Northeastern Middle Woodland, from the Perspective of the Upper Allegheny Valley
Dissertation
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University
By
Steven Paul Howard, M.A.
Graduate Program in Anthropology
The Ohio State University
2010
Dissertation Committee:
William S. Dancey, Advisor
Kristen J. Gremillion
Paul L. Sciulli
Copyright by
Steven Paul Howard
2010
Abstract
Culture history describes the Middle Woodland period in eastern North
America as a time when Hopewell influence spread across the land from the Ohio and
Illinois Valleys, to engage people from places as far removed as New York, Florida and Wisconsin (Griffin 1967). The current models explaining the presence of Middle
Woodland mound-building populations in Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario, are based on the work of Ritchie (1994). One model maintains that local groups of the
Point Peninsula culture were infused to varying degrees with Hopewellian ideology.
Those who adopted the new ideology to a greater degree resulted in the brief
Squawkie Hill phase of the Hopewellian horizon, in which local mound building and participation in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere occurred. Another model posits that
Hopewell people moved up the Allegheny Valley to become the Squawkie Hill phase of the Hopewellian culture, which in turn influenced local groups around them. Using a compiled data set of over 200 Middle Woodland mound sites, a handful of non- mound sites, and new field surveys, I employ various qualitative and quantitative comparative methods to test the applicability of these models at different levels of social interaction in the Northeast.
ii Recent trends in archaeology stress a local approach to understanding bigger issues. Carr and Case (2005a) call it a “thick prehistory” approach, in which personalized and locally contextualized research facilitates the generation of interregional comparisons. Drawing from this theoretical framework, I have approached this project as an inquiry into the cultural signature and behavior of a population within its local context, while presenting and analyzing aggregated data from two larger spatial-social scales for comparative purposes.
Results indicate that the upper Allegheny Valley mound building population does not easily fit the general signatures of recognized Middle Woodland constructs like Squawkie Hill, Point Peninsula or Hopewell. Further research is needed to clarify relationships with populations of adjacent drainage systems, to discern the extent of the local Upper Allegheny Middle Woodland cultural incarnation.
The various lines of evidence reveal that Middle Woodland populations in the
Northeast varied in their acceptance of Hopewell material, even among those that participated in mound building activity. Rather than accepting new ideology from
Hopewell, it seems that different populations were differentially adopting new ways to embrace shared ideologies that had been passed down from at least as far back as the Late Archaic period. Evidence does not support the model that Ohio Hopewell people migrated to the upper Allegheny Valley.
iii
Dedication
Dedicated to Reggie, Mom, and the people of the Allegheny Valley who left us so
much to learn
iv
Acknowledgements
I would first like to thank my advisor, William S. Dancey, for providing constructive guidance throughout my graduate education, and for being a valuable mentor. I am grateful for the tutelage and general advice afforded by Kristen J.
Gremillion, especially pertaining to paleoethnobotany (which I promise to put to good use in the near future). I would also like to thank Paul L. Sciulli, who opened my mind to new ways of thinking about data and the world in general. I would like to acknowledge Kelly Lounsberry for introducing me to archaeology many years ago, and I thank my undergraduate advisor Paul J. Pacheco, who encouraged the growth of my anthropological education.
I am indebted to the various landowners in the upper Allegheny Valley who have graciously allowed me to conduct my sometimes lengthy investigations on their parcels. Jim and Sheila Bockmier, Alice Altenburg and Marcia Karl have been particularly amicable hosts. I am also grateful for the help I‟ve received from numerous volunteers in the field as well as in the lab. I am especially appreciative of the assistance and guidance of Robert L. Dean during this project and over the years.
Finally, I must thank my partner, Reginald Byron, for being there for me throughout the whole process. v
Vita
October 1970…………………………Born, Olean, NY
1987 ………………………………….Olean High School
2001 ………………………………….B.A., Anthropology, SUNY Geneseo
2005 ………………………………….M.A., Anthropology, The Ohio State
University
2001 to 2003………………………….Field Technician, University at Buffalo
Archaeological Survey
2003………………………………….Archaeologist, Heritage Preservation
and Interpretation
2004 to 2009 …………………………Graduate Teaching Associate,
Department Anthropology, The Ohio
State University
Fields of Study
Major Field: Anthropology
Specialization: North American Archaeology
vi
Table of Contents
Abstract...... ii
Dedication...... iv
Acknowledgements...... v
Vita...... vi
List of Tables...... xi
List of Figures...... xii
Chapter 1: An Introduction...... 1 The Problem...... 1 The Approach...... 4
Chapter 2: Middle Woodland Period Archaeology...... 8 Chapter Introduction...... 8 Antiquarian Stage...... 10 Early Archaeology Stage...... 13 Culture History Stage...... 16 Point Peninsula...... 22 Processual Stage...... 25 Hopewell Interaction Sphere...... 26 Non-Mound Research...... 30 Evolutionary and Post-processual Approaches...... 33 Processual Stage Research in the Northeast...... 38
Chapter 3: Northeastern Middle Woodland Mounds...... 40 Chapter Introduction...... 40 Mound Distributions and Regional Traits...... 42 vii Southwestern Pennsylvania...... 45 Northwestern Pennsylvania...... 49 Upper Allegheny Valley...... 52 Conewango Drainage...... 56 Cattaraugus Creek...... 59 Genesee River...... 62 Niagara River...... 67 Rice Lake...... 70 Seneca River...... 74 St. Lawrence River, Perch Lake and the Bay of Quinte...... 76 Poorly Recorded Clusters...... 82 Dispersed Mounds...... 84 Artifact, Burial and Mound Dimensions Analyses...... 85 Artifact Distribution Analysis...... 85 Burial Treatment Distribution Analysis...... 99 Mound Dimensions Analysis...... 103 Chapter Discussion...... 105
Chapter 4: Upper Allegheny Valley Middle Woodland Sites...... 107 Chapter Introduction...... 107 Environment...... 107 Culture History...... 109 Mound and Burial Research...... 117 Irvine Mound 1...... 119 Irvine Mound 2...... 121 Sugar Run Mound 1...... 123 Sugar Run Mound 2...... 124 Sugar Run Mound 3...... 125 Sugar Run Non-mound Burials...... 126 Cornplanter Mound 1...... 127 Corydon Mound...... 127 Kill Buck Mound...... 129 Vandalia Mound 1...... 130 Upper Allegheny Burial Population...... 131 Crude Population Estimate...... 137 Non-burial Research...... 140 Lemon Site...... 142 McCaffery Site...... 146 viii Chapter Discussion...... 150
Chapter 5: Localized Non-mound Survey...... 152 Field Methods...... 152 Sites on the Altenburg Tracts...... 156 Altenburg 1...... 158 Altenburg 2...... 159 Altenburg Yard Stray Find...... 160 Altenburg South Stray Finds...... 161 Altenburg Tracts Summary...... 162 Karl and IA-Barie Sites...... 163 Karl Site...... 165 IA-Barie Site...... 170 Sites on the Threadgill, Bockmier and Wiedman Tracts...... 171 Bockmier 1...... 171 Bockmier Terrace...... 175 Bockmier 3...... 178 Bockmier 4...... 179 Bockmier Point...... 180 Dorcas...... 181 Doris...... 183 Wiedman...... 187 Threadgill...... 191 Canticle Farms Sites...... 195 Canticle Farms 1...... 196 Canticle Farms 2...... 197 Canticle Farms 3...... 198 Canticle Farms Summary...... 198 Fivemile Sites...... 199 Fivemile North...... 199 Fivemile South...... 204 Fourmile Field...... 205 Fourmile Site...... 205 Lab Methods...... 211 General Chert Tool Technology Analysis...... 212 Whole Flake Dimensions Analysis...... 220 Chert Sources...... 225 Ceramic Surface Treatment and Temper Analysis...... 229 ix Ceramic Thickness Analysis...... 232
Chapter 6: Discussion and Conclusions...... 234 Chapter Introduction...... 234 Hopewell, Squawkie Hill and Point Peninsula...... 236 The Local Upper Allegheny Valley Population...... 240 Future Directions...... 243
References...... 245
Appendices...... 259 Appendix A: Mound References for Figure 1...... 259 Appendix B: Additional Upper Allegheny Burial Data...... 264 Appendix C: Mean Mound Dimensions t-test p-values...... 265 Appendix D: Artifact Summary from Surveys...... 267 Appendix E: Mean Flake Dimensions t-test p-values...... 271 Appendix F: Proportion of identified chert types at project sites...... 272
x
List of Tables
Table 1. Artifact frequencies...... 87
Table 2. Artifacts in other mounds...... 88
Table 3. Burial treatment frequencies...... 101
Table 4. Mound width-to-length ratios...... 104
Table 5. Burial treatment by age...... 134
Table 6. Role-related burial artifacts...... 136
Table 7. Distribution of role-related artifacts...... 137
Table 8. Crude population estimate...... 139
Table 9. Magnetic variance values...... 168
Table 10. Point type comparison...... 213
Table 11. Technology comparison (after Cowan 1999)...... 215
Table 12. Whole flake size grades...... 223
Table 13. Whole flake length-to-width correlation values...... 224
Table 14. Pottery thickness comparison p-values...... 233
xi
List of Figures
Figure 1. Map of Middle Woodland Period Eastern North America...... 5
Figure 2. Northeast Middle Woodland mound distributions...... 44
Figure 3. Common burial cist types...... 47
Figure 4. Prior analysis graph...... 90
Figure 5. Middle Woodland artifacts graph...... 91
Figure 6. Prior presence artifacts graph...... 94
Figure 7. Introduced artifacts graph...... 96
Figure 8. Introduced artifacts graph omitting St. Lawrence outliers...... 97
Figure 9. Burial treatment graph...... 100
Figure 10. Map of upper Allegheny Valley mound locations...... 118
Figure 11. Map of Lemon tract survey...... 143
Figure 12. Pottery fragments from Lemon 3...... 144
Figure 13. Map of McCaffery tract survey...... 145
Figure 14. Late Archaic or Early Woodland point from McCaffery 1...... 146
Figure 15. Two possible Middle Woodland points from McCaffery 3...... 148
Figure 16. Cordmarked potsherds from McCaffery 3...... 149
Figure 17. Rimsherd from McCaffery 3...... 149 xii Figure 18. Map of South Nine Mile Road...... 157
Figure 19. Altenburg South Tract...... 162
Figure 20. Flake core...... 164
Figure 21. Karl site hafted biface tools...... 166
Figure 22. Karl biface tools and preforms...... 167
Figure 23. Map of Fivemile Creek Tracts...... 172
Figure 24. Bockmier 1 Site biface tools...... 173
Figure 25. Bockmier 1 Site unique vessels...... 174
Figure 26. Bockmier Terrace bifaces...... 176
Figure 27. Bockmier 3 Site and Bockmier 4 Site bifaces...... 179
Figure 28. Dorcas Site artifacts...... 182
Figure 29. Doris Site bifaces...... 184
Figure 30. Wiedman Site lamellar flake...... 188
Figure 31. Wiedman Site bifaces...... 189
Figure 32. Wiedman Site unique vessels...... 191
Figure 33. Threadgill Field bifaces...... 193
Figure 34. Canticle Farms 1 celt...... 197
Figure 35. Fivemile North bifaces...... 201
Figure 36. Fivemile North biface fragments...... 202
Figure 37. Fivemile South pottery fragments...... 203
Figure 38. Fivemile South bifaces...... 204
Figure 39. Map of Boser tract survey...... 206 xiii Figure 40. Middle Woodland cache blades...... 207
Figure 41. Middle Woodland bladelet...... 208
Figure 42. Fourmile artifacts...... 209
Figure 43. Technology diagrams...... 217
Figure 44. Upper Allegheny Valley chert...... 226
Figure 45. Percentages of plain and cordmarked sherds...... 230
Figure 46. Mean and median pottery thickness...... 232
xiv
CHAPTER 1
AN INTRODUCTION
THE PROBLEM
Over 200 Native American burial mounds have been recorded in Pennsylvania,
New York and Ontario, most of which were constructed during the Middle Woodland period (ca. 200 BC to 400 AD). There are two current models to explain the presence of the mounds in the Northeast, both based on work done by Ritchie (1994). One explains that local groups of the Point Peninsula culture were infused to varying degrees with
Hopewellian ideology. Those who adopted the new ideology to a greater degree resulted in the brief Squawkie Hill phase of the Hopewellian horizon, in which local mound building and participation in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere occurred. According to the other model, an Ohio Hopewell population migrated to the upper Allegheny Valley from
Ohio to become the Squawkie Hill phase of the Hopewellian culture, and influenced the local populations from there.
Ritchie used Willey and Phillips‟ (1958) phase, which he defines as “a recurring complex of distinct archaeological traits, sufficiently different from any other complex to suggest that it represents the product of a single cultural group” (1994: xxviii). The
Squawkie Hill phase, therefore, is defined as a cultural group, distinct from other groups.
1
Ritchie classified Squawkie Hill as a phase of the Hopewellian culture, defining culture as “the particular strain of social heredity of a group of individuals larger than that represented by the phase, and united by the sharing of a common tradition or traditions”
(1994: xxviii). Willey and Phillips (1958) favored the term Hopewell horizon rather than culture, because it didn‟t imply heredity by definition. Ritchie describes the horizon concept as “the spatial distribution of like cultural traits and assemblages on approximately the same time level” (1994: xxix).
Ritchie‟s Point Peninsula culture, discussed in Chapter 2, was essentially defined by pottery type distributions, and many of the Northeast mounds lay within the spatial distribution of Point Peninsula pottery types, but many do not. While this may not reflect a cultural difference, it suggests that (at least) one is possible. Middle Woodland mounds extend south onto the Allegheny Plateau, where there has been no empirical confirmation of a Point Peninsula presence during the period of mound construction. Even as he developed the Squawkie Hill phase to account for mound building, Ritchie recognized that the upper Allegheny Valley may require further explanation. He suggested that the valley was a point of diffusion, from which Hopewellian ideas spread to the Point
Peninsula groups around Lake Ontario (Ritchie 1994).
Seeman (1979) used Ritchie‟s Point Peninsula taxon in his analysis of regional cultural relatedness, but echoed Ritchie‟s concern, commenting " ... it is difficult to envision the mounds in the Allegheny Plateau country southwest of the Great Lakes drainage as directly related to Point Peninsula" (1979: 266). Ritchie intended his construct to be flexible, though. He envisioned a fluid, dynamic collection of interacting
2 groups evolving from an Early Woodland Meadowood base, generally emerging into a proto-Iroquoian Owasco tradition (Ritchie 1994). Ethnic relationships may indeed transcend the pottery tradition and warrant a Squawkie Hill phase construct that encompasses all the northeastern mound building communities, but such a construct should be evaluated empirically.
Perhaps because of the paucity of data from the period, no one has attempted a comparative analysis of the mounds across the region. Collections from the mounds, even those recorded as early as the 19th century, have been grossly biased by the activities of looters and antiquarian collectors. Further, the relatively sparse settlement data from the region have been limited to areas surrounding Lake Ontario, where the Point Peninsula taxon was developed.
Despite these problems, many have come to accept the application of the Point
Peninsula (eg. Mackey 2007) and Squawkie Hill (eg. McConaughy and Johnson 2003) taxa to Middle Woodland mound building activity in the upper Allegheny Valley, and the idea that Squawkie Hill represented Hopewellian culture in the northeast (Lantz 1989).
Encyclopedias and many popular books have also embraced the notion. At a public presentation on this dissertation project, many in the audience were well-versed in the
Hopewellian nature of the local mounds. While many modern textbooks now recognize that Middle Woodland cultures were diverse, a few still feature maps with various
Hopewellian Complexes throughout eastern North America (eg. Price and Feinman
2008). Figure 1 illustrates the currently accepted distribution of such Hopewellian groups, as well as the Ohio Hopewell and Point Peninsula regions in relation to the
3 project area for this dissertation. However popular and widespread this hypothetical model has become, it has yet to be verified by scientific inquiry.
THE APPROACH
This dissertation is affected by the entire spectrum of archaeological theory, as is any research document. While I may wish to disregard aspects of some earlier theoretical frameworks, for example the methodology and explanatory reasoning of antiquarians, my research necessarily incorporates the data that were collected under such paradigms, and is thus affected. Additionally, I believe that modern theory encompasses past theory in the sense that even radical changes in the way archaeologists think about what they do are influenced in some way by preceding paradigms. To understand our own theoretical perspective, we must think about the historical processes that contributed to that perspective (Van Gilder and Charles 2003). For that reason, I have provided in Chapter 2 a background of general historical trends in Middle Woodland archaeology and their theoretical contexts.
