An Archaeological Investigation of the Indian Hill Site, 1Wx15, a Middle Woodland Culture (original) (raw)
Related papers
A Comparison of Terminal Late Woodland Bluff Culture Structures
2014
Relatively little is known about the archaeology of the upland area situated between the Lower Illinois River Valley and Northern American Bottom of western Illinois. However, several recent IDOT-sponsored projects have afforded the opportunity to gather baseline information about local Late Woodland cultures. As part of one modest-scale road-widening project, a portion of the Wedding site was excavated, producing over 70 pit facilities. This paper focuses on a preliminary analysis of the two structures excavated at the site, which appear to differ somewhat from roughly contemporaneous residential buildings in the American Bottom. Our research suggests that the character of the Wedding site structures, as well as variation in the point and pottery styles, denote the presence of a distinctive social group within the greater terminal Late Woodland Bluff tradition from the Illinois/Mississippi/Missouri River confluence area.
Analyzing Style and Technology in the Eastern Woodlands.
Trace element analysis was used to assess the provenance of manufacture of ceramic vessels recovered from six Early Late Prehistoric sites (A.D. 700-1300) in the Susquehanna Valley of New York and Pennsylvania. The compositional profiles of 93 sherds were recorded and compared with the profiles of known clays in the valley. The results of this project suggest that the vessels from these sites form five different clay groups with most vessels manufactured from local clays. Some non-locally manufactured pots were also identified and may represent interaction between neighboring groups. II4.8.1
London Museum of Archaeology, an Affiliate of The University of Western Ontario, Special Publication 1, 1998
Since 1973, a long-term, variable-scale, multi-disciplinary program of archaeological research has been conducted in the Crawford Lake area, above and below the Niagara Escarpment, north of Lake Ontario in southern Ontario, Canada. This study in settlement archaeology has revealed an intensive and complex occupation of the area by Ontario Iroquoian peoples between approximately A.D. 1000 and 1650. These Iroquoians were slash-and-burn horticulturalists, who grew corn, beans, squash, sunflower and tobacco, and who also hunted, fished and gathered. They lived in villages of longhouses often surrounded by palisades. The Niagara Escarpment is the most prominent geological feature of the local landscape, and it served as a frontier area between the two major confederacies of Iroquoians, the Huron and Neutral. J.V. Wright’s Ontario Iroquois Tradition (1966) is adopted as the cultural-historical model best suited to the study, and is refined with the definition of Early and Late Pickering substages of the Early Ontario Iroquois stage and the proposal that Glen Meyer peoples were ‘proto-Algonquians’, not ‘proto-Iroquoians’. This study has revealed that the Crawford Lake area was initially occupied by ‘proto-Huron’ Pickering, Uren and Middleport peoples. During the occupation by these ‘proto-Huron’ Middleport peoples, several communities of ‘proto-Neutral’ Middleport peoples moved into the area from the west and evolved into the prehistoric and historic Neutral peoples documented by French missionaries in the early 17th century. The fate of the ‘proto-Huron’ Middleport people remains unknown; four hypotheses are presented as possible explanations. Using data on phases of forest clearance and non-clearance inferred from the palynological study of the varved sediments of Crawford Lake by Roger Bryne, the chronology of the Ontario Iroquois Tradition has been refined. It is proposed that the Early Pickering substage of the Ontario Iroquois stage dates from A.D. 1030 to 1180; the Late Pickering substage from A.D. 1180 to 1330; the Uren substage of the Middle Ontario Iroquois stage from A.D. 1330 to 1420; the Middleport substage of the Middle Ontario Iroquois stage from A.D. 1420 to 1504; and the prehistoric Neutral division of the Late Ontario Iroquois stage from A.D. 1504 to 1550. This fine-grained chronology suggests that the Middleport substage lasts considerably longer and ends later than previously thought, while the prehistoric Neutral division starts and ends earlier than current interpretations based on course-grained C-14 dates. Using this chronology, the culture history of the Crawford Lake area is presented, including new data in support of J.V. Wright’s (1992) Conquest Theory in which Pickering peoples of southeastern Ontario conquered the Glen Meyer people of southwestern Ontario in the early 14th century. This conquest was possible due to the formation of militaristic confederacies by Early Pickering substage people in the 12th century which resulted in very large villages on the western frontier. After the conquest, the frontier moved west and with the threat of imminent attach lessened, the Uren peoples no longer had to live in palisaded villages. One of the most important contributions of the study is the presentation of evidence that Middleport peoples in these frontier communities made their tools, articles for personal adornment and motifs on ceramics as badges of their identity. Characteristics of the Crawford Lake locality ‘proto-Huron’ Middleport sites include: pottery vessels with high frequencies of lip and interior decoration ; high collared vessels with an average of 11 relatively narrow horizontal lines of decoration; ceramic pipes with elaborated decoration comprised of squares and rhomboids filled with parallel incised lines; modified deer phalanges with the proximal end cut off to expose the marrow cavity; and projectile points which are predominantly triangular. By way of contrast , the ‘proto-Neutral’ Middleport sites of the Mountsberg and Kelso localities are characterized by very low frequencies of lip and interior decoration, high collared vessels with an average of eight rows of relatively wide horizontal lines, ceramic pipes with flaring bowls; modified deer phalanges with distal ends perforated; a variety of bone projectile points and projectile points for the Mountsberg locality, which are predominantly side-notched. Further, there are sufficient differences amongst contemporaneous “proto-Neutral’ Middleport communities which assist in their definition. The data gathered in this four-volume study are used to test a model developed from ethnographic data on the Yanomamo, a society of slash-and-burn horticulturalists in Brazil and Venezuela, and from the ethnohistorical data for the Huron to explain interactions amongst these contemporaneous Middleport settlements in the Crawford Lake area. Current evidence suggests that alliance formation and maintenance were the key factors in the changes which these societies and their material culture underwent. The study concludes with a retrospect on the results of the first 25 years of research with suggested directions for research in the 21st century.
