosure, describes how the enclosure was used after construction, and indicates what happened when the enclosure became evaluated differently in society.

This study uses morphometrics and digital image analysis to document domestication syndrome in an annual seed crop, Polygonum erectum L. (erect knotweed), which was cultivated by Native Americans for c. 2,500 years in eastern North America. This plant is one of several seed crops referred to as the Eastern Agricultural Complex, a pre-maize agricultural system that supported societies in a core area centred on the central Mississippi valley for millennia. The extinct domesticated subspecies P. erectum ssp. watsoniae N. G. Muell. described here, exhibits some classic markers of domestication, including larger fruits and reduced germination inhibitors in comparison to its wild progenitor. Domesticated P. erectum also exhibits greatly reduced germination heteromorphism. Germination heteromorphism is the classic example of evolutionary bet-hedging in plants: wild P. erectum sacrifices maximum fitness per generation for a reduction in fitness variance over many generations. It does so by producing two different types of fruits: ones that germinate immediately in the spring after they are produced (smooth morphs), and ones that remain in the soil seed bank for one or more growing seasons before germinating (tubercled morphs). Tubercled morphs allow populations to recover after adverse events. Under cultivation, the selective pressures that maintained this strategy were relaxed as humans saved seeds and created predictable microenvironments for seedlings, resulting in homogenous harvests and reliable germination for ancient farmers.

Ronald Mason's hypothesis from the 1960s that the southeastern United States possesses greater Paleoindian projectile-point diversity than other regions is regularly cited, and often assumed to be true, but in fact has never been quantitatively tested. Even if valid, however, the evolutionary meaning of this diversity is contested. Point diversity is often linked to Clovis " origins, " but point diversity could also arise from group fissioning and drift, admixture, adaptation, or multiple founding events, among other possibilities. Before archaeologists can even begin to discuss these scenarios, it is paramount to ensure that what we think we know is representative of reality. To this end, we tested Mason's hypothesis for the first time, using a sample of 1,056 Paleoindian points from eastern North America and employing paradigmatic classification and rigorous statistical tools used in the quantification of ecological biodiversity. Our first set of analyses, which compared the Southeast to the Northeast, showed that the Southeast did indeed possess significantly greater point-class richness. Although this result was consistent with Mason's hypothesis, our second set of analyses, which compared the Upper Southeast to the Lower Southeast and the Northeast showed that in terms of point-class richness the Upper Southeast > Lower Southeast > Northeast. Given current chronometric evidence, we suggest that this latter result is consistent with the suggestion that the area of the Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee River valleys, as well as the mid-Atlantic coastal plain, were possible initial and secondary " staging areas " for colonizing Paleoindian foragers moving from western to eastern North America. La hipótesis de Ronald Mason sobre el hecho de que la diversidad de puntas de proyectil es mayor en el SE de los Estados Unidos que en otras regiones se cita habitualmente y se asume con frecuencia como cierta. Sin embargo, nunca ha sido com-probada cuantitativamente. Incluso, aun siendo válida, el sentido evolutivo de tal diversidad es cuestionable. La variabilidad de puntas se relaciona frecuentemente con el " origen " de los Clovis, pero podría obedecer también a la división y deriva del grupo, a la mezcla, a procesos adaptativos, o a múltiples eventos radicados en el sudeste, entre diversas posibilidades. Antes incluso de que tales escenarios puedan comenzar a discutirse desde la Arqueología, es de suma importancia asegurar que lo que creemos saber es representativo de la realidad. Con esta finalidad, hemos comprobado la hipótesis de Mason por primera vez, usando una muestra de 1056 puntas paleoindias del Este de América del Norte, con una clasificación paradigmática y herramientas estadísticas rigurosas para la cuantificación de la diversidad biológica. Nuestro primer conjunto de análisis, que comparaba el SE con el NE, mostraba que la diversidad de las puntas de proyectil en el ámbito suroriental es, incluso, significativamente mayor. A pesar de que este resultado es coherente con la hipótesis de Mason, nuestro segundo conjunto de análisis que comparaba el Sudeste superior frente al inferior y frente al Noreste, mostraba que tal diversidad decrece desde el Sudeste superior hasta el último. Dado las actuales evidencias cronométricas, sugerimos de manera provisional que este resultado es coherente con el sugerencia que la zona de Ohio, Cumberland y el valle del Río Tennessee, así como la llanura costera del Atlántico central fueron posibles " escalas " en la colonización de los recolectores paleoindios, que se desplazaban desde el oeste al este de Norteamérica.

When French explorers first arrived in northwest Louisiana, the local Caddo Indians had already earned a reputation for being important players in the salt trade. Likewise, many western Caddo groups living near the southern Plains were known for their involvement in the horse trade. In the first part of this paper, the relationship between the local salt industry and the introduction of the horse is considered. It is suggested that at least some of the salt made in northwest Louisiana was being fed to horses and other livestock acquired either directly or indirectly from the Spanish. In addition to its potential effect on the salt trade, the introduction of the horse in the southern Plains also spurred an increase in theft and raiding. Historical data suggest that Caddo salt producers may have been worried about such activities from hostile groups like the Osage and Chickasaw. In the second part of this paper, it is argued that these Caddos may have tried to discourage raiding by using salt licks bordered by waterways, by working in close proximity to other salt producers, and by traveling long distances to reach well-protected salt production sites.

This article presents data on chipped stone tool production and distribution at a quarry source area in eastern Quebec. Two chert quarries and a series of related lithic workshops were studied in order to characterize the tool forms being produced during the late prehistoric period. In ...

The earliest widespread pottery in northeastern North America is known as Vinette 1, a designation made by Ritchie and MacNeish (1949) over 60 years ago. While variation exists within this type (Taché 2005), external and internal cordmarked surfaces, thick walls, and large crushed-rock temper generally characterize this pottery. The history of this pottery, including its inception, geographical spread, temporal overlap with steatite vessels, and eventual replacement by other pottery technologies, is far from clear. In this article, we examine the existing database of radiocarbon assays associated with Vinette 1 pottery and steatite vessels, perform a chronometric hygiene of those age estimates, and introduce 21 new AMS assays on charred cooking residues adhering to Vinette 1 sherd interiors. The results suggest a much more temporally restricted history for Vinette 1 pottery technology and a long period of coexistence with steatite vessels. However, the small number of reliable age estimates available for both  technologies prevents a detailed assessment of their respective histories.

A B S T R A C T Population morphometrics can be employed to explore the process of domestication, but only after accounting for biases introduced by taphonomic processes and sampling. For every cultivated plant, the challenges associated with carbonization, differential preservation, and sampling bias are different, as are the morphological characteristics of interest in domestication studies. This case study establishes correction factors and sampling parameters for assessing morphological indicators of domestication in erect knotweed (Polygonum erectum L.), an annual plant that was cultivated by Indigenous people in Eastern North America for about 2500 years. Documenting the unique domestication syndrome of erect knotweed creates three different sets of taphonomic and sampling problems that need to be addressed through experimentation and modeling: 1) Assess the morphometric effects of carbonization; 2) assess the effects of differential preservation; and 3) assess the effects of sampling error. The results of this study can be used by other analysts to identify domesticated assemblages of erect knotweed. These analyses also have implications for studies of plant domestication from the morphology of archaeological assemblages in general, especially when nominal variables are used to differentiate wild from domesticated populations (for example, the presence/absence of an abscission scar in cereals or the seed coat texture of chenopods).