Specific to the research and analyses of this dissertation, my decisions have been informed by current trends toward localization, while being grounded in the empirical framework of processualism. Carr and Case outlined a theoretical approach they term
“thick prehistory” (2005b:21), in which they formalized a trend toward personalizing the archaeological record, while differing from the agency-oriented models that typify a personalized approach. They and several contributors presented a vision of Hopewell
4
Figure 1. Middle Woodland Period Eastern North America. Outline of the distribution of currently accepted “Hopewellian Complexes”, and the Ohio Hopewell and Point Peninsula regions in relation to the upper Allegheny Valley.
5 beyond “a faceless enumeration of the material accomplishments of past peoples” Carr and Case (2005b: 20).
Embracing this approach, I have compiled local and regional data with the intent of understanding people in a local environment, within the context of wider degrees of social interaction. I use empirical data to assess the general hypothetical position that the builders of the mounds in the upper Allegheny Valley conform to the Squawkie Hill phase, defined either as a local Point Peninsula population influenced by Ohio Hopewell, or as a population of Ohio Hopewell people who migrated into the region. The result is a collection of discussions on four spatial scales, beginning with the historical and theoretical treatment of the overall eastern North American Middle Woodland mound- building universe in Chapter 2. From there, I discuss the evidence, analyses and results from original research within three narrowing spatial scales. At the regional scale, comparative and interpretive analyses are presented to assess variability among the several contemporaneous mound-building populations in the Northeast, presented in
Chapter 3. Historical and archaeological mound records provide data for a qualitative comparative analysis, as well as non-parametric statistical analyses to detect patterns in the distribution of artifacts. Following that is a discussion focused on mounds within the
Upper Allegheny drainage, with an emphasis on the burial population (Chapter 4).
Finally, in Chapter 5, I present a summary of recent fieldwork between two mound groups within the upper Allegheny Valley, conducted to provide local non-mound data, and to search for possible habitation sites. These are subject to interpretive analysis as well. The purpose is to identify non-mound Middle Woodland sites in the archaeological
6 record. Existing collections and new field research provide data for comparative quantitative and qualitative analyses of artifacts and spatial information.
Datasets and analytical methods vary for each of the three scales of research, so each of those three chapters includes a section outlining the research design, available data, and the methods utilized therein. The methods and analyses are by no means exhaustive, and the data are far from ideal. The approach that I have taken, given a number of drawbacks in data availability, funding constraints and field conditions, is one of a foundational inquiry. However, given the lack of prior work in the upper
Allegheny Valley on this problem and in general, I believe this dissertation provides new insights into the interactions of local Middle Woodland populations, and the lives of individuals involved.
7
CHAPTER 2
MIDDLE WOODLAND PERIOD ARCHAEOLOGY
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
In this chapter I provide a background summary of archaeology and archaeological theory pertaining to the Middle Woodland period mound building groups.
In the Northeast, Middle Woodland has traditionally been defined loosely as spanning from AD 1 to around AD 800, after Ritchie (1994). However, the subject of this dissertation more closely fits with the Midwest conception of Middle Woodland, from around 200 BC to around AD 400 (Seeman 1979). This corresponds to the period from the inception of Hopewell material culture in Illinois and Ohio to the general cessation of mortuary mound-building behavior in the region. Of the few radiocarbon dates available for northeastern mounds, all place them within this period.
The study region under consideration is an area that extends from southwestern
Pennsylvania, through western and central New York, and into southern Ontario. This region represents the geographic distribution of northeastern Middle Woodland burial mounds (see Figure 2 in Chapter 3), the builders of which are the focus of the dissertation.
8
While formal scientific investigation of the Middle Woodland period in the
Northeast has been lacking, various attempts have been made to understand the builders of the mounds, mostly from the aspect of the mounds themselves. In order to understand the background research involved, I have taken the advice of Van Gilder and Charles
(2003) and have attempted to place developments within their historical context. Though my approach is different, I agree with their assessment that developing an “understanding of any cultural phenomenon lies in a comprehension of its past and present contexts”
(Van Gilder and Charles 2003: 114). Our understanding of the Middle Woodland mound building groups in the Northeast has gone through a number of changes through time, as the discipline of archaeology has evolved in North America. Four general temporal stages can be recognized by changes in the quality of research and documentation, the methodology, and the theoretical background. The stages are specific to the study at hand but could be applied more broadly, with modifications. While the history of American archaeology is replete with contention, and disparate views have often arisen within each temporal stage, they are recognizably related, and the knowledge base of each stage is built upon the achievements and lessons learned from those previous. The following four sections are arranged chronologically, one for each stage, with a general outline as follows:
1. An explanation of the stage is offered, with criteria and definitions.
2. A general statement about the theoretical climate and popular methodology.
3. Major developments in the discipline and their application to the study area.
9
4. A discussion of the data recorded from the study area during the stage, and
their current utility.
The outline will be followed for the most part, but necessary digressions appear here and there to provide a more complete account of Middle Woodland research in the study area.
At the end of the Culture History section is a brief account of the Point Peninsula construct, and the Processual section is divided into headings to facilitate more detailed discussions of important concepts.
ANTIQUARIAN STAGE
The first stage begins with the first European parties interested in the documentation of archaeological deposits in the late 1700s, and continues until the 1880s, when there was an attempt to form a discipline. Thomas Jefferson is credited with the first scientific investigation into the character of mortuary mounds (Bedini 1990). While it is true that farmers and others all across the eastern states and provinces dug into mounds and other deposits to collect artifacts, rarely was any of their activity documented. Those involved in documentation came to be known as antiquarians. By today‟s scientific standards the efforts of the antiquarians are dubious and inadequate, but in their day it was considered science. Most of the authors of the day held advanced degrees of some sort, or at least had titles attached to their names. Granted, the quality of research varied within this time period, but most shared a common methodology and theoretical background.
10
The most popular excavation method of the day was to dig straight down into the center of the mound from the apex, and then expand from there, wherever artifacts were thought to be buried. Most antiquarians were in the business of selling the artifacts they collected, whether to museums or private collectors. Much of what is considered archaeologically significant by today‟s standards was ignored, often relegated to the back dirt. Screens were unheard of, and shovels and picks were the tools of the trade.
Morphology of artifacts was undifferentiated, features were generalized and associations were rarely recognized. Common descriptive terms included arrowheads and copper implements as well as stone fireplaces. Quantitatively, dozens and bushels were reported.
The prevailing theoretical notion of the day was the “lost race” theory, now commonly referred to as the mound-builder myth. Various origins of the mounds were debated, all sharing the premise that they were not built by Native Americans.
On the national scale, the most recognizable antiquarians are Squier and Davis, authors of the seminal Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley in 1848. This volume was prepared for the Smithsonian Institute, and many other antiquarian endeavors were written for government agencies as well. Squier and Davis‟ work inspired a flurry of archaeological activity across the eastern United States, and many authors adopted the terminology and emulated the style of Squier and Davis‟ publication.
The first publication mentioning the northeastern mounds was Turner‟s Pioneer
History of the Holland Land Purchase of Western New York in 1850. Turner‟s book included brief settler‟s accounts of mounds and earthworks found on their properties.
About this time, Squier toured a number of New York mounds and earthworks along the
11
Erie Canal, resulting in the book Antiquities of the State of New York (1851).
Interestingly, Squier believed the mounds and earthworks of the Ohio and Mississippi
Valleys were built by the “lost race,” but when he visited New York, Squier noted fundamental differences in earthwork form and construction, and concluded that the mounds and earthworks in New York were made by Native Americans. In the late 1850s the New York State Cabinet of Natural History commissioned civil engineer T. A.
Cheney to explore mounds reported from the western part of the state. Accompanied by
Frederick Larkin, a local M.D. who had been digging mounds as a hobby, Cheney conducted excavations in Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties. His results were published in Ancient Monuments of Western New York (Cheney 1860). Larkin was perhaps the most prolific mound excavator in the region. His Ancient Man in America,
Including Works in Western New York (Larkin 1880) documented his exploits. Cheney‟s and Larkin‟s works were essentially in response to Squier‟s conclusion that the local mounds and earthworks were built by natives. Both insisted that the New York monuments were related to the “lost race” monuments of the Ohio and Mississippi
Valleys.
As mentioned earlier, the material data from the antiquarians were sold, and in the study area, most ended up in private collections with little or no surviving documentation.
In the cases where documentation is available, detail is minimal. As a result, most of the data from this period are of little utility in modern studies. Cheney included a few images of artifacts and a distribution map. Some geographic information has been useful in attempts to relocate recorded sites, but most of the mounds have been completely
12 destroyed. In many cases, so little was written that the mounds can‟t be confidently placed in a temporal context. Thus sometimes the most useful data from the antiquarians are short passages mentioning the presence of mica, copper and other minerals in the mounds, because these diagnostic items help differentiate Middle Woodland period mounds from those of earlier and later periods. The vast majority of mound excavation in the region was done during this antiquarian stage, so most mound documentation is minimal. All of the mounds clustered around Chautauqua Lake in Chautauqua County,
New York, were documented during this period, as were a number of mounds in most counties of western and central New York.
Some of the mounds recorded by antiquarians are identified as Middle Woodland based on diagnostic artifacts and minerals like those mentioned above. Such mounds include the Randolph, Cold Spring Mound and Forness Mound 1 in Cattaraugus County
(Larkin 1880), the Bemus Point Mounds and Whitney Mounds in Chautauqua County
(Cheney 1860; Larkin 1880), and the East Aurora Mounds in Erie County (Larkin 1880).
A few of the mounds reported by antiquarians were subsequently located and re- excavated at a later date. These include the Pan American Mound 2 in Erie County
(Cheney 1860; Benedict 1901), and the Lewiston Mound in Niagara County (Larkin
1880; Ritchie 1994).
EARLY ARCHAEOLOGY STAGE
In the second stage, from the 1880s until the late 1920s, early archaeologists emerged under the banner of a discipline. A somewhat more rigorous approach to
13 excavation and documentation was developed, as well as a new body of theories, though much of the data and terminology used in this period were inherited from the antiquarians. Carrying on the tradition of Squier and Davis, extensive mound explorations were carried out in the late 1800‟s, most notably by Boyle (1897) in Canada and Thomas in the states. Thomas‟ Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of
Ethnography (1894) included a “Catalogue of Prehistoric Works,” which was essentially a list of all known antiquarian documented sites in the different states, each with a brief description from the available data. Such lists were popular in this early archaeology stage, and Thomas‟ was expanded upon in New York by Beauchamp (1900) and Parker
(1922).
By this time, the lost race dialectic was all but abandoned, and most early archaeologists recognized that the mounds and earthworks were constructed by Native
Americans. These early archaeologists were also beginning to recognize the significance of artifacts and other traits. Methodological changes were required to provide the data for such analyses of traits. More control was exercised at excavations and more detailed reports were produced. In the Ohio Valley, Moorehead (1922) identified traits found at the Hopewell Mound Group near Chillicothe. These traits would eventually lead to a name for the builders of the mounds: Hopewell.
In New York, Parker reported that some mounds in western and central New York were related to those in the Ohio Valley, and that artifacts were the key to determining the relationship. He identified several traits to be associated with Iroquoians,
Algonquians and the then-unnamed natives that built the mounds (Parker 1922). Of
14 course, chronology was a problem at this time, and some of the traits he conflated were later found to be unrelated, but the work of this period provided a foundation for that of the next, just as this stage was built upon the work of the antiquarians. As mentioned above, the popular site lists of this stage were mostly based on antiquarian records, and unfortunately, these lists were as minimal in detail as were their sources. Both
Beauchamp‟s and Parker‟s lists were organized by county, utilizing local historical accounts, so their lists are more comprehensive than earlier examples, but detailed data are lacking. Little original research involving Middle Woodland sites was contributed at this time. Thomas‟ and Boyle‟s excavations in the late 1880s constitute the bulk of the work. Their records are still rather meager by today‟s standards, but were a definite improvement over those of the antiquarians.
Among the Middle Woodland mounds that Thomas excavated were the Geneseo
Mound 2 in Livingston County, New York, which contained mica and copper beads
(Thomas 1894), and two of the Irvine mounds in Warren County, Pennsylvania, later excavated by Schoff (1937) and Carpenter (1956). Boyle excavated several important
Middle Woodland mound sites in southern Ontario, some of which have been subsequently revisited, including the Serpent Mounds (Johnston 1968a), Cameron‟s Point
Mounds (Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986), and the East Sugar Island Mounds (Boyle 1897;
Stothers 1974), all in Peterborough County. These are known collectively as the Rice
Lake Mounds (Johnston 1968b). A few of the sites listed by Parker that are now identified as Middle Woodland are the Brewer‟s mounds in Monroe County, New York, and the Portageville mound in Wyoming County, New York (1922). Parker also listed the
15
Poland mound in Chautauqua County and one of the Vandalia mounds in Cattaraugus
County. These two New York mounds would be excavated by Carpenter in the 1940s
(see Chapters 3and 4).
CULTURE HISTORY STAGE
By the 1930s, trait lists had allowed for relative chronologies to emerge based on the geological principles of stratigraphy and superposition: artifacts found in soil layers beneath others were older. Multicomponent sites allowed archaeologists to create
“timelines” of cultural periods, though no chronometric dating techniques were available until late in this stage. Research focused on describing cultures, often envisioned as static entities, and their temporal relationship to one another. This was the Culture History stage, and was to last until the late 1960s, though aspects of the paradigm remain important to this day.
While Culture History is prevailingly descriptive, explanatory models emerged from time to time, causing no small amount of debate. Migration or diffusion, or a combination thereof was more often than not cited as the explanation for culture change.
In the Hopewell case, Griffin (1952) briefly entertained the notion that Ohio Hopewell was the result of a migration of people from New York who interacted with the Adena.
Ritchie and Dragoo (1960) posited that Hopewell displaced Adena, and that Adena subsequently migrated east. Ritchie (1938; 1944) suggested that a group of Ohio
Hopewell had migrated into western New York to begin the Squawkie Hill phase.
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By this time, the work of Moorehead, Willoughby, and Shetrone, among others, had defined the Hopewell culture in the Ohio Valley. Several copper artifacts, including axes and adzes, ear spools, breastplates, crescents and ornaments were included in burials at the Hopewell type site, as well as stone curved base platform pipes, mica fragments and cutouts, and bladelets (Shetrone1930; Greber and Ruhl 1989). These became the diagnostic Hopewellian traits. Later, Webb and Snow (1974) formalized a distinction between Adena and Hopewell, based on trait lists, while Otto (1979) and others recognized Hopewell antecedents in some Adena traits.
By the 1950s, Hopewell was largely recognized as a cultural entity with two centers from which influence was diffused across eastern North America (Griffin 1952).
The Ohio and Illinois valleys were regions “of relatively greater cultural elaboration and organization from which a radiation of cultural material took place” (Caldwell 1962).
Hopewell was part of a larger “Northern Tradition” which in turn was part of “a great interrelated culture-historical structure” (Caldwell 1977:292) of eastern North America.
With its roots in the burial traditions of the Archaic, Hopewell represented a climax of the
Northern Tradition, after which there was a “decline.” There were disagreements about certain important aspects of Hopewell, like settlement and subsistence patterns, but this was mainly due to a lack of basic data. For example, Griffin (1967:183) believed that maize was important to the expansion of Hopewell, while Caldwell viewed the Hopewell as hunter-gatherers, with a few minor cultigens (no maize), who were successful enough to reach “primary forest efficiency” (Caldwell 1962:288), meaning they approached the local carrying capacity.
17
Some, like Willey and Phillips (1958) were more comfortable calling Hopewell a horizon because the term had less of a unitary connotation, and by the mid 1960s most archaeologists had begun to question the Hopewell culture concept. As more research was conducted in peripheral regions, it became increasingly clear that Hopewell wasn‟t as uniform as had been assumed. In 1964, Caldwell (1977) introduced the concept of the
Hopewell Interaction Sphere. This was envisioned as a vast network involving some trade, but based in ideology. He suggested the network had its roots in the Archaic and spread across eastern North America during the Middle Woodland period (Caldwell
1977). The Hopewell Interaction Sphere cast doubt on the idea of Hopewell as a uniform cultural entity. Some were resistant to the new concept, though. In his culture history classic “Eastern North American Archaeology: A Summary” Griffin (1967) described a trade network, but didn‟t use the term interaction sphere. He included a map of the various Hopewellian complexes, including the New York Hopewellian.