London Museum of Archaeology, an Affiliate of The University of Western Ontario, Special Publication 1 , 1998
Since 1973, a long-term, variable-scale, multi-disciplinary program of archaeological research has been conducted in the Crawford Lake area, above and below the Niagara Escarpment, north of Lake Ontario in southern Ontario, Canada. This study in settlement archaeology has revealed an intensive and complex occupation of the area by Ontario Iroquoian peoples between approximately A.D. 1000 and 1650. These Iroquoians were slash-and-burn horticulturalists, who grew corn, beans, squash, sunflower and tobacco, and who also hunted, fished and gathered. They lived in villages of longhouses often surrounded by palisades. The Niagara Escarpment is the most prominent geological feature of the local landscape, and it served as a frontier area between the two major confederacies of Iroquoians, the Huron and Neutral. J.V. Wright’s Ontario Iroquois Tradition (1966) is adopted as the cultural-historical model best suited to the study, and is refined with the definition of Early and Late Pickering substages of the Early Ontario Iroquois stage and the proposal that Glen Meyer peoples were ‘proto-Algonquians’, not ‘proto-Iroquoians’. This study has revealed that the Crawford Lake area was initially occupied by ‘proto-Huron’ Pickering, Uren and Middleport peoples. During the occupation by these ‘proto-Huron’ Middleport peoples, several communities of ‘proto-Neutral’ Middleport peoples moved into the area from the west and evolved into the prehistoric and historic Neutral peoples documented by French missionaries in the early 17th century. The fate of the ‘proto-Huron’ Middleport people remains unknown; four hypotheses are presented as possible explanations. Using data on phases of forest clearance and non-clearance inferred from the palynological study of the varved sediments of Crawford Lake by Roger Bryne, the chronology of the Ontario Iroquois Tradition has been refined. It is proposed that the Early Pickering substage of the Ontario Iroquois stage dates from A.D. 1030 to 1180; the Late Pickering substage from A.D. 1180 to 1330; the Uren substage of the Middle Ontario Iroquois stage from A.D. 1330 to 1420; the Middleport substage of the Middle Ontario Iroquois stage from A.D. 1420 to 1504; and the prehistoric Neutral division of the Late Ontario Iroquois stage from A.D. 1504 to 1550. This fine-grained chronology suggests that the Middleport substage lasts considerably longer and ends later than previously thought, while the prehistoric Neutral division starts and ends earlier than current interpretations based on course-grained C-14 dates. Using this chronology, the culture history of the Crawford Lake area is presented, including new data in support of J.V. Wright’s (1992) Conquest Theory in which Pickering peoples of southeastern Ontario conquered the Glen Meyer people of southwestern Ontario in the early 14th century. This conquest was possible due to the formation of militaristic confederacies by Early Pickering substage people in the 12th century which resulted in very large villages on the western frontier. After the conquest, the frontier moved west and with the threat of imminent attach lessened, the Uren peoples no longer had to live in palisaded villages. One of the most important contributions of the study is the presentation of evidence that Middleport peoples in these frontier communities made their tools, articles for personal adornment and motifs on ceramics as badges of their identity. Characteristics of the Crawford Lake locality ‘proto-Huron’ Middleport sites include: pottery vessels with high frequencies of lip and interior decoration ; high collared vessels with an average of 11 relatively narrow horizontal lines of decoration; ceramic pipes with elaborated decoration comprised of squares and rhomboids filled with parallel incised lines; modified deer phalanges with the proximal end cut off to expose the marrow cavity; and projectile points which are predominantly triangular. By way of contrast , the ‘proto-Neutral’ Middleport sites of the Mountsberg and Kelso localities are characterized by very low frequencies of lip and interior decoration, high collared vessels with an average of eight rows of relatively wide horizontal lines, ceramic pipes with flaring bowls; modified deer phalanges with distal ends perforated; a variety of bone projectile points and projectile points for the Mountsberg locality, which are predominantly side-notched. Further, there are sufficient differences amongst contemporaneous “proto-Neutral’ Middleport communities which assist in their definition. The data gathered in this four-volume study are used to test a model developed from ethnographic data on the Yanomamo, a society of slash-and-burn horticulturalists in Brazil and Venezuela, and from the ethnohistorical data for the Huron to explain interactions amongst these contemporaneous Middleport settlements in the Crawford Lake area. Current evidence suggests that alliance formation and maintenance were the key factors in the changes which these societies and their material culture underwent. The study concludes with a retrospect on the results of the first 25 years of research with suggested directions for research in the 21st century.
