Keyser 1979 Plains Indian War Complex

Ontario Archaeology 61:5-44., 1996

This paper provides a description and analysis of the information recovered during the 1990 excavations at the Early Paleo-Indian (fluted point-related) Bolton site (AfHj-89) in southwestern Ontario. Bolton was excavated as part of a larger project designed to explore the nature and theoretical significance of small sites to our understanding of Paleo-Indian cultural systems. The site has yielded the distinctive Crowfield style fluted points and preforms and, hence, is assignable to the Crowfield Phase. This phase is the presumed terminal, Early Paleo-Indian manifestation in the eastern Great Lakes area and is one of the poorest known of all suggested Great Lakes area Paleo-Indian developments. Although several other components were represented at the site, detailed analyses of the spatial distribution of ploughzone piece-plotted artifact types and of different lithic raw materials allowed the isolation of the Paleo-Indian tool and waste flake assemblage. The recovered site sample is dominated by fluted bifaces and denticulated/retouched flakes and is interpreted as a small hunting camp or a task group activity area. Despite the fact that Crowfield bifaces are best known from a ceremonial feature at the Crowfield site, the clearly nonceremonial nature of the Bolton site lends credence to the view that Crowfield points are utilitarian tools and not some special ceremonial artifact. The site also demonstrates some of the interpretative advantages of small sites, particularly with respect to spatial patterning and delineating tool kits.

Our Lands Speak--Occasional Papers in Ontario Archaeology No. 1, 2019

This paper focuses initially on the 2005 discovery of a small Early Palaeo-Indian site along the Otonabee River in the northeast part of the city of Peterborough and broadens to discuss the regional context of occupation in the South Kawartha Lakes/Otonabee River and Rice Lake watersheds based on 40 years of intermittent survey and excavations. The Waverly Heights site (BcGn-13) was found during a shovel test survey with a single positive shovel test leading to a full Stage 4 excavation. The site is on the gentle north slope of a small glacial drumlin between two branches of the Otonabee River. Assigned to time period on the basis of distinctive channel flakes from the manufacture of fluted points, the site had a small hearth with bifacial debitage, a projectile point basal ear and calcined mammal bone. The calcined bone from the site indicates not just the hunting of large cervids but also consumption of fish. Proximity to a possible caribou water crossing of the glacial Otonabee River is raised. Channel flake width measurements suggest a Parkhill or later phase Palaeo-Indian occupation, perhaps Holcombe at the end of the Early Palaeo-Indian fluting tradition. Waverly Heights provides new information on small resource extraction sites and indicates there may be much larger regional networks of small Early Palaeo-Indian site types, originally predicted from comprehensive survey work in the Rice Lake region 20 km to the south (Jackson 1990). More than a dozen Early Palaeo-Indian sites in the western Rice Lake area include logistical game processing, hunting ambush, and multi-purpose residential camps. Significantly, reconstruction of palaeogeographic landscapes indicates that the entire western lakebed of Rice Lake would have been a mosaic of small wetlands and dry land in the late glacial period circa 12,000 to 10,000 years BP. Multiple discoveries of fossil caribou remains from later Holocene contexts at Rice Lake, circa 6,000 to 3,000 years BP strongly indicate that caribou was a persistent resource for human occupants of the area. It is highly likely that many Early Palaeo-Indian sites are currently inaccessible below the now flooded western Rice Lake basin because of the Holocene effects of isostatic rebound. Among these sites will be interception points for game animals, ambushes, and perhaps major processing camps similar to the Gainey Phase Sandy Ridge site on the north shore terrace of Rice Lake. The Rice Lake evidence, combined with that of Waverly Heights situated between two branches of the Otonabee River and the Chemong Portage site along a portage route between the Otonabee River and the south end of Chemong Lake, clearly indicates a complex network of interactions between hunters, game and the myriad waterways of the late glacial period when meltwater flooded the land.

Review of Archaeology, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 21-24, 1993

The postcontact period on the western edge of the Central Plains was a dynamic period of technological and territorial change for Plains Indian groups that began with the acquisition of European-derived goods and equines often long before actual physical contacts with Europeans or Euroamericans. These highly mobile and adaptable groups often maintained many traditional precontact subsistence and technological practices despite the procurement of these European-derived materials and animals. Understanding the changes wrought by the introduction of European technologies and contact with European groups, along with the persistence of precontact praxis has proven elusive in the area due to an overall lack of evidence, both archaeological and historical. The Lykins Valley site (5LR263) is a buried early nineteenth century, Native occupied campsite that provides a window into this interesting and little-known period of Plains Indian history. The following analysis of the faunal remains, lithic artifacts, and trade goods from the Lykins Valley site affords important data adding to the regional postcontact history.

2006

Nomadic Plains peoples such as the Cheyenne and Sioux have become the stereotypical image of North American Indians in general. In contrast to the hunting and gathering lifestyle of these groups, however, many Plains tribes lived in settled villages and grew extensive garden crops through much of the past millennium. These groups developed a habitation distinctly characteristic of the Plains village way of life-sturdy, earth-covered timber structures known as earth lodges. The remains of thousands of these structures dot the landscape of the Central and Northern Plains. Lodges of various forms persisted from about 1000 CE into the twentieth century. Particularly characteristic of the Pawnee, Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa, earthlodges were also adopted by several other Plains tribes. In this well-illustrated volume eight authors offer nine essays that explore the earth lodge as a subject warranting archaeological and anthropological research in its own right and from numerous perspect...

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.

2005

FbNp-1 (formerly Tipperary Creek) is a habitation site located in Wanuskewin Heritage Park, two miles north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan . Excavations conducted over the course of three consecutive summers from 1985 1987 revealed the presence of 15 cultural levels, all of which belong to the Late Plains Period . These cultural levels show 2,000 years of repeated occupation at the site . This repeated use of the site has produced projectile points from multiple levels of Late Plains Period occupations, particularly Old Women's and Mortlach, which provides an opportunity to examine new projectile point classification systems as well as approaches used in producing these typologies. In addition to the projectile points, pottery excavated from this site provides insight into some of the recent debates regarding Late Plains Period pottery typology . Overall, FbNp-1 serves as a link between earlier occupations within Wanuskewin Heritage Park and modern First Nations populations .

The History and Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord, 2023

Land Acknowledgement Reconnaissance territoriale T he Canadian Museum of History and the University of Ottawa Press are located on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg. This land has held, and continues to hold, great historical, spiritual, and sacred significance. We recognize and honour the enduring presence of the Algonquin people. We also know that you, our readers, are joining us from many places near and far, and we acknowledge the traditional owners and caretakers of those lands. Le Musée canadien de l'histoire et Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa sont situés sur le territoire traditionnel non cédé des Anishinabeg (Algonquins). Ce territoire a eu, et continue d'avoir, une grande importance historique, spirituelle et sacrée. Nous reconnaissons et honorons la présence pérenne du peuple algonquin. Nous avons aussi conscience que notre lectorat provient de nombreux endroits, proches et lointains, et nous reconnaissons les gens qui sont les propriétaires et les gardiens traditionnels de ces terres.

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2012

The Northwestern Plains and adjacent areas are well known for a rich Paleoindian archaeological record, dating back more than 12.000 years. Holocene occupations are somewhat less recognized to those unfamiliar with the plains, although certainly buffalo ...