Meanwhile, methodological advances were occurring as well. McKern‟s (1939)
Midwestern Taxonomic Method helped researchers sort out site relationships prior to the advent of radiocarbon dating. MacNeish and others demonstrated that pottery types could be useful in culture identification, and that seriation of pottery types could yield information on patterns of cultural change (Ritchie and MacNeish 1949; MacNeish
1952). Of course radiocarbon dating, developed in 1949 (Arnold and Libby 1949; Libby
1955), has proven to be an invaluable tool in archaeological research. With radiocarbon dates, the cultural periods could be placed more confidently in temporal categories.
18
Within the study area, this was arguably the most productive stage in archaeological history. This is particularly true for research on the Middle Woodland period. In Canada, The Laurel tradition (culture in Ritchie‟s terminology) was defined, introducing another Middle Woodland mound building culture (Wright 1967). The Laurel tradition was centered in western Ontario, northern Minnesota and southeastern
Manitoba. It was contemporary with Hopewell and had similar mortuary practices, but had distinct artifact assemblages. Many of the mounds found north of Lake Ontario resemble those found south of the lake, but the traits of these northern mounds indicate they are more closely related to the Laurel tradition than to Hopewell (Wright 1967).
Pottery styles at the southern Ontario sites are representative of Laurel, Point Peninsula, and the related Saugeen focus (essentially the equivalent of Ritchie‟s phase) near Lake
Huron (Wright 1967). Artifacts such as a fossil shark tooth, copper and silver panpipes, and mica sheets found in LeVesconte Mound (Ritchie 1994), are indicative of a
Hopewellian influence in at least some of the Ontario sites, especially those around Rice
Lake.
New York archaeology in this stage was dominated by the work of William
Ritchie. In the mid-1930s, Ritchie investigated four small mounds in the Genesee Valley in central New York. Certain artifacts obtained from some of the Genesee Valley mounds by Thomas in the late 1800s and various antiquarians in the early 1900s suggested a
Hopewell influence. These included platform pipes, a copper ear spool, a copper axe, and bladelets made of vanport (Flint Ridge) chert from Ohio (Ritchie 1938). Ritchie excavated three mounds at Squawkie Hill, a bluff west of the Genesee River near Mount
19
Morris, New York, and another mound in Geneseo, four and a half miles to the north on the opposite side of the river. At Squawkie Hill he recovered a bladelet fragment, mica fragments, cache blades and a small copper and silver neck ornament (Ritchie 1938). The
Geneseo Mound 1 Hopewell-related traits include such artifacts as bladelets, cache blades, conch shell fragments, and an effigy platform pipe in the form of a snake or salamander (Ritchie 1938). Developing a trait list from the Squawkie Hill Mounds and the Geneseo Mound 1, Ritchie (1938) established that these northeastern mounds were related to the newly designated Hopewell culture. He postulated that the mounds were the work of “small detachments of actual Hopewell people from their southern Ohio center”
(Ritchie 1938:40), later adding that they merged with the resident Point Peninsula population (Ritchie 1944), and introduced the mound building tradition to them. This mixed culture became known as the New York focus, Hopewellian phase (Ritchie 1944), and later the Squawkie Hill phase of the Hopewell culture (Ritchie 1994), with related contemporary groups who did not adopt Hopewell traits remaining in the Point Peninsula culture. With the waning influence of Hopewell after around AD 400, the Squawkie Hill phase once again became Point Peninsula. By the 1960s, Ritchie (1994) characterized his migration scenario as “debatable”, but he still felt that the upper Allegheny Valley was key in the diffusion of Hopewellian traits into the northeast. The migration hypothesis has persisted in the literature. Lantz (1989) considered two Middle Woodland (prior to AD
500) groups to be present in the upper Allegheny Valley region: Ohio Hopewell transplants who built earth mounds, and locals who built stone mounds.
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In 1955, Mayer-Oakes provided the first comprehensive study of the archaeology of the upper Ohio Valley, which included the lower half of the upper Allegheny Valley.
He assembled a trait list with criteria similar to Ritchie‟s, incorporating data from twenty- six mounds in the Allegheny Valley; however he included mounds attributable to
Iroquoian people, such as Irvine Mound 5, and mounds that contain no discernable
Middle Woodland component. Mayer-Oakes commented “there is so little direct
Hopewell influence that it looks as if most of the Middle Woodland groups in our area were „country cousins‟ and had little contact with the sophisticated Hopewell people”
(1955:15).
Federal and state public works projects in the 1930s and 1940s instigated a number of mound excavations in New York and Pennsylvania. Much of this research was trapped in unpublished field reports until Carpenter began a series of mound reports in the regional journal Pennsylvania Archaeologist in the 1950s. He excavated mounds near
Poland, Kill Buck and Vandalia, New York (Carpenter 1950a), and near Irvine,
Pennsylvania (Carpenter 1956). These contained Hopewell artifacts, including bladelets, a copper ear spool, platform pipes, mica, and notched points that would later be recognized as Snyders and Lowe Cluster points, typical of early and late Hopewell sites respectively (Justice 1987).
A few other Hopewell-related mounds investigated in the area include the Sugar
Run Mounds (Bliss 1942), the Danner Mound (Clark, Lantz and Robinson 1960) and the
Nelson Mound (Carpenter and Schoff 1951). Two copper crescents and several copper beads were found at the Danner site, along with bladelets and Snyders points. Although
21 many advances have been made since, archaeologists of this period documented mounds with far greater attention to detail than had been done in previous stages.
Present-day research benefits enormously from the contribution of the archaeologists of this day. Still, they were working with the archaeological record and its many shortcomings. Most of the mounds that were excavated from the 1940s through the
1960s were already looted by collectors or dug into by antiquarians. The potential extent of lost data from such activity was demonstrated in 1963 when a relatively undisturbed mound was opened by collectors near Caneadea, New York, along the Genesee River.
Fortunately, Marian White from the State University of New York at Buffalo was able to document the materials extracted from the mound, including hundreds of cache blades, 3 platform pipes, 10 slate gorgets, 6 stone celts, a copper celt, and numerous other mortuary artifacts (White, n.d.; Howard 2006). This represents the most extensive mound database in the region, and would have been lost to private interests along with the actual artifacts had the collectors not been gracious enough to allow the documentation to take place.
Point Peninsula
Point Peninsula has received far less academic attention than Hopewell, but it is nonetheless a well-delineated culture-historic construct. Ritchie first described Point
Peninsula in 1944, preliminarily as a pottery tradition with a single focus. He noted, however, that spatial and temporal divisions were probable. Using trait lists, he hypothesized three temporally overlapping groups that he considered to be a continual development within a regional culture (Ritchie 1944). Later he described a burial tradition attributed to the earliest of these groups (Ritchie 1955). By 1965, he had
22 separated this earliest group, radiocarbon dated to around 1000 BC to 560 BC (Ritchie and Funk 1973: 116) into a new complex he termed Meadowood (Ritchie 1994).
Meadowood assemblages consisted of the Vinette 1 pottery series, tubular pipes, finely crafted thin cache blades and side-notched bifaces, and broad slate gorgets. Exotic artifacts and materials are encountered at Meadowood sites, indicating that widespread trade networks had appeared by around 1000 BC. Ritchie (1955; 1994) noted material parallels with the Glacial Kame and Red Ochre cultures to the west. Meadowood sites with an abundance of Adena-related artifacts were classified as Middlesex, which Ritchie initially regarded as “infusions of elements of the Adena culture” into the region (Ritchie
1994:201). He and Dragoo would later argue that Middlesex represented actual Adena populations that had migrated into the region (Ritchie and Dragoo 1960). This hypothesis was met with harsh criticism (eg. Griffin 1961; Grayson 1970), and most archaeologists embrace Ritchie‟s original vision of Middlesex (eg. Rutherford 1990; Wright 1999).
Having distinguished Meadowood/Middlesex from Point Peninsula, (though the latter was still viewed as a development from the former), Ritchie turned to defining
Point Peninsula. The assemblages contained Vinette 2 wares with dentate, pseudo-scallop shell and rocker stamping, but lithic remains were variable across the landscape, ranging from thick, coarsely made side-notched bifaces in the west to stemmed points in the east.
The coarse side notched points remain untyped, resembling side notched points from the
Late Archaic period. The stemmed points were referred to as Steuben, and later, Fox
Creek (Ritchie and Funk 1973). Ritchie (1994) postulated that further research would
23 result in various phases across the landscape, but many researchers have since treated his pottery tradition as a cultural entity.
In Canada, Point Peninsula was regarded as one of three related cultural complexes, the others being the Saugeen and Couture (Spence et al. 1990). Spence, Pihl and Murphy (1990) suggested that localized groups had settlement and subsistence practices that varied slightly across the landscape, such that differences were increasingly more apparent with more distance, eventually aggregating to the three recognizable cultural complexes. The foraging Point Peninsula people in southern Ontario focused their activity around riverine and lake environments. Some researchers suggested that spring macroband settlements formed near confluences and estuaries, eventually leading to more sedentary practices (Spence et al. 1990). Wilson (1991a) argued that, at least in the Thames River drainage (generally assigned to the Saugeen focus), there was evidence that Middle Woodland people utilized base camps that were multi-seasonal, if not year- round places from which the groups launched their foraging ventures.
However Point Peninsula is conceived, these were the groups that were contemporaneous with and, to varying degrees, influenced by the Hopewell. After the decline of Hopewell influence, changes occurred in the material assemblages of the region. Cordmarked pottery increased in frequency, eventually replacing the stamped varieties, and smaller, thinner projectile points became the norm. Types from the Jack‟s
Reef clusters (Justice 1987) are attributed to this period, especially Raccoon Creek points
(Lantz 1989). These appear to represent the introduction of the bow and arrow into the region around AD 500 (Justice 1987). This later version of Point Peninsula, which did not
24 produce burial mounds, was to persist until around AD 800-1000, when proto-Iroquoian traits became dominant in much of New York and southern Ontario (Ritchie 1994).
Point Peninsula sites surround Lake Ontario, and are mainly found on the lake plain (Ritchie 1994). Thus far, no Point Peninsula stamped pottery types have been identified in the upper Allegheny Valley region, but Jack‟s Reef type points have been found. Cordmarked pottery has been found, but it occurs from the Early Woodland through the Late Woodland, and none has been confidently assigned to the Middle
Woodland, much less identified as Point Peninsula. One of the major concerns of my dissertation is to find evidence of a cultural relationship between Point Peninsula and the mound building groups in the upper Allegheny Valley. Results of the analyses of extant data are found in Chapter 4, and analyses of new field data collected for this dissertation are presented in Chapter 5.
PROCESSUAL ARCHAEOLOGY STAGE
The next stage, from the late 1960s until the present, encompasses a number of paradigms and plenty of debate. This stage marks a shift in popularity within American archaeology from the largely descriptive, particularist approach of Culture History to the more explanatory approach of various scientific paradigms, focusing energy on problems of general, world-wide importance. Arguably the most important of these was the
Processual paradigm, shaped by the systematics of theorists like Binford and the diverse evolution-inspired ideas of researchers like Dunnell and Flannery.
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Goals were beginning to change from historical narratives to explanatory models.
Research questions were more anthropological in nature. In 1964, Struever (1965; 1977) applied Binford‟s (1964) “regional approach” to a systematic study of Middle Woodland mounds in the Upper Mississippi Valley, concluding that the local groups were not
“Hopewell.” He and Houart would later characterize Hopewell culture as “the construct of a widely held „normative‟ definition of culture” (Struever and Houart 1972:48). They suggested that what had been described as evidence for the Hopewell culture better supported Caldwell‟s (1977) Hopewell Interaction Sphere.
Since many major developments in Middle Woodland archaeology were (and continue to be) formulated in this stage, a more detailed discussion is warranted. To facilitate the flow of this section, the various concepts are addressed under appropriate headings. As per the format of the chapter, these will be followed by a brief summary of recent Middle Woodland mound research in the Northeast. The summary will, in this section, be distinguished by a heading as well.
Hopewell Interaction Sphere.
Caldwell‟s (1977) Hopewell Interaction Sphere was an explanatory model for the presence of material from a wide range of sources in Middle Woodland mounds mainly in Ohio and Illinois. Artifacts in the mounds were made from raw materials such as obsidian from Wyoming, marine shells from the Gulf Coast, copper and silver from the
Upper Great Lakes region, and mica from the southern Appalachians. Since its inception, the Hopewell Interaction Sphere has been interpreted in different ways, generally in terms of economics or ideology.
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Economic Explanations.
Though Caldwell‟s model was never intended to be strictly a trade network, it has often since been described as such. Struever and Houart envisioned the Hopewell
Interaction Sphere to be a formalized economic trade system in which mound and earthwork centers functioned as transaction centers where raw materials and finished goods were traded (Struever and Houart 1972:65, Fig. 4). This economic model was tested by Seeman (1979), who identified thirty-nine artifacts and raw materials that were exchanged within the Hopewell Interaction Sphere and ranked Hopewell sites based on the number of these artifacts present. He found no evidence of such a structured system.
Concentrations of artifacts and raw material in the “core” areas of the Ohio and Illinois
Valleys seemed to indicate that goods were not exchanged back and forth between regions, but rather tended to flow toward these two regions. Braun (1986) tied the increased trade to the intensification of horticulture and resultant population expansions.
The essential argument is that more people meant more leaders, and increased demand for primitive valuables.
More recently, economic models have been integrated with ceremonial concerns.
Spielmann (2002) credited ritual consumption, both of food and paraphernalia, with the economic intensification evident in the archaeological record of the Middle Woodland period. Cantú Trunzo (2006) argued that small mound centers such as those in the
Northeast emerged to control the increasingly important trade routes over which ritual items were transported.
Ideological Explanations
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Seeman and other archaeologists weren‟t convinced of economic explanations and began to investigate alternatives. By the 1990s, ideology and symbolism had become a major focus of research into Hopewell trade items. Seeman (1995) surmised that
Hopewellian artifacts and raw materials were media for communication of ideology. He envisioned Hopewell as a dual cultural system, made up of local social structures and an overarching ideological structure, similar to Caldwell‟s model. Seeman posited that the increase in valuables exchange was due to an increase in the shared ideology among the participants of the interaction sphere. The artifacts and raw materials served to bridge cultural and linguistic communication gaps. The importance of ideology is reflected in the fact that locally produced artifacts attempted to imitate those that could have been imported through trade. Value was placed not on the item, but on the idea that it represented.
Some Hopewellian items were not conducive to local reproduction, and were hard to “fake.” These were mainly mineral items that had to be imported from a distance.
Charles, Van Nest and Buikstra (2004) suggested that patterns of ideology could be detected in the exchange and deposition of non-local materials. They used ethnographic accounts to suggest that minerals of different colors may have represented the cardinal directions, for example. Like Seeman, they rejected a purely economic explanation, but they also rejected the notion of Hopewell as a shared belief system. They characterized it as “an archaeologically defined manifestation of social, political and economic activity”
(Charles et al. 2004).
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While it is understood that we will probably never know the meanings of the various artifacts and raw materials found in Hopewell archaeological contexts, some archaeologists have suggested that we can understand them to some extent. Cowan
(1996) analyzed mortuary artifacts and concluded that there were three categories: 1) personal artifacts that carried meaning for the individual and few others, and carried either no social value or hidden social value; 2) artifacts that carried meaning for a larger group, perhaps the individual‟s lineage or clan, and was held in trust by select members of that group, inferring social value; and 3) artifacts that carried meaning for most or all members of the society, and identified an elevated status for the individual. The ubiquity, quantity and visibility (size and flashiness) of the artifacts determined their classification.
Platform pipes, pendants and boatstones are among the artifacts Cowan placed in the first category. Artifacts in the second category are identified by context, buried separately from human remains. The third category includes adornments such as bear canines and copper “breastplates” and “earspools.”
This application of social meaning to artifacts was echoed by the various authors in Carr and Case‟s Gathering Hopewell (2005a). Carr and several colleagues made use of extensive ethnographic data from the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) and other sources to infer the ideological significance of Hopewell artifacts in burial contexts. Their inferences resulted from a “locally contextualized and personalized” approach (Carr and
Case 2005b: 21), emphasizing particulars to build a picture from the bottom up.