We propose a Darwinian evolutionary model for the development and disappearance of Woodland period cultural elaboration in the Ohio River Valley, and specifically the “climax” of this behavior known as the Hopewell phenomenon. We combine aspects of evolutionary archaeology and evolutionary ecology to provide a model that (1) has testable empirical consequences, and (2) specifically addresses the historical context of development of the phenomenon being explained. Our model builds on Smith’s (1987) coevolutionary scenario for the development of symbiosis between Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC) crops and the human populations exploiting them. After presenting our model we explore the empirical consequences of ceremonial subsistence and the types of data that would be required to test the model. In our discussion of the extant data we also contrast our scenario with a competing evolutionary explanation for the Hopewell phenomenon: the “waste” hypothesis. The limited available evidence is in line with the empirical expectations of the ceremonial subsistence model and is, to varying degrees, at odds with the empirical expectations for the “waste” explanation. Our ceremonial subsistence model offers a testable alternative that is not falsified by the extant data. However, we recognize the problem is far from solved. Our primary aim is to promote renewed theoretical discussion of the issues raised herein, and to encourage new problem-oriented research to provide empirical evidence to test both explanations.
2002
This study examines the role of prehistoric subsistence change and its impact upon settlement systems in Eastern Kentucky. Eastern Kentucky's rockshelters are well-known for their preservation of normally perishable organic plant remains. Archaeobotanical remains from rockshelter contexts have played a key role in the establishment of the region as an independent center of agricultural origins. By 4,000 to 3,000 years before the present (B.P.), prehistoric populations along the western edge of the Appalachian Mountains were engaged in the cultivation of weedy plants such as goosefoot, maygrass, sunflower, and squashes. The incorporation of domesticated plants into the diet has not received detailed examination in terms of its impact upon prehistoric settlement systems. This study acquired regional scale data to evaluate whether or not such an impact can be discerned. The results document that changes in the subsistence base did affect settlement configurations. Increased diet breadth throughout the Late Archaic period in upland contexts resulted in a reorientation of the settlement pattern in order to better fulfill subsistence requirements. In the case of the more rugged upland portion of the study area, prehistoric populations took advantage of mid-slope rockshelters to locate residential bases. Location of residences within rockshelters afforded foragers an even access to a heterogeneous environment. By gaining access to all available ecological strata, foragers were able to sustain a broad spectrum subsistence pattern in areas iii where richer floodplain settings were lacking. With the incorporation of cultigens into the subsistence base during the Early Woodland period, the use of rockshelters continued to be an energetically efficient settlement strategy. With the appearance maize by the end of the Late Woodland period, utilization of rockshelter settings as residences was no longer tenable.
Reports of Investigation, 2017
The Applied Anthropology Laboratories (AAL) at Ball State University conducted a data enhancement project for archaeological resources in Newton County, Indiana for a FY2016 Historic Preservation Fund Grant (Grant #18-16FFY-04). This Historic Preservation Fund grant project investigated the archaeological resources of Newton County, Indiana with a focus on the two central townships, Beaver and Jackson, and under-represented ecological communities within Newton County based on FY2014 and FY2015 surveys. A total of 932.27 acres (377.27 hectares) of agricultural land were surveyed, which includes 5.63 acres of resurveyed area, and 110 new archaeological sites were recorded. The survey recovered 103 prehistoric artifacts and 4,063 historic artifacts from nine parcels of land within Newton County. No human remains were discovered as a result of this grant project. Cultural periods that are represented in the artifact assemblage include precontact era Middle Archaic, Middle-Late Archaic, Late Archaic, and Late Woodland components, in addition to Historic components. The average site density recorded for the project area for precontact sites was one site per 24.53 acres and for Historic sites was one site per 10.02 acres.