Spence and Fryer (2005) found distribution and context distinctions between the use of silver from Michigan and Ontario. Ruhl (2005) determined that copper earspools
29 were interregionally recognizable, and that they likely signaled membership in a sodality or some other pan-regional corporate entity. She suggested their significance was likely tied to a ring motif, and they were probably not prestige items. Turff and Carr (2005) found that panpipes were locally made and rarely exchanged, and that their roles were highly variable from region to region. Bernardini and Carr (2005) identified copper celts as prestige items fashioned by or for individuals after having traveled to the source region
(generally Michigan) to acquire the copper. They also found that size matters: the larger the celt, the more social prestige.
In all of these cases, economic explanations are absent. If exchange occurred in the interaction sphere, it is inferred to have been reciprocal, and local economies were apparently autonomous (Carr 2005a). Some of the autonomous local economies were found to be generally egalitarian with a coarse but somewhat hierarchical ranking system that isn‟t quite a “chiefdom,” but isn‟t a “tribe” either (Carr 2005b).
Non-mound Research.
All of the research into the Hopewell Interaction Sphere has involved mortuary data, which, until relatively recently, had been virtually the only data collected from the
Middle Woodland period. The shift to more systematic studies led to the investigation of aspects of Hopewell other than burials.
New developments in archaeology followed from the general scientific attitude of processualism. Sub-disciplines blossomed, such as zooarchaeology, bioarchaeology and paleoethnobotany. Lithic analysts, pottery analysts, and other specialists emerged, and
Cultural Resource Management (CRM) was born. Technological advances improved
30 radiocarbon dating results and introduced new methods, such as chemical and phytolith analyses, and flotation.
A few common assumptions from the Culture History days were refuted by bone studies. Carbon isotope analysis on bone collagen revealed that maize was not a major contributor to the Hopewell diet (Bender et al. 1981). The adoption of maize was therefore ruled out as a “cause” for the Hopewell expansion. The migration hypotheses were also called into question by analysis of cranial metrics. Sciulli and Mahaney (1986) found that some local populations were continuous from the Archaic through the Middle
Woodland period.
Subsistence Patterns
While limited samples of macrobotanical remains had been identified in various archaeological contexts since the turn of the century, there had been no serious study of them. Based on a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological
Association (Fowler 1957), Struever (1977) developed a “mud-flat horticulture” hypothesis in 1964. He posited that Iva sp., Chenopodium sp., and Amaranthus sp. were cultivated on the river flats near Middle Woodland habitation sites, contributing to the increased complexity of the local groups (Struever 1977:99-103). Through the 1970s advances in technique such as the advent of flotation allowed more serious investigation of this possibility. By the 1980s several native plants were recognized as cultigens and some as domesticates (Smith 1985, 1989). Hopewell sites yielded Chenopodium sp., Iva annua, Phalaris carolinia, Hordeum pusillum, Polygonum sp. Helianthus sp. (Wymer
1987; Gremillion 1996) and other probable cultigens proposed to comprise an Eastern
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Agricultural Complex (Smith 1989). Methodological advances in paleoethnobotany sparked a surge of research in the northeast culminating in edited volumes like Current
Northeast Paleoethnobotany (Hart 1999). Within the study area, though, such research on the Middle Woodland period has been lacking. Macrobotanical evidence for Eastern
Agricultural Complex seeds have been found in small quantities at the Dunsfort site in
Washington County in southwestern Pennsylvania, but black walnuts appear to have been more important in the local diet in that region (King 2004).
Settlement Patterns
Middle Woodland settlement patterns were, and continue to be, a point of contention. Some believe that the Hopewell lived in villages in or near earthworks
(Griffin 1996). Others argue that the types of features and artifacts that constitute a village settlement are absent from sites that were once thought to be Hopewell villages
(Pacheco 1996). Prufer (1965) first posited that the Hopewell people lived in small, dispersed settlements around, but not in, mound and earthwork areas. This idea developed into the Vacant Center Model, or Dispersed Sedentary Model, defined by
Dancey and Pacheco as “small, dispersed, sedentary hamlets [that] surround „vacant‟ earthwork-mound centers, which were periodically visited by some or all of the group”
(Pacheco 1996:32; Dancey 1997). The model has been supported by research conducted over the last 20 years on a handful of habitation sites in central Ohio (Dancey 1991;
Pacheco 1993, 1996; Pacheco, Burks and Wymer 2009). Still, some question the degree of sedentism within Hopewell settlement patterns. Yerkes (2002) argued that Hopewell continued the seasonally mobile settlement patterns established in the Archaic period.
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Middle Woodland settlements in southwestern Canada suggest a gradual trend toward larger, nucleated villages through time in that region (Wilson 1991a; 1994). Wilson
(1991b) argued that the mobile hunter-gatherer model of the Northern Algonquian did not fit the Middle Woodland sites he encountered in southern Ontario. He suggested that the local groups were heterogeneous in their settlement and subsistence strategies, and that some appeared to have more residentially stable patterns than hunter-gatherers to the north (Wilson 1991b).
Lantz (1989) has suggested that Middle Woodland settlement in the upper
Allegheny Valley was similar to the Late Woodland pattern, in which village sites were permanent, moving every 12-20 years with the depletion of local resources, but this refers specifically to patterns after AD 500, when mound burial had declined significantly. He demonstrates a correlation between the locations of these later settlements and the locations of the earlier mounds, interpreting it as suggestive of relatively stable local population centers from early (prior to AD 500) to late Middle Woodland (Lantz 1989).
Evolutionary and “Post-Processual” Approaches
During the 1980s and 1990s two divergent evolutionary approaches emerged in archaeology. Evolutionary archaeology and human behavioral ecology sought to apply rigorous Darwinian biological evolutionary principles to the field. Their goals were as different as their approaches. Evolutionary archaeologists tried to document changes in material traits through time and then explain them using terminology and processes borrowed from Darwinian evolutionary theory (Lyman and O‟Brien 1998). Dunnell and
Greenlee (1999) proposed an evolutionary model for the behavior of mound building by
33 the Ohio Hopewell. They suggested that it was “waste” behavior from an evolutionary standpoint, detracting from fertility, but that it was reproductively beneficial in generally unpredictable environmental conditions. Fewer offspring would be produced, but more would reach reproductive maturity.
Behavioral ecologists tried to explain behavior by producing predictive models and testing them in the field (Bird and O‟Connell 2006). No such models have been proposed specifically for mound building, but Neiman (1997) attributed monumental architecture in Mesoamerica to “costly signaling,” a model in which participants signaled their quality or motivation, thereby increasing their fitness. Both have contributed potentially promising (and divergent) models for explaining Hopewell mound and earthwork construction from biological fitness standpoint.
At the same time these scientific approaches were competing, an “anti-science” movement was developing in the social sciences, as part of an overall academic movement known as postmodernism. In archaeology, this resulted in a reflective debate over the validity of scientific approaches in the field. This, the post-processual critique, failed to rid archaeology of scientific methodology and theoretical approaches, but it did foster new ways of looking at the archaeological record and encouraged more anthropologically inclusive research designs.
One of these new avenues of research is an inquiry into past ideological systems.
Hopewell has been the focus of such research, as archaeologists try to decipher meaning from earthworks, mounds, burials and artifacts. The endeavors of Carr and Case (2005a) and their colleagues have been outlined above. Byers (2004) focused on Ohio Hopewell,
34 approaching meaning through interpretation of the earthworks and mortuary artifacts. He generated a sweeping and detailed account of a people who constructed the earthen monuments to sustain balance in the world through ritual renewal. Bernardini (2004) likened the geometric Ohio Hopewell earthworks to Chaco Canyon ceremonial centers, suggesting they were centers for broad regional ceremonial systems.
These new interpretations of Hopewell, and many others that are emerging, will no doubt reshape current perspectives on the Middle Woodland period. It would seem, however, that there has developed a consensus that Hopewell is a more localized phenomenon, with a far-reaching sphere of influence that varies in intensity. Hopewell artifacts like mica cut-outs and copper ear spools have been found in low quantities in mounds in the northeast, including the upper Allegheny Valley (see Chapters 3 and 4), but how much influence groups had upon one another is yet to be understood.
Postprocessual Deconstruction of Culture Historic Constructs
Issues have recently been raised concerning the continued use of culture-historic taxa (eg. Williamson 1990; Hart and Brumbach 2003). Valid skepticism of the application of static normative constructs to dynamic cultural systems seems to be at the heart of a movement to abandon constructs developed under the Culture History paradigm and used as analytical units under processualism. Hart and Brumbach (2003) characterize culture-historic constructs as conforming to a “step-by-step progressive concept of change,” forcing a researcher to “accept that traits were routinely shared in consistent packages on the same time horizon over large geographical scales,” and
“accept that change occurred only at precise temporal boundaries marking shifts from one
35 state to another” (Hart and Brumbach 2003:747). In the Northeast, culture-historic constructs to which Hart and Brumbach refer are largely the work of Ritchie.
However, in discussing the shortcomings of the widely followed culture-historic
Midwestern Taxonomic Method (McKern 1939) in 1965, Ritchie noted that it “lacks the necessary flexibility for realistic orientation of what seems to be a complex of cultural continuums, undergoing, through time, large and small changes” (Ritchie 1994: xxviii).
He developed what he thought was a more flexible system of taxonomy, in an attempt to avoid “the imposition of a more or less rigid paradigm upon such protean materials”
(Ritchie 1994: xxviii).
Struever and Houart‟s 1972 criticism of the „normative‟ concept of culture is echoed by today‟s concerns. It was recognized even during the heyday of the Culture
History paradigm that problems exist when trying to box anything as fluid and dynamic as culture into neat little packages. Archaeological constructs, however flexible they were intended to be, were often interpreted as rigid units of analysis, so it is easy to understand how they can be characterized as such.
The Point Peninsula construct, like many other culture-historic constructs, was based upon a suite of characteristics which was, by design, flexible. Ritchie (1994) cautioned that much about his Point Peninsula construct was preliminary, yet all too often it has been interpreted as a rigid entity, which would be vulnerable to post-processual critique. The deconstruction of culture-historic taxa in favor of less generalized entities may indeed facilitate better understanding of the cultural dynamics within a given region.
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There are, however, large scale, broad reaching aspects of cultural behavior that are evident in the archaeological record.
Critics argue that such aspects as ceramic decoration and artifact types are not ethnic markers (Hart and Brumbach 2003). This is true, but they do represent cultural behavior in that decoration of pottery, for example, was done by individual persons who learned from others. The ability to produce what we can recognize as types was passed from one individual to another, and shared – whether within an ethnic group or among groups. The apparent absence of Point Peninsula stamped pottery types on the Allegheny
Plateau doesn‟t mean that those people were ethnically or culturally distinct from Point
Peninsula, but it may be that there was something cultural that prevented the sharing of decoration styles between the two regions.
Culture-historic terms are convenient, well-known, and readily applicable to new conceptions. There is a need to be vigilant about allowing such constructs to be interpreted as monolithic and inflexible, but the same is true of any future construct that may be conceived within any other paradigm. Some aspects of the culture-historic constructs remain useful, and until tenable alternatives that are not subject to the same concerns are developed under new theoretical paradigms, culture-historic constructs, with all their inherent flaws, can still facilitate comparative discussions and foster new ideas.
Despite the deconstructive post-processual critique, many methods and terms developed in the Culture History stage and the Processual stage of archaeology are still in use today, and most archaeological work continues under the banner of the processual paradigm.
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Processual Stage Research in the Northeast
Within the study area, new archaeological research during this stage has been limited. Canadian research from the 1980s and 1990s mentioned in the Culture History section (see Point Peninsula heading) was conducted just to the west of the region in which mounds occur. In Pennsylvania, the Anderson mound (George 1978), and
Meadows mound (Maurer 1975) were investigated in the 1970s, and in 1992, George described a Middle Woodland mound and habitation site in the southwest corner of
Pennsylvania. George (1992) applied Seeman‟s trait list approach to ten sites in the
Allegheny Valley in Pennsylvania and found that sites in the northern part of the state, nearer the border with New York, exhibited more Hopewell traits than those that were down-river, closer to Ohio. He noted, though, “one must … consider the degree of destruction that has been inflicted on mounds of southwestern Pennsylvania” (George
1992:5). Still, results from relatively undisturbed mounds near Pittsburgh, like McKees
Rock Mound (Dragoo 1963) and the Linn Mound (Dragoo 1955) similarly suggested less
Hopewell affiliation than those to the north. Mounds clustered around Pittsburgh exhibited more Adena characteristics than Hopewell, despite their relative contemporaneity with the other northeastern mounds.
The next chapter outlines the data collected over the years from northeastern mound contexts, and compares the artifacts and structural features of the mounds, to evaluate the concept of the cultural entity that has been termed the Squawkie Hill phase.
Chapter 4 will examine in detail the data collected in the upper Allegheny Valley during research in all of the archaeological stages discussed above. This evidence, along with the
38 newly collected data in Chapter 5, will be used to assess two widely held notions: 1) that
Point Peninsula or closely related groups lived in the region, and 2) that these groups were influenced by the Hopewell in Ohio, developing the suite of characteristics known as the Squawkie Hill phase. At this point I must emphasize that I will take Ritchie‟s advice in using these constructs as units of analysis, keeping in mind that these are not meant to be rigid, inflexible configurations.
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CHAPTER 3
NORTHEASTERN MIDDLE WOODLAND MOUNDS
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
The research for this section of the dissertation occurred over the course of five years, and incorporated data sources from the Rochester Museum and Science Center
Library, the Marian White Museum at the SUNY University at Buffalo (UB), the
Anthropology Library at UB, the UB Archaeological Survey site files and CRM report files, and various local town and village libraries and museums across the region. Most of the mound database that was developed for this chapter was also used for limited analyses in my Master‟s thesis and an article derived from it (Howard 2006). The database contains all reasonably accessible mound records with available data from the entire region that has been subsumed under the Squawkie Hill phase or New York
Hopewellian concepts. This region includes mounds stretching from northwestern
Pennsylvania, through western and central New York, and into southern Ontario. I have also included Middle Woodland period mounds from southwestern Pennsylvania for comparative purposes, although these mounds were not implicitly assigned to Squawkie
Hill.
40
This chapter presents the mound data, as well the methods and results of various analyses of certain aspects of the data. To ensure the inclusion of all possible Middle
Woodland mounds, every mound available was researched, so a number of the mounds are attributable to people from earlier or later periods. All of the mounds with size, landscape, and burial treatment data are included in analyses and discussions of these aspects, to assess the possibility that Middle Woodland mounds may be differentiated from mounds of other periods based on these criteria. A number of Middle Woodland mounds in the region contain burials interred by later populations who recognized that the mounds were for burial purposes. These have historically been referred to as
“intrusive” burials, but the dictionary definitions and thesaurus synonyms for the word
“intrusive” seem to connote a negative encroachment. Also, an archaeologically constructed culture from the Midwest has been termed Intrusive Mound, and while some have noted influences in the Northeast (e.g. Ritchie 1994); the majority of later burials clearly have no connection with the Intrusive Mound cultural construct. I believe
“successive,” meaning “coming after or later,” better defines these types of burial, and will refer to them as such. Only mound material from the Middle Woodland period identified either by radiocarbon dating or artifact seriation is included in the artifact analyses and discussions within this chapter. Carpenter (1956) provides a summary of the
Contact period burials and their contents at Irvine Mounds, and each of the sources in
Appendix A can be reviewed for other Late Woodland and Contact period successive burial data. Records on northeastern Middle Woodland period mounds range from one
41 sentence references in list format to detailed modern archaeological reports, so some records are of more utility than others.
Trait lists have been used in the past to document relationships between mound groups, and to define characteristics of hypothesized cultures. While traits do not translate into cultural units, and may not be reliable cultural indicators, they are still a useful tool to help identify patterns of behavior. Ritchie‟s (1994) Squawkie Hill phase trait list, Mayer-Oakes‟ (1955) similar list, and Seeman‟s (1979) lists of Hopewellian traits have been used in the literature for comparative analytical purposes. George (1992) adapted Seeman‟s artifacts list for the Pennsylvania mounds, adding bladelets to the diagnostic traits. I have taken George‟s approach in developing trait lists for the accumulated Middle Woodland mound data, but I have also delineated traits that had been present in the region prior to the Hopewell period that have often been included as
Hopewellian traits (Table 1). The artifacts and other traits that are treated as Hopewellian in this context are those that first appear in the region during the Middle Woodland period, as these are more interpretable as Hopewell influences (Table 2).
MOUND DISTRIBUTIONS AND REGIONAL TRAITS
The northeastern mounds were organized into regions of varying size (Figure 1), defined by spatial analysis of mound locations. The mounds tend to be clustered near certain rivers and lakes, suggesting a transportation system and perhaps a subsistence pattern involving notably the Allegheny and Genesee rivers in Pennsylvania and New
York, and Rice Lake and the Trent River in Ontario, and various swamps or marshes on
42 the lake plains. These drainage regions on the landscape provide a spatial base level of analysis from which to search for any patterns that may emerge in the data. A similar method was used by Mackey (2007), who organized 44 New York mounds or mound groups (this includes the Corn Planter group in Pennsylvania) by drainage areas, listing seven in all.
For the current study, files were generated representing data from at least 211 mounds, two large localized mound groups that add an addition 300 or more mounds, and a handful of non-mound burial sites that have structural features and artifacts that match those found in the mounds. Because this information has never been formally brought together, each region is afforded a descriptive account, with brief mentions of the traits subject to later analysis. Six aspects of the mounds were analyzed, involving variable numbers of mounds from each region, using qualitative or quantitative methods depending on the types of information available. The compared aspects, methods, and total number of mounds used for each aspect are listed in Table 3. A summary of the utility of the mound records for each region prefaces the descriptive sections below.
The two large mound groups are special cases, and will be discussed in their own right within the St. Lawrence River section, the closest drainage area with burial mounds.
Some of the drainages had too few records or too little information to be useful in comparative analyses, so these are omitted from analyses, and discussed separately. Ten regional clusters had sufficient records and data to include in various analyses. For analytical purposes, the regional clusters are treated as distinct entities, and an evaluation
43
Figure 2. Northeast Middle Woodland mound distributions. Red text indicates drainage region (cluster). Numbers refer to individual mounds listed in Appendix A.
44 of such treatment can be found in Chapter 6. For ease of comparison, I have presented each region in a rough format that facilitates reference from the analysis section, as follows:
1. Location of the mounds on the landscape, in relation to natural and
cultural features.
2. Mound shape and construction, including non-burial structural features and
prepared floors.
3. Burial features, such as cists or pits, and burial treatment, such as flexed and
extended burials and cremations.
4. Associated artifacts and their provenience in relation to burials, and any
radiocarbon dates.
The variability of mounds in different regions of the northeast attests to the need to better understand the cultural relationships of the Middle Woodland period. These descriptive accounts are followed by the results of the comparative analyses to evaluate whether all of these mounds should be subsumed under a single entity, like the Squawkie
Hill phase.
Southwestern Pennsylvania
As mentioned above, southwestern Pennsylvania mounds were not implicitly included in Ritchie‟s Squawkie Hill construct. For the most part, they have been considered essentially Adena mounds, partly because of the presence of nearby well- documented Adena mounds like Crall, Peter‟s Creek and McKees Rocks (Dragoo 1963).
It was recognized, however, that Hopewell burials had at times been placed into Adena 45 mounds in the area (Mayer-Oakes 1955; Dragoo 1956; Maurer 1975). Smaller mounds, often constructed of stone, were found to contain mostly Middle Woodland remains
(Mayer-Oakes 1955). Subsequent evidence suggests that mounds constructed of both earth and stone, were built well into the Middle Woodland period, many containing a curious blend of Early and Middle Woodland artifacts – often in the same burial context
(Dragoo 1955; George 1978). I have included southwestern Pennsylvania Middle
Woodland mounds because of their proximity to the clusters in the upper Allegheny drainage, and because some of the mounds in those upper Allegheny clusters also contain artifact types generally attributed to the Early Woodland period.
There were available records for 17 mounds in the valleys surrounding Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania (Appendix A). Seven had sufficient burial and structural information for analysis, and 10 had artifact datasets, seven of which were relatively rich. This cluster has been included in the statistical analyses below.
Mounds in southwestern Pennsylvania were found in various locations ranging from valley sites to hilltops. They were circular or slightly oval and are composed of stone or earth fill, or a mixture of the two. In one case, the stone slab construction followed a distinct pattern, with all slabs leaning inward except for a twelve foot section in the northwest quadrant in which they leaned outward (Cadzow 1932). Within the mounds, several types of non-burial structural elements occured, including stone slab pavements, clay platforms and basins, and the occasional post mold pattern.
46
Figure 3. Common burial cist types. Stylized representations of three burial cist types common in northeastern mounds. Sizes vary with burial treatment (smaller for cremation, larger for extended, etc.).
Stone burial cists were common, three types of which were frequent in mounds across the Northeast. One was a box-like, rectangular or oval (or occasionally circular) chamber made with a slab pavement and vertical flagstones, covered by horizontal ones
(Type A). Another was a circular vault made by piling flat rocks atop one another, narrowing toward the middle as the structure rises (Type B); the result resembling an inverted bowl (Carpenter 1956). A third was a cobblestone or slab ring around the human remains, sometimes with a stone pavement or sand layer on the interior (Type C). Such cists were common across the northeast, except north of Lake Ontario. In addition to the cists, Cowin (2003) has described burial structures consisting of merely a pavement of stone slabs placed atop the remains, sometimes accented with a large weathered cobble at
47 the center. In some cases, a single stone slab rested on the remains. Absent elsewhere in the northeast, but present in a few mounds near Pittsburgh were charred log tombs. These were interpreted as Adena features where they were found, and are assumed to predate the Middle Woodland contents of the mound (Dragoo 1955, 1963).
The most common burial treatment was cremation, as is true with most areas in the Northeast. All seven of the mounds with burial data contained cremations. Although no association is specified in reports for this area, clay basins like those found here have been associated with cremation in other drainages of the northeast. Extended and flexed burials were present together in four of the seven mounds, and bundle burials occurred as well in two of those.
Adena artifacts were more common in Middle Woodland mounds of this area than in any other northeastern drainage. Adena stemmed points were present in six of 10 mounds with artifact data. Mayer-Oakes‟ (1955) Early Woodland “Forest Notched”, a variant from the Susquehanna cluster (Justice 1987), occured in two. Wide two-hole gorgets and semi-keeled gorgets, commonly associated with the Early Woodland period, have also been found in mounds here, as have blocked-end tubular pipes and Adena leaf- shaped blades.
Middle Woodland associated points like Snyders and Chesser Notched were present in seven of the 10 mounds. Other points present resembled Ritchie‟s (1971) Fox
Creek, a Middle Woodland type generally associated with the northeast Atlantic coast, and the later Jack‟s Reef corner notched point (Justice 1987). One mound contained a
Middle Woodland narrow gorget. Bladelets are rarely found in this region, one having
48 been reported from the Meadows Mound (Maurer 1975). No curved base platform pipes were recorded for this drainage, but a sandstone elbow pipe was found at Anderson
Mound (George 1978). Early and Middle Woodland pottery types have been recorded from three of the mounds. Bear canines, a beaver incisor, a woodchuck incisor, and awls and other bone tools were found in a few of the mounds where preservation was good.
Though not quantified, mica was reported from three of the 10 mounds. Copper beads were present, as well as a copper awl (George 1992), but no silver was recorded.
Hematite in various forms was recovered from a few mounds in this area. A shark tooth was reported from one of the mounds, but it is not stated whether it was fossilized. One mound contained freshwater pearl beads, Marginella sp. shell beads, and conch columella beads.
A few habitation sites investigated here indicate that black walnuts and deer were important in the diet and that chenopodium and maygrass from the Eastern Agricultural
Complex were present at one site (King 2004). Mound deposits suggest that bear, beaver and muskrat may have been included in the diet as well. The only possible house found was a rectangular 7 X 10 m structure with three associated pit features (George 1992).
Paleoethnobotanical remains found in the pits included hickory nut (Carya sp.) black walnut (Juglans nigra), acorn (Quercus sp.), squash (Cucurbita pepo) rind, and raspberry
(Rubus sp.) seeds (George 1992).
Northwestern Pennsylvania
In the northwest corner of Pennsylvania were mounds occurring in the low hills to the west of the Allegheny Valley, mainly located near small glacial lakes in the valleys of
49
Oil Creek and French Creek, tributaries to the Allegheny River. All of the 9 recorded mounds in this area were more than twenty miles up from the river, and most were located on either hillsides or hilltops. Several had sufficient data to be included in some of the mound analyses (see Table 3). These circular mounds mainly consisted of stone or a mixture of stone and earth. One earth mound was present on a floodplain. This is the only region in the northeast where stone mounds were prevalent. Non-burial interior structures were rare. One mound was constructed in layers of stone and clay, while another consisted of smaller stones piled upon larger ones (Carpenter 1950b). One mound appeared to be constructed by accretion, with two earth interior mounds covered by a stone mound, in turn covered by an off-centered earth mound (Clark et al. 1960). It is not clear if the construction took place during one episode or several.
Burial structures were reported in four of the nine mounds, three of which involved sub-floor pits lined with puddled clay in which the human remains were encased. A slab covering was placed over one of these pit burials. Encasement in puddled clay is a minor trait in the northeast, and it has been reported from Middle Woodland sites in eastern Ohio (eg. Magrath 1945).
The Nelson Mound (Carpenter and Schoff 1951) was the only mound to contain a stone cist similar to those found elsewhere in the northeast. It also contained a burial with cobblestones piled over the remains. Incidentally, this was also the only mound in the area constructed mostly of earth. In these respects, it more closely resembles mounds from the adjacent upper Allegheny Valley and Conewango clusters than the other local mounds.
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Cremations were reported in all five mounds with burial data. At least one cremation was encased in puddled clay. The only other burial treatment reported was flexed, found in two mounds, one individual having been encased in puddled clay.
The diagnostic artifact types found in this cluster are from the Middle Woodland period, with the possible exception of an Adena-like stemmed point from the Lawson
Mound (Carpenter 1950b) and a large leaf-shaped blade from the Danner Mound (Clark et al. 1960). Projectile points, while crudely made, included Fox Creek-like examples as well as Snyders and Chesser Notched types. Of seven mounds with artifact data, three contained bladelets, and four contained Middle Woodland cache blades. Bladelets from two of the mounds were made from vanport chert. Ground stone tools were limited to celts, pendants (a few un-perforated) and narrow gorgets.
Copper occurred in two mounds, one containing a double pointed awl (Carpenter
1950b), and another with beads and two copper crescents (Clark et al. 1960). Preserved on one of the crescents was a thong and swatch of deerskin. Mica was present in three mounds, including a small fragment cut into a hook shape (Carpenter and Schoff 1951).
Cordmarked and plain pottery was recovered from the Danner Mound (Clark et al. 1960).
Antler and bone tools were rare, but this is most likely due to poor preservation. One mound contained two decayed fragments of antler tools. Red ochre deposits were recorded from three mounds, and yellow ochre from one. Graphite was reported from the
Nelson Mound.
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No habitation or other non-mound sites have been reported in the Northwestern
Pennsylvania cluster. The only thing that can be inferred from the material remains about the local subsistence practices is that deer may have been incorporated in the diet.
Upper Allegheny Valley
The upper Allegheny Valley mounds extended from northwest Pennsylvania into southwestern New York, along the river. Thirty-eight mound records were compiled for this region, of which from 11 to 16 were used in the various analyses (Table 3). The
Middle Woodland mounds known from this region were generally located on terraces in the valley floodplains of the river and its tributaries. All of the 16 mounds with dimension and composition information were circular or slightly oval earth mounds. Four of the nine mounds with structural information here were reinforced with stone pavements and berms. Six exhibited signs of floor preparation. There were no reported accretional mounds, but several contained successive interments from the Late Woodland, and a few
– notably at Irvine, Pennsylvania (Carpenter 1956) – contained Contact period burials.
There were 12 mounds in this cluster with burial information, and half of these contained the Type A stone cist (Figure 2). Type B and Type C stone cists were reported from one mound each, as were a slab covered burial, a cobblestone pile covered burial, and slab platform on which human remains rested. Burials in simple sub-floor pits were recorded at three mound sites. One mound was reported to contain no burial structures, with human remains resting on the prepared mound floor (McConaughy and Johnson
2003).
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Cremation was the most common burial treatment, present in 11 of the 12 mounds with burial data. Extended burials were present in four, while flexed and bundle burial treatments were each found in two mounds. In addition, four included non-cremation burials that were so badly disturbed that the placement could not be determined. Each mound in this area appears to have contained one non-cremated burial, generally in a central location on or below the mound floor, and one or more cremations at various locations and levels throughout the mound.
Diagnostic artifacts in the mounds from the Upper Allegheny cluster range from the Early Woodland period (Adena and Forest Notched points) to the Contact period
(Iron axe heads, brass ornaments, glass beads), but Middle Woodland artifacts are the most common. In addition to the 38 mound records from the upper Allegheny Valley, one
Middle Woodland non-mound burial locus near the Sugar Run mounds (McConaughy and Johnson 2003) was included in the artifact analyses. Only 20 of the 39 records contained any artifact information, and some of those had merely mentions with no quantification. Still, the records for this region represent one of the largest datasets in the northeast.
Seven mounds and the non-mound locus contained Middle Woodland cache blades, which tend to conform to a roughly triangular shape with convex sides and base.
These can be differentiated from earlier cache blades by shape and workmanship. Adena cache blades tend to have a more rounded base, and Meadowood cache blades are thinner, with a finer reduction. Bladelets were recorded from three mounds and the non- mound location. Most of the bladelets were made from vanport chert. Middle Woodland
53 point types, including Snyders, Lowe Cluster and Fox Creek-like points were reported from five mounds.
Ground stone tools and fragments were recorded from 12 mounds and the non- mound locus. Narrow two-hole and three-hole gorgets were more common here than anywhere else in the northeast. Six mounds contained narrow gorgets and fragments, and an additional three mounds and the non-mound locus had records of gorgets that didn‟t specify type. There were no wide gorgets specified from this area. One mound contained a crude pentagonal gorget, while another had a well-formed pentagonal pendant. Irvine
Mound 2 (Carpenter 1956) contained an incised pendant crafted from a broken narrow gorget. Celts were present at the non-mound locus as well as in three mounds, but a celt reported from Irvine Mound 2 may be from a successive interment. A fourth mound,
Irvine Mound 1 (Carpenter 1956), contained three celts, but all were recorded from a successive Late Woodland burial context. Five mounds contained pitted stones, and three included notched net-sinkers. Whetstones were present in a few mounds, but these are not diagnostic Middle Woodland triangular whetstones (discussed in the analysis section) and at least one is known to have been from a successive burial context. None of the mound records included stone platform pipes, however one curved-base monitor style pipe with a tall bowl is provenienced to the Allegheny Valley (Hart 1975), probably from the Kill
Buck Mound or one of the Vandalia mounds. Crafted of serpentine, this pipe is in a private collection.
Copper was reported from eight of the Upper Allegheny mounds, although four records are not quantified. Three of those describe the finds as articles, implements, and
54 fragments of copper. The fourth mentions “large awls” found at Vandalia Mound 2
(Carpenter 1950a). Two other mounds contained a copper awl each. Carpenter (1950a) recorded two copper earspools and seven copper beads from the Kill Buck Mound.
Schoff (1937) mentioned a copper covered wooden item in Irvine Mound 2, but
Carpenter (1956) identified this as a silver covered reed, and reports that it came from
Irvine Mound 1. It is the only silver artifact recorded from the Upper Allegheny cluster.
Seven mound records mentioned mica, including one cut oval shape and one with possibly cut edges. Uncut sheets were found in two mounds and at the non-mound locus, and mica flakes occurred at three mounds and the non-mound site. Mica is mentioned in the records for the Cornplanter Mound 1 site (Carpenter 1956).
Pottery vessel fragments have been recorded from five mounds, two of which contained a complete vessel. All of the pottery was grit tempered, and most was cordmarked on the exterior surface. Most of the potsherds from Irvine Mound 1
(Carpenter 1956) were also cordmarked on the interior. At the non-mound locus at Sugar
Run (McConaughy and Johnson 2003), a clay elbow pipe was recovered. A clay curved- base monitor style platform pipe was recorded from Irvine Mound 3 (Carpenter 1956).
As do adjacent regions, the Upper Allegheny has acidic soils that prohibit bone and antler preservation. As a result, only one mound contained recognizable artifacts of this nature. An antler tine, an antler fragment, and fragments of turtle carapace were recorded from Sugar Run Mound 2 (McConaughy and Johnson 2003), none exhibiting signs of alteration or use.
55
Red ochre deposits were present in six Upper Allegheny mounds and yellow ochre in three. Iron pyrites, often included with flakes of chert for starting fires, were found in three mounds. Irvine Mound 2 (Carpenter 1956) contained a fuchsite cone.
Middle Woodland artifacts have been recorded through Cultural Resource
Management from a few non-burial contexts (Hughs 1976) in the Upper Allegheny, but these are merely isolated finds. Carpenter and Bliss believed that the village site located near the Sugar Run mounds was from the Middle Woodland period, but McConaughy and Johnson (2003) demonstrated that it was actually from the Late Woodland period, noting that “the only Middle Woodland features found in the village area were five cremation burials” (2003:114).
The presence of deer and turtle remains indicates that these may have been included in the local diet, and net-sinkers suggest the inclusion of fish in the subsistence pattern. No botanical food remains are reported from the region‟s mounds, but the presence of pitted stones may indicate that nuts were consumed. The upper Allegheny
Valley mounds are the focus of the next chapter, with a more contextualized presentation centered on the burial population.
Conewango Drainage
A tributary of the Allegheny, the Conewango Creek flows southward near the border of Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties, through a wide valley that was cut by a larger pre-glacial river that once flowed north into the drainage now covered by Lake
Erie. The present creek meanders broadly through the valley, in and out of swamp and marshlands, until eventually merging with the Allegheny at Warren, Pennsylvania. Along
56 the way it is fed by water from Cassadaga Valley as well as Chautauqua Lake. Middle
Woodland mounds cluster around the lake, along Cassadaga Creek, and along
Conewango Creek above its confluence with the Cassadaga. Williams Mound (Guthe
1958) lies along the Conewango Creek below the confluence, but is included in the
Upper Allegheny cluster because of its proximity to the Allegheny Valley. Its potential inclusion in the Conewango group is considered below. Findley Lake Mound (Parker
1922) is spatially closer to the Chautauqua Lake mounds than to the nearest Northeast
Pennsylvania mounds, but they share the French Creek drainage, so it was included in the latter group. There is as yet no usable data from the mound, so its placement is tentative, and it doesn‟t affect the dissertation analyses.
Most of the data concerning the mounds of the Conewango drainage were collected by antiquarians, so not much can be discerned. A total of 19 records were compiled for mounds in the area, with few of these contributing data to most of the analyses. Some of the mounds were built on hills overlooking the lake; a few were located on the lake shore, while others were situated in the valleys. Of the six mounds with composition data, five were earth mounds and one was constructed of small cobbles.
Mound structural information was only available for three mounds, with interior structure limited to two. Of those, one had a structural circumvallation of slabs reaching about 1.5 meters up the sides. The other had a prepared floor of slabs. The Conewango Mound
(Cheney 1860; Larkin 1880; Parker 1922) had a structural feature reported from the exterior of the mound: an earthen embankment surrounding it.
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Carpenter (1950a) suggested that the Poland Mound, with the stone circumvallation, may have also contained a central burial cist. The Conewango mound may also have contained cists. One cremation, an extended burial, and a flexed burial were reported from two mounds in this region. Three additional mounds contained non- cremated human bones that were decayed and damaged by collectors and antiquarians.
This may indicate that cremation was a minor burial treatment in this area, but the evidence is hardly adequate to conclude this.
Poland Mound (Carpenter 1950a) is the only area mound with diagnostic chert artifacts in its record. It included a Robbins stemmed point from a burial, and points of the Archaic and Late Woodland periods from the fill. “Arrowheads” were reported from two other mounds, and 24 “large arrowheads” came from another. Stone pestles were reportedly recovered from two mounds, one with a mortar. A gorget was the lone artifact recorded from the Bemus Point Mound 1(Thomas 1894; Parker 1922), but the type is not indicated. This is also the case for a gorget reportedly found near one of the mounds in the Falconer cluster (Thomas 1894). Platform pipes and bladelets are absent from these mounds, but bladelets occur in the Williams Mound (Guthe 1958) on the lower reaches of the Conewango. As mentioned above, this mound was included in the Upper Allegheny cluster due to its proximity to the Allegheny Valley. Were this mound to be included in the Conewango cluster, it would be the only documentation of bladelets and Snyders points in the cluster. The mounds from the Upper Allegheny cluster, nearest the Williams mound, also include those artifact types.
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Copper beads were present in Bemus Point Mound 1, as were “scraps” of mica.
Larkin (1880) removed a large mica fragment from the Randolph Mound. No silver was mentioned in any of the records.
No pottery was recorded from any mounds in this region either, and no bone tools. Animal bones were mentioned in one record, with no elaboration. Historic burials were reported from the Fluvanna Mound (Parker 1922).
No mineral deposits were recorded for any of the mounds. This includes red ochre, despite the tendency for the antiquarians who dug in this region to mention it in other regions. While the noted absence of any material from this region is suspect due to the paucity of the archaeological record, there could possibly be a true absence of red ochre in this area, which would be a trait distinguishing these mounds from those in the adjacent Allegheny Valley. Such an apparent absence is also noted in the adjacent
Cattaraugus Creek drainage to the north, with slightly better documentation.
No habitation or subsistence data are available for the Conewango drainage.
Limited data of all types prevents useful analysis of the mounds from this cluster, with the exception of mound location and dimensions.
Cattaraugus Creek
Northeast of Chautauqua Lake, in a distribution tightly following Cattaraugus
Creek, were 17 mounds. Like the Conewango group, analyses were limited by a lack of data, except location on the landscape and dimensions. Most of these mounds occurred on hillsides and promontories of the rolling terrain on either side of the Zoar Valley gorge, with a few located on bluffs of the gorge, overlooking the creek. The Valentine
59
Mound (UB 57) was located on a terrace within the floodplain of the gorge. Four mounds were located on the floodplain below the gorge, two of these being on either side of the mouth of Cattaraugus Creek at Lake Erie.
All of the five mounds with composition data were constructed of earth. Only one mound was reported to have had any interior structure: a burnt clay layer in Pan
American Mound 2 (Benedict 1901). The Cain Mound (Glamm 1957; Ritchie 1994) may have had a prepared floor, but this would be limited to removal of the duff as the mound was largely devoid of stones.
Two mounds contained stone cists, with one identifiable as a Type A cist. A stone platform is also mentioned. There were no burial structures in the Cain Mound; burials were evidently placed on the mound floor (Ritchie 1994). Flexed burials and a multiple bundle burial were found in that mound, while cremations were absent. Two other mounds contained non-cremated remains that were too fragmentary to discern position, but one of these may have also contained a cremation. As in the Conewango cluster, cremation may have been a minor form of burial treatment here.
Artifact records are sparse for this region, with the exception of the relatively recently excavated Cain Mound. It contained Middle Woodland cache blades, a Snyders point of vanport chert, and a Lowe Series point (Ritchie 1994). Additional Middle
Woodland cache blades and two Snyders points came from Goldmine Mound (UB 705).
“Arrowheads” and “knives” were listed from the Pan American Mound 1 (Benedict
1901). Middle Woodland narrow gorgets were absent from the Cain Mound, but two were found in the Goldmine Mound, as well as a pentagonal pendant. The Cain Mound
60 did contain a red slate pendant, a stone elbow pipe and a celt (Ritchie 1994). An ornate tubular pipe of Ohio pipestone was the lone artifact recorded from the Burmaster Mound
(UB 704) at the mouth of Cattaraugus Creek. It had a collar carved around it near the tapered end and a stylized ring protruding from the large end. Drilled from the side, just above the collar, it was similar in form to a pipe from the Caneadea Mound (Howard
2006) in the Genesee drainage. Platform pipes were not reported for the Cattaraugus cluster, nor were bladelets.
The only copper reported from the area was from the Cain Mound. Around 35 rolled copper beads were recovered in various phases of excavation, as well as two cupped sheets, perforated at the edges. One was found in context with a small turtle shell of roughly the same size, and pebbles, prompting the excavator to surmise that the copper and shell were combined to form a rattle (Glamm 1957). No silver was reported from the drainage.
Mica flakes were mentioned in one mound record, but Glamm (1957) reported that there was no trace of mica evident in the Cain Mound. He also reported that no pottery was present. None of the mound records for the area mention pottery. Also absent from the records were bone and antler artifacts other than turtle shell, although Benedict
(1901) reported finding large animal bones in the Pan American mounds. He assumed these to represent the remains of a feast. Besides wood charcoal, the only organic item from the local mounds is a fragment of string preserved by the copper beads it held in the
Cain Mound (Glamm 1957; Ritchie 1994).
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As in the Conewango cluster, red ochre is not reported here, but its absence in this area is supported by negative evidence from the relatively well-documented Cain Mound
(Glamm 1957; Ritchie 1994). No habitations are recorded here, and no subsistence data are available, save for the turtle remains at Cain Mound and the possible “feast” bones
Benedict (1901) reported from the Pan American mounds.
Genesee River
The Genesee River drainage extends from the Allegheny Plateau in Northern
Pennsylvania to Irondequoit Bay on Lake Ontario, and 24 known mounds were thinly distributed nearly the length of the river (Figure 1). The Genesee runs through three distinct topographical zones, affecting mound locations along the way. The Upper
Genesee meanders through a broad glacial trough on the plateau, and the mounds in this area are located in the valley. To the north, the Middle Genesee runs through Letchworth
Gorge, tumbling over three large cataracts and several rapids. The mounds of this area are all located on the bluffs overlooking the river. The Lower Genesee winds through a wider glacial trough that opens up to the lake plain. The river tumbles over another waterfall at
Rochester and finally empties into Lake Ontario west of Irondequoit Bay. In this area, mounds were on hillsides, bluffs, and in the valley. It is possible that the population north of the gorge, within the Point Peninsula pottery type distribution, was distinct from the population south of the gorge on the Allegheny Plateau. A problem with dividing the drainage into two units is that a large component of the data from the drainage is derived from the transitional gorge section (including the Squawkie Hill type site), which would be difficult at this time to place in one or the other unit. The mounds and their contents
62 are sufficiently similar above and below the gorge that, for the purposes of this study, the drainage will be considered one analytical unit.
Ten of the mounds recorded have composition data, all of which were circular or oval earth mounds. Six of these had some form of interior mound structure. Two at
Squawkie Hill, situated on the west bluff of the gorge, had similar circumvallations constructed of a ring of slabs surrounded by a ring of cobblestones on an otherwise unprepared mound floor (Ritchie 1938). Another mound at Squawkie Hill had a prepared floor (duff removed), as did one mound upriver from the gorge and one downriver. Stone pavements or platforms were also reported from the plateau and lake plain sections.
Of eight mounds with burial data, six contained stone cists, three identifiable as
Type A cists. Burial structures were apparently absent from the Frog Mound (Guthe
1959). The Caneadea Mound (Howard 2006) may have contained sub-floor pits.
Cremations were present in four mounds, at least one from all three topographic zones.
While he didn‟t record any cremations from Geneseo Mound 1, Ritchie (1938) reported finding burned skull fragments, which he interpreted as an offering or “trophy” skull.
Two mounds, both in the lower zone, contained flexed burials. Extended burials were reported from two mounds, one on the plateau and one at the gorge. Bundle burials occurred in one mound on the plateau and one below the gorge, while multiple bundles were only recorded from two mounds below the gorge. Two additional mounds on the gorge bluff contained non-cremated human remains that were too disturbed and fragmentary to determine positions.
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Artifacts were reported from 14 of the 24 mounds from this drainage, and one non-mound Middle Woodland site has been included for the artifact analyses. The Sea
Breeze site, on the point west of the Irondequoit Bay where it meets Lake Erie, is considered a non-mound burial site because at the time of excavation no mound was evident (Ritchie 1944). It is possible that it was actually a mound remnant, as Ritchie
(1944:128) reported that the location was in the vicinity of two mounds that were no longer there. Despite this, Sea Breeze has been interpreted as an example of a Point
Peninsula non-mound burial with Hopewellian influence (Ritchie 1994).
Middle Woodland cache blades were present in four mounds and the non-mound site, while non-descript cache blades occurred in two others. Other chert diagnostics from the drainage included biface types with Early and Middle Woodland associations. Early
Woodland Adena Stemmed and Forest Notched points occurred in a few mounds throughout the drainage. Middle Woodland side-notched and corner-notched points with forms fitting the Snyders and Lowe clusters (Justice 1987) were recorded from four mounds and Sea Breeze, again with all three zones represented. Bladelets were also present at four mounds and Sea Breeze, but only in mounds in the gorge area and downriver.
Ground stone tools were present in nine mound records and the Sea Breeze site record. Narrow gorgets were reported from one mound in the plateau region and one on the gorge bluff, and from the non-mound site at the extreme lower end of the drainage.
Pentagonal pendants were limited to the Caneadea Mound, on the plateau. Unperforated ornament forms were reported from a few of the mounds.
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Seven mounds scattered along the Genesee contained platform pipes of various forms. Curved-base monitor type pipes were reported from five mounds from the gorge north. Most of these were made from Ohio pipestone. In one mound south of the gorge were found three sandstone straight-base platform pipes. A miniature steatite straight- base pipe was found at Geneseo Mound 1 (Ritchie 1938), as well as the only effigy pipe known from the drainage: a convex-base pipe with a head resembling that of a salamander. Records indicate a curved-base platform pipe, carved with faces on the bowl and spoonbill or shoveller duck representations on the platform, was reported to have come from one of the Squawkie Hill mounds (Hart 1976). An ornate tubular pipe with a collar was found in the Caneadea Mound (Howard 2006).
Stone celts and adzes were found in four mounds, one each in the upper and lower zones and two in the gorge zone. Pointed whetstones were recorded only from the Sea
Breeze site. Various pecked and rubbed stones found sparingly in mounds throughout the region included hammerstones, pitted stones, net sinkers, abrading stones, non-descript whetstones, and round stones commonly called “bola” stones.
Copper artifacts occurred throughout the region, as evidenced by records from nine mounds and the Sea Breeze site. Four mounds contained a copper celt, one each above and below the gorge and two on the gorge bluff. Copper beads have been found only at the gorge and downriver. Copper awls were recovered from four sites throughout the valley. One of two awls found at the Sea Breeze site was hafted in a bone handle
(Ritchie 1944). At Squawkie Hill Mound 1 a copper ear spool was found, and a silver and copper covered wooden ornament came from Squawkie Hill Mound 2 (Ritchie 1938).
65
The only other silver recorded in the drainage was a small hemispherical object from
Caneadea Mound (Howard 2006).
Mica sheets occur at Sea Breeze and Caneadea Mound. The latter site produced the only cut mica known from the region, with four sheets exhibiting cut edges, and a cut mica form shaped like an eight-rayed star (Howard 2006). Mica flakes are reported at three other mounds.
Thick, grit-tempered potsherds were found in three mounds, one from each topographic zone, with varying surface finishes. Cordmarking is present at all three mounds, but the extent differs. At Geneseo Mound 1, fragments of a single vessel indicate that the exterior was cordmarked, and half of the interior as well (Ritchie 1938).
At Squawkie Hill Mound 2, some potsherds were cordmarked on the exterior and some on both surfaces (Ritchie 1938). The Caneadea Mound potsherd sample included examples that were cordmarked on the exterior only, some that were cordmarked on the interior only, and some that were smooth on both surfaces (Howard 2006). A single clay obtuse angle pipe was reported from the region, at Geneseo Mound 1 (Ritchie 1938).
Bone and antler tools were recorded from two mounds and the Sea Breeze site.
Ritchie (1944) reported that the bone material at Sea Breeze had to be removed with the surrounding matrix and treated in the lab for preservation purposes. This action provided the most complete inventory of bone artifacts from the Middle Woodland period south of
Lake Ontario, including the awl handle mentioned above. Also included in the Sea
Breeze material, and found at one other site in the cluster, are beaver incisors. Two of these from Sea Breeze were hafted in antler handles (Ritchie 1944). This type of tool is
66 commonly found in areas with relatively good bone preservation throughout the
Northeast, and is probably indicated where only beaver incisors are preserved as well.
Other artifacts found here and at other Middle Woodland sites in the Northeast included porcupine incisors, bone awls, bear canines, antler and bone points, antler and bone pins or fishhooks, and mandibles from various small mammals.
Red ochre deposits were noted at three mounds and the non-mound site, with representation in all three zones. A hematite stone was recovered from one mound, a quartz crystal from another and a nugget of galena from a third.
Nothing is known of Middle Woodland settlement patterns in the Genesee Valley.
From mound materials, it can be inferred that nuts, fish, bear, dear, beaver, porcupine and small mammals were possibly included in the diet.
Niagara River
At least 16 mounds dotted the landscape between the north shore of Lake Erie and the south shore of Lake Ontario, along the Niagara River and adjacent small drainages. A few of these were useful for various analyses. At the southern end of this cluster were mounds within the drainage of Buffalo Creek. This streams flow westerly, emptying into
Lake Ontario via the Buffalo River just above the lake outlet. One mound was on a terrace of the Buffalo River, and another was further upstream overlooking Cayuga and
Little Buffalo Creeks. Both of these mounds were included in antiquarian lists, and nothing other than approximate location is known about them. Nearly the same is true for the mounds that Larkin (1880) reported around the small natural ponds at the headwaters of a couple of small Buffalo creek tributaries, near East Aurora. He described “a number”
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(Larkin 1880:33) interpreted as at least two, and probably more, but indicated that he had found mica and copper within the mounds. This is the only indication that the mounds in this area may have been from the Middle Woodland period.
On the northwestern corner of the cluster was a small group of mounds situated upon high bluffs overlooking the swampy pond at the mouth of Twentymile Creek, where it flows into Lake Ontario. These have been included in this cluster because of their proximity to the Niagara River, and because of the lack of any other nearby mounds. One of these, Yellow Point Mound 1 (Boyle 1902; Kenyon 1986), has a useful dataset. The northeastern corner of the Niagara River cluster consists of two mounds within the
Sixmile drainage and one within the Twelvemile drainage, situated near the Niagara
Escarpment. None of these three mounds have records that offer much useful data.
The remainder of the mounds were scattered along the Niagara River, in various positions on the landscape. One overlooked the Lake Erie outlet, three were on islands in the river, one overlooked Niagara Falls, and one overlooked the mouth of the Niagara
Gorge. Only the last of these, the Lewiston Mound (Ritchie 1994) has records that contain useful data. The earliest accounts describe two circular mounds at Lewiston
(Turner 1850; Larkin 1880) around 20 feet in diameter. By the time R. McCarthy excavated in 1962, there was one mound, 70 feet in length and 26 feet wide (Ritchie
1994). This could mean the mounds were combined by looting activity, or there were three mounds altogether. For this study, it is treated as a single mound.
Composition information was available for two mounds. The Lewiston Mound was constructed of earth and stone (Ritchie 1994), while Yellow Point Mound 1 was
68 constructed of earth alone (Boyle 1902). Neither of the mounds had prepared floors, and the Lewiston mound is interpreted as having been constructed through accretion (Ritchie
1994). No burial structures were reported for either of these mounds, but a stone cist was recorded for Tonawanda Island Mound 2 (Squier 1851; Parker 1922). It contained a multiple bundle burial. McCarthy found bundle burials and cremations in the Lewiston
Mound (Ritchie 1994). Cremations, bundle burials and an extended burial were uncovered at Yellow Point Mound 1. A partially cremated individual was interred next to what Boyle interpreted as a burnt wood post in this mound. He suggested this was someone who had been burned at the stake, commenting, “from what we know of Indian character we are warranted in surmising that an enemy was here tortured by way of retaliation…” (Boyle 1902).
Artifacts were recorded for five of the 16 mounds in the Niagara River cluster, but again, the Lewiston and Yellow Point 1 mounds provided the bulk of the data.
Recognized Middle Woodland point types occurred only at Lewiston, where Snyders
Points were found (Ritchie 1994). Thick triangular points were found at Lewiston and
Yellow Point 1, with the Yellow Point bifaces slightly notched toward the base (Boyle
1902: 28). No cache blades were reported in either mound, or any other in this cluster.
“Arrowheads” were reported from Tonawanda Island Mound 1 (Parker 1922). Ritchie reports non-quantified adzes and narrow gorgets from the Lewiston Mound, while a rough celt, a partially drilled slate pendant, and a netsinker came from Yellow Point
Mound 1 (Boyle 1902).
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As mentioned above, Larkin (1880) reported that “copper implements” had been found at the East Aurora mounds. Copper beads from the Lewiston Mound represent the only other copper recorded from the area. A sheet silver hemisphere, similar to the one found in the Caneadea Mound (see Genesee River section), was also found in the
Lewiston Mound (Ritchie 1994).
In addition to the mica Larkin (1880) mentioned from the East Aurora mounds,
Boyle (1902) noted “scraps” of mica at Yellow Point 1, and McCarthy found a sheet of mica in the Lewiston Mound (Ritchie 1994). Also in the Lewiston Mound were found around 150 cordmarked potsherds, a ground wolf mandible and an antler flaking tool.
Parker (1922) mentions “bone and horn articles” in Tonawanda Island Mound 2. Mussel shells were present in Yellow Point Mound 1. No habitation sites have been recorded in this region, so settlement patterns have not been ascertained. The lone net-sinker at
Yellow Point may indicate that fish was eaten there, and wolf, deer and mussel may have been food items in the region.
Rice Lake
North of Lake Ontario was a cluster of 24 mounds situated along the north shore of Rice Lake and the north bank of the Trent River. Several of these offer data sufficient to include in the analyses (Table 3). Most of the mounds were on hills and bluffs overlooking the lake or river, or on islands off the north shore of the lake. A few mounds occupied low ground adjacent to the lake, but still on the north shore. Most of the mounds were composed of earth, but a few mounds of a mixed stone and earth matrix were found here. There were a few circular mounds, but most were elongated, some to the point that
70 they have been referred to as linear mounds (Kenyon 1986). One mound in the cluster, the Serpent Mound, was zigzagged, resembling a snake (Boyle 1897; Johnston 1968a;
Kenyon 1986).
Eight of the mound records offer data on interior mound structure. Two reportedly had no floor preparation, while two others had prepared floors (duff removed). One contained a layer of stone, another had a layer of clay, and yet another had a layer of ash and clay. Stone rows were reported at Cameron‟s point Mound B (Boyle 1897; Kenyon
1986). A burned platform was described from one mound, and sub-floor pits that were apparently not associated with burials were present in a few mounds. More often, subfloor pits in this cluster were associated with burials, including large mass-grave pits in Rice Lake Mound G and Rice Lake Mound I, and possibly in Hastings Mound 2
(Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986). Four other mounds had more conventional small, individual burial pits. Some burials were also interred in stone structures. Stone cists occurred in three mounds in the Rice Lake cluster. Two examples are identifiable as Type C cists, one of which enclosed a bed of sand. One mound contained a burial encased in puddled clay and sand, similar to a treatment found in the Northwestern Pennsylvania cluster.
Two mounds contained burials that were covered with a stone slab, while a third had a burial resting upon a slab platform.
A total of 17 mounds had records with burial information. Cremations occurred in only five of these, the rest having various forms of articulated and bundle burials. Of the articulated burials, flexed burials were more commonly recorded than extended burials, but several records do not differentiate between the two. Bundle burials were recorded
71 from six of the mounds, one of which also contained a multiple bundle burial. Some burials within ten of the mounds were badly decayed or disturbed, so position and treatment cannot be discerned, other than non-cremation. In Cameron‟s Point Mound C, re-articulated burials were described, a few in which bones were replaced in the correct anatomical position, but from different individuals (Spence and Harper 1968; Kenyon
1986). A few isolated skulls are also reported, with the neck bones still articulated
(Kenyon 1986).
Of the 24 mound records, 16 contained various levels of artifact data. Seven of these contained negative data in that no artifacts were evident, non-perishable or otherwise (with the possible exception of a chunk of wood found in one); even though human remains were preserved relatively well. Knapped stone tools were scarce in the
Rice Lake mounds. Quartzite and basalt were nearly as prevalent as chert in the records.
There are no Snyders or Lowe-Cluster points, but a few side notched points may represent local Middle Woodland variants. Stemmed points were present in a few mounds, but are not typed. No bladelets occurred in the region, and a single cache blade was recorded from the Serpent Mound at Rice Lake (Kenyon 1986), along with a small carved effigy. No narrow gorgets were recorded in these mounds, but a wide gorget, concave on the long sides, was found in Princess Mound (Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986).
Stone celts and adzes were present in five mounds. Eight pointed whetstones were found in Le Vesconte Mound (Ritchie 1994; Kenyon 1986). The lone platform pipe recorded for the region occurred in Cameron‟s Point Mound C (Spence and Harper 1968; Kenyon
1986).
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Five mounds in the region contained copper artifacts, mostly rolled beads. A large copper celt was reported from Princess Mound (Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986). Le Vesconte
Mound contained tiny copper pins, a pendant and copper panpipe covers (Kenyon 1986).
Silver panpipe covers and silver nuggets were also found at Le Vesconte Mound. Silver beads were present in two mounds, one of which also has a silver panpipe cover.
Mica was present only in Le Vesconte Mound, where two sheets were reported, one exhibiting a cut edge (Kenyon 1986). Pottery occurred in three mounds, with Point
Peninsula types recognized in one. A ceramic bead fragment was reported from one mound.
What the Rice Lake mounds lacked in stone tools was made up for with bone and antler artifacts. Seven mounds had records that included bone and antler items.
Ornaments like drilled bear canines, bone beads and pendants were found, as well as a variety of tools. These included awls, reamers, flakers, and projectile points ranging from conical to side-notched (resembling stone forms). Beaver incisors were reported from a few of the mounds, including the diagnostic hafted tools. Mandibles from a variety of small and large mammals were found in some mounds of this area, as were remnants of a number of other animals, including turtles and loons.
Red ochre was recorded from only Princess Mound (Kenyon 1986). Other mineral deposits reported for area mounds were iron pyrites, reported from Cameron‟s Point
Mound C, and erythrite, found in two marine shells in Le Vesconte Mound (Kenyon
1986).
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Shell middens along Rice Lake have been dated to the Middle Woodland period.
The various bone tools also represent a number of possible dietary items. Research has suggested that relatively large macrobands occupied the lake and river shores in the spring, summer and fall, utilizing wild rice and aquatic resources. These broke into microbands and retired to sheltered valleys in the winter, relying on nuts and deer
(Spence et al. 1990).
Seneca River
Seneca River begins as the outlet for Seneca Lake, flowing northeasterly to meet the water exiting Cayuga Lake in an expansive glacial lake remnant known as
Montezuma‟s Marsh. The river continues its northeasterly route, meandering through this and several other glacial marshes before meeting the Oneida River north of Syracuse,
New York. Dotting the landscape along this route are hundreds of drumlins – small elongated hills oriented to the direction from which the glacier that formed them passed over the landscape. In this region, the orientation is north-northwest, while drumlins toward Rochester are oriented toward the north-northeast. This directionality is repeated in the orientation of the Finger Lakes, formed by the same glacier. In the great marshes of the region, these drumlins form islands that attracted human activity.
Three of the ten mounds recorded for this area were associated with drumlins, two located on drumlin “islands” and one on a lakeshore among drumlins. Others were located along creeks and rivers, and one was located on a lakeshore at the base of a bluff.
Only three mounds in this region provided data useful for comparative analyses, except for dimension and location. Two were earth mounds and one was made of gravel. Two of
74 the mounds were constructed with no floor preparation, while the third (one of the earth mounds) contained a layer of gravel and clay. The only burial structures reported for the region were sub-floor pits. Flexed burials were interred in all three mounds, and Ritchie
(1944) noted that cremated remains had been removed from Kipp Island Mound.
In addition to the data from the three useful mound records, data from non-mound
Middle Woodland burials near Bluff Point Mound were included in the artifact analyses.
Middle Woodland cache blades were present in all of the records, with examples made from vanport chert occurring in Bluff Point Mound and at the non-mound site (Carpenter
1956; Ritchie 1994). Snyders points and other Middle Woodland notched points were found at all four locations. Bladelets were limited to Rector Mound (Ritchie 1994).
Celts and adzes were found in two mounds and at the non-mound site. Pendants were found in two of the mounds, and a pentagonal pendant was found at the non-mound site. Gorgets were reported for two mounds, but narrow gorgets were found only at
Rector Mound (Ritchie 1994), as were pointed whetstones and pitted stones. A small stone effigy figurine was uncovered at the Bluff Point non-mound site (Carpenter 1956).
Copper artifacts were found in two mounds in the cluster. A celt was present at
Bluff Point Mound (Carpenter 1956), while copper beads and an awl were found in
Rector Mound (Ritchie 1994). The awl was hafted in a bone handle, similar to the one at the Sea Breeze non-mound site in the Genesee River cluster. No silver was recorded from the Seneca River cluster.
Mica occurred as sheets and fragments in two mounds and at the non-mound site.
Pottery fragments were found in two mounds, including a Point Peninsula rocker-
75 stamped rimsherd from Rector Mound (Ritchie 1994). Records are limited for bone and antler artifacts in this area, but a hafted beaver incisor was found in Bluff Point Mound
(Carpenter 1956). Ground, perforated bear canines were recorded from the Rector
Mound, where Ritchie also noted fragmentary animal bones. Red ochre was noted only at the Bluff Point non-mound site (Carpenter 1956), and iron pyrites were present at Rector
Mound (Ritchie 1994).
No settlement data are available for this region, and subsistence data are limited to the bear and beaver artifacts, and pitted stones suggesting nut processing.
Saint Lawrence River, Perch Lake and the Bay of Quinte
None of the burial mounds from the St. Lawrence region were scientifically excavated, but a few of them have substantial artifact databases and a few physical characteristics. Though limited, these data allow this region to be included in some of the comparative analyses. In addition, a few of the non-burial “annular” mounds around
Perch Lake were investigated by Ritchie (1969), giving insight on the nature of these anomalous mounds and their counterparts around the Bay of Quinte. Burial mounds and annular mounds are discussed in separate sections below.
Burial Mounds
The burial mounds were widely scattered along the St. Lawrence and the many bays and islands at the east end of Lake Ontario. Records are available for at least six of these, and possibly eight. Two mounds reported by Parker (1922) to be on St. Lawrence
Island, were likely the Long Sault Island mounds. Five of the mounds (or possibly seven) were located on islands, one was located on a riverbank, one on a point overlooking the
76 outlet of Lake Ontario, and one was among the non-burial Massassauga Mounds on the shores around the Bay of Quinte. In addition, a collection from the Pike Farm (Spence
1967) on Wolfe Island contained artifacts similar to those from the local mounds. These were said to be from burials, but no mound was mentioned. They are included in the artifact analyses as if from a non-mound burial context, though they may have indeed come from a mound.
All three of the burial mounds with compositional data were earth mounds. No interior mound structure was reported in any of the mounds, and the See
Mound had a humus layer indicating that there was no floor preparation (Spence 1967).
Two mound records indicated that burial structures were present: both the See Mound and the Wallbridge Mound contained Type A cists and slab-covered burials (Wallbridge
1860; Spence 1967; Kenyon 1986). Of the four mounds with burial treatment data, three contained cremations, one had an extended burial, and one a flexed burial.
Undifferentiated non-cremated remains were reported from three of the mounds.
Although the some of the burial mounds were spatially removed from one another, the artifact assemblages were remarkably similar, and markedly dissimilar to those from other clusters. Many common Hopewell indicators were absent, and there was an abundance of Adena-related material. Stone tools were recorded only from the Pike
Farm, See Mound and the Long Sault Island mounds, however most of the records for the latter were not defined to the specific mound. Thus it is necessary to treat the two Long
Sault Island mounds as one unit in the analyses. The only distinction is that the south
77 mound, Long Sault Island Mound 1, contained three tubular blocked-end stone pipes, artifacts that were absent from the north mound.
See Mound and the Long Sault Island mounds, as well as the Pike Farm burials, contained collections of large bifaces. Leaf-shaped and ovate based cache blades are the largest, averaging in length 20.4 cm from See mound, 15.4 cm from the Pike Farm, and
17.8 cm from the Long Sault Island mounds. One Long Sault Island blade was 28.7 cm long and 12.8 cm wide, the largest in the region. Thick Middle Woodland cache blades,
10 cm or less in length, which were more common in the Northeast, were also present in all three records. Most of the stemmed Robbins type projectile points and Snyders type points at these sites were of relatively large size as well. The forms of these two types appear to blend. In some cases, the distinction is notch placement: higher for corner notched Snyders, lower for stemmed Robbins. In other cases, the stem is altered on a basically Snyders form to create the stem for the Robbins type. Both types are found in mounds throughout the Northeast, and while one is considered to be Adena and the other
Hopewell, both are dated to roughly 200 BC to AD 200 (Justice 1987). A large Dickson
Contracting Stem point was recovered from the Long Sault Island mounds. This type has a Midwest distribution in the Lower Ohio and Upper Mississippi valleys, and is considered Adena-related, dated prior to 100 BC (Justice 1987). Smaller notched and stemmed points more typical for the Northeast are found in the three collections as well.
Local cherts were used, as well as vanport from Ohio and hornstone from Indiana. Strike- a-lights were present in an apparent fire-starting kit in the Long Sault Island mounds
(Ritchie and Dragoo 1960).
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Ground stone tools in the region also included items commonly distinguished as
Adena or Hopewell. As mentioned above, blocked-end tubular stone pipes were found in one of the Long Sault Island mounds. Two others were found at the Pike Farm site. These have been included in Adena trait lists in the literature (Mayer-Oakes 1955; Webb and
Baby 1957). Also considered Adena are expanded-center gorgets, found at the Pike Farm and See Mound, and keeled gorgets, one of which was found at Long Sault Island. At See
Mound, three pendants were found, two of which were pointed at the end, having the appearance of having been broken and repaired. Also at this site was a long, thin ground stone with chisel-like edges. Similar items have been reported in midwestern mounds, but are usually associated with successive burials in the Early Late Woodland period, of the
Intrusive Mound culture. Two pointed whetstones, common in Middle Woodland mounds in the Northeast, were found in See Mound, but one of these was atypically wide. A narrow gorget was present in the Pike Farm collection, as were two celts and an adze
(Spence 1967).
Copper items were recorded from the Long Sault Island mounds and the Pike
Farm. At both locations, excavators found copper beads and awls. A ring was found at
Long Sault Island, and at the Pike Farm four pendants were collected, including three described as “claw-like” (Spence 1967:8), and one triangular. Mica was only present at the Button Bay site, where it was reported to have been associated with a skull (Spence
1967). A single Point Peninsula rimsherd from the Pike Farm is the only Middle
Woodland pottery mentioned for this region. Bone and antler tools were reported at only two sites. At Long Sault Island, a hollowed antler tine and a ground antler tool were
79 recovered. (Ritchie and Dragoo 1960). A number of bone and antler tools came from
Wallbridge Mound, including a bone comb and a bone projectile point (Wallbridge
1860). Also included in this mound were unaltered items, like an eagle breastbone, a bear canine and a beaver incisor.
Minerals were included with burials on occasion, with two records of red ochre deposits, one of a graphite stone, and iron pyrites that were included with the strike-a- lights in one of the Long Sault Island mounds. Shell beads occurred in at least one of the
Long Sault Island mounds and in Wallbridge Mound, where mussel shells, fossils, and oddly shaped stoned were also interred (Wallbridge 1860; Kenyon 1986).
Nothing is known about habitation patterns in this region. Bone tools within the mounds indicate bear, deer, eagle, bear and mussel were potential food resources.
The data from the Long Sault Island mounds were integral in Ritchie and
Dragoo‟s (1960) controversial migration hypothesis, in which the Adena were displaced from their homeland by the Hopewell. The intent of the hypothesis was to explain the distribution of Adena cultural material found to the east and northeast. Ritchie and
Dragoo posited that the Adena were forced to move from the Ohio Valley, across the
Appalachian Mountains, to the east coast. In the process, they discontinued the practice of building burial mounds. From the east coast, populations migrated north into New
York, settling with resident Point Peninsula populations, creating a blended cultural material assemblage Ritchie called Middlesex (Ritchie 1944; Ritchie and Dragoo 1960).
It was not entirely clear why some of these people along the St. Lawrence River began to once again build mounds. This was one of the criticisms that were leveled against the
80 hypothesis (Griffin 1961), in addition to statistical problems (Grayson 1970). Because of the overlapping nature of the trait lists used in analyses at the time, Spence (1967) suggested that the mounds were a local Point Peninsula group that was influenced by
Hopewell rather than Adena.
Annular Mounds
Most of the Perch Lake Mounds, estimated to be over 200, as well as the nearly
100 Massassauga Mounds, were constructed with a depression at the summit
(Beauchamp 1905; Kenyon 1986), prompting their modern label of “annular” mounds.
Both groups covered a large area, with mounds occurring most often in pairs. The two mounds in a pair were typically the same size, and could be spaced several meters apart or adjoining each other. The pairs were spaced at varying distances from each other as well, but no patterns were recognized in the distributions. Composition was slightly different between the two regions. The Massassauga Mounds were composed of mainly of piles of broken gneiss covered with earth (Wallbridge 1860; Kenyon 1986), while the
Perch Lake Mounds were composed of layers of earth, charcoal and burnt rock
(Beauchamp 1905). Though he never visited the Massassauga Mounds, Beauchamp
(1905) commented that they were probably more similar in construction than was evident from Wallbridge‟s (1860) account.
Since none of the annular mounds in either region contained burials, it has been difficult to discern their purpose. Beauchamp (1905) was convinced that they were foundations for habitation structures, noting their resemblance to earth rings that were remnant pit houses in the southwest.
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Ritchie (1969) revisited the Perch Lake mounds, finding that the depressions in most cases had a rough pile of fire-cracked stones that were larger than those found elsewhere in the mounds. He obtained (uncalibrated) radiocarbon dates for two of the mounds, around 140 BC and AD 630 (Ritchie 1969). This acknowledges that the annular mounds were built within the Middle Woodland period, and were likely contemporaneous with the burial mounds of the region. The function of the annular mounds is still largely unknown. Ritchie (1969) speculated that they served a religious function involving a pilgrimage by people from various Hopewellian regions to participate in a ceremony involving dual fires. This would suggest that these were not mounds, but rather thermal features built with successive rock preparations that were cracked when burnt, pulled from the center to the outer edges, and replaced with fresh rock.
Poorly Recorded Clusters
Four additional clusters are hypothesized based on spatial data, but usable data are somewhat limited beyond general location. The available data and limitations are discussed for each hypothetical cluster in the paragraphs below.
Lake Ontario
Just south of Lake Ontario, between the Niagara and Genesee River clusters, were nine mounds that were scattered along small streams that empty into the lake. A few of these were situated on high spots associated with ravines coming off the escarpments of the region, but most were on the lake plain. Mounds in this Lake Ontario cluster (Fig. 1) are included in the dimension analysis (Table 3), but not the artifact analyses, because the
82 artifact records are scanty, mostly coming from Bamber Mound 1 (Ritchie 1944). This was apparently an earth mound with layers of ash and gravel. A stone cist burial with apparently non-cremated bones was reported. No artifact types were available, as Ritchie described what collectors had reported taking from the site. These include “rude cache blades, a gorget, notched projectile points, a celt, and pitted hammerstones” (Ritchie
1944:224). Parker (1922) recorded that gorgets and birdstones had come from another mound in the region, Indian Falls Mound. These are the extent of the artifact data currently available for the cluster.
Chenango River
A total of eight mounds formed a cluster along tributaries of the Susquehanna
River in south-central New York. All of the mounds were located on the valley floor floodplains, one associated with a lake outlet and another on an island in the
Susquehanna River, at the mouth of Charlotte Creek. I have called this the Chenango
River cluster as opposed to the Susquehanna River cluster because of the relative central position of the former, and the presence of a possible Middle Woodland mound much further down the Susquehanna (see Dispersed Mounds section below). The only mound with usable data from Chenango River cluster is Greene Mound, on a terrace above the
Chenango River. Beauchamp (1900) reported that this mound contained, among other things, cut mica and a silver pan-pipe cover, indicating a Middle Woodland component.
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Grand River
The Grand River drainage west of the Niagara River cluster was the location of at least three mounds, but no other information is available for these. Middle Woodland habitation sites have been investigated to the west of this area, in the Thames drainage,
Keuka Lake
Two records exist for mounds on Keuka Lake in the southern Finger Lakes region of New York, and it is possible that two other mounds are located in the area. Of the two recorded mounds, one is at the lake outlet and the other is on the western slope of the peninsula separating the fingers of the lake. There are currently no usable data from this hypothetical cluster.
Dispersed Mounds
A few recorded mounds in the northeast were situated far from other mound locations, and do not lend themselves to a spatial association with other mounds. Little information is available on any of these dispersed mounds, with the exception of Charles
Cole Mound, near Cuba, New York. This earth mound was excavated by Ritchie in 1938, and was found to contain an accretion of buried hearths surrounded by a ring of fire- cracked rock and covered with a platform of flat slabs. Chert flakes were the only artifacts present, the only organic material was charcoal and calcined fragments of animal bone. Interpreted as something other than a burial site, Charles Cole Mound was not radiocarbon dated. Ritchie drew comparisons to the Perch Lake Mounds, which were dated to the Middle Woodland period, but noted differences in character between this
84 mound and those at Perch Lake, including the lack of a central depression at the Charles
Cole Mound (1969).
ARTIFACT, BURIAL AND MOUND DIMENSIONS ANALYSES
Artifact Distribution Analysis
Decades of looting had decimated the vast majority of artifacts placed in the mounds before recording began, and then poor record-keeping resulted in further losses of data. As a result, it is very difficult to quantify artifacts in most mounds. A mention of copper beads accompanying a burial indicates that they are present, but in most cases doesn‟t provide metric data. Incongruous and sometimes vague references to artifacts in the vast majority of records render parametric statistical analyses infeasible. However, an exploratory non-parametric method known as correspondence analysis was applied in an attempt to discern any possible patterns in the artifact data. Correspondence analysis is a descriptive technique that breaks down the statistically explainable variance (termed inertia) within a chi square frequency table into fractional components or dimensions (de
Leeuw 2007). It then takes the two dimensions that explain the highest percentage of total inertia for each row and column variable and translates them into coordinates to plot on a biplot graph. The graphed points of the variables in relation to one another are then compared to the original tabular data to explain any patterns revealed by the mapped distributions.
On the graphs, row points are plotted exact distances from one another, as are column points, but the distances between row and column points are not exact. However,
85 row and column points are weighted the same, so those sharing a general position on the graph in relation to the centroid may indicate a general relationship. The centroid is the origin (zero) point of both axes, representing the weighted mean of the variables. While significance testing is not supported due to the exploratory nature of the technique, the
STATA program performs a chi-square to assess the significance of the total inertia. This is generally used to test the level of association between the variables, if the relationship is unknown (Greenacre 2001). It does not test the significance of the analysis results.
The variables used in this analysis were artifact types and regions. The regions used are the drainages defined above. While these may not translate into cultural distinctions, using distributional data facilitates the exploratory analysis by incorporating a spatial aspect. Any clustering revealed can therefore be translated to the landscape. The
20 representative artifacts for the analysis are those present in the Northeast that were listed as Hopewell Interaction Sphere items by Seeman (1979), with the addition of a few items common in northeastern Middle Woodland mounds that weren‟t included on
Seeman‟s list (bladelets, cache blades and narrow gorgets). Artifact types found in the mounds are counted as present or absent within individual mounds, and the frequencies are compared across regions. A total of 59 mound records were used in the analysis.
Table 1 lists the artifacts and the percentage of mounds within each of seven northeastern clusters with four or more mounds containing sufficient artifact data. They are divided into two sections, the first representing artifacts that have no documented presence in the northeast prior to the Middle Woodland period. These artifacts are more likely to have been introduced by interaction with Ohio Hopewell than the artifacts in the second
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A. B. C. D. E. F. G. Middle Woodland SW Pa NW Pa Allegheny Genesee Seneca Rice Lake St. Lawrence
Artifact Types (N = 8) (N = 7) (N = 13) (N = 10) (N = 4) (N = 13) (N = 4)
Hopewell Introduced
a. copper earspools 0 0 8% 10% 0 0 0 b. copper rings 0 0 0 0 0 0 25% c. copper crescents 0 14% 0 0 0 0 0 d. panpipes (copper/silver) 0 0 0 0 0 15% 0 e. buttons (silver) 0 0 0 10% 0 0 0 f. platform pipes 0 0 8% 50% 25% 8% 0 g. elbow pipes 13% 0 0 0 0 0 0 h. reel-shaped gorgets 0 0 0 0 0 8% 0 i. mica cutouts 0 14% 15% 10% 0 8% 0 j. conch shell vessels 0 0 0 10% 0 0 0 k. pearl beads 13% 0 0 20% 0 0 0 l. bladelets 25% 43% 31% 50% 25% 0 0
Prior Presence
m. copper beads 25% 14% 8% 30% 25% 31% 50% n. copper awls 0* 14% 15% 40% 25% 0 50% o. copper celts 0 0 0 40% 25% 8% 0 p. bear canine ornaments 13% 0 0 10% 50% 15% 25% q. shell beads 13% 0 0 30% 25% 38% 50% r. cache blades 25% 43% 46% 70% 100% 8% 75% s. narrow gorgets 13% 14% 54% 30% 25% 0 25% t. mica "mirrors" 0* 43% 46% 10% 75% 8% 0*
Table 1. Artifact frequencies. Percentages of mounds within Northeast drainage clusters containing each Middle Woodland burial associated artifact. Includes only drainage clusters with four or more mounds with sufficient artifact data. Letters refer to plotted points on Figures 5-8. *Denotes presence in a mound not included in the analysis.
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Middle Woodland Cattaraugus Chenango Conewango L. Ontario Niagara Artifact Types
Hopewell Introduced
copper earspools A A A A A copper rings A A A A A copper crescents A A A A A panpipes (copper/silver) A P A A A
buttons (silver) A A A A P platform pipes A A A A A elbow pipes P A A A A reel-shaped gorgets A A A A A mica cutouts A P A A A
conch shell vessels A A A A A pearl beads A A A A A bladelets A A A A A
Prior Presence
copper beads P A P A P copper awls A A A A A copper celts A A A A A bear canine ornaments A A A A A shell beads A A A A A cache blades P P A P A narrow gorgets P A P A P mica "mirrors" A P P A P
Table 2. Artifacts in other mounds. Presence (P) or absence (A) of Middle Woodland burial associated artifacts within mounds in Northeast drainage clusters not included in the artifact analysis due to lack of sufficient artifact data.
88 section, which are all documented from sites dating prior to the Middle Woodland. Table
2 provides a list of the mound clusters not included in the analysis, denoting which of the
20 artifacts are present or absent in those regions. An initial correspondence analysis with data collected for my Master‟s thesis was run on the SAS program by Dr. Paul Sciulli at the Ohio State University, revealing a location cluster pattern for artifacts introduced during the Middle Woodland period (see Fig. 4). With Dr. Sciulli‟s assistance, I ran a subsequent correspondence analysis on the artifacts that were present prior to the Middle
Woodland, and found no such clustering pattern. Since those tests, I have compiled more data from the region, and refined the definition of the clusters, so it was necessary to run new correspondence analyses for the dissertation.
When the time came to run the statistics, the SAS program was no longer available to me, so I used the STATA program. I first ran the numbers from the original SAS analysis to compare the outputs, since the programs use slightly different methods for computing.
While the calculated values differed slightly, the resulting graph (Figure 4) has the same exact plot pattern as the original, but the directionality is reversed. Directionality has no interpretable value in this method because the orientation of the axes is arbitrary (de
Leeuw 2007). A similar portion of the inertia was explained by the two dimensions as well (76.59% now vs. 76.36% then), but STATA returned a chi-square p-value of .1407, which meant that if I knew nothing of the relationship between the artifacts and locations, the dimensions could have been arrived at by chance. The clustering and the order of the plotting in relation to the centroid were preserved, so I continued with the STATA program.
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Figure 4. Prior analysis graph. CA output biplot from original analysis mentioned in text. Linear pattern discussed in text is denoted in yellow.
In the original study, there was a broadly spaced collection of mounds that I had termed the Point Peninsula cluster, which stretched along the entire south shore of Lake
Ontario. The Point Peninsula cluster was one of four closely spaced groups in the original analysis. I decided early on in working on this chapter that localized drainages seemed to work better as units of analysis than the more arbitrary distinction that led to the Point
Peninsula cluster‟s designation. The Point Peninsula cluster stretches across the distribution of Point Peninsula pottery types, but it is clear from Figure 1 that the mounds of this region tend to cluster around certain river drainages, hence the Seneca, Niagara, and Lake Ontario clusters, and the incorporation of the mounds along the lower Genesee
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River in the Genesee cluster (see Appendix A). As suggested by the tight clustering revealed in the original analysis, the Point Peninsula pottery-defined cluster may better characterize the pattern in that region, but to be consistent within this study, the drainages are used.
Test One: All Artifacts
The first correspondence analysis for the dissertation involved all artifact types listed in Table 1. The biplot of this analysis is illustrated in Figure 5. No strong clustering between locations appeared, but Rice Lake (F) is the only site plotted more than one unit
Figure 5. Middle Woodland artifacts graph. CA output biplot for all artifacts (lower case) and cluster locations (upper case) in Table 1.
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from either variable‟s origin axis. Seneca River (E) is the closest to the centroid.
A few artifact types are paired close together and a few are far removed from the others. Bladelets (l) and narrow gorgets (s) are paired, as are copper beads (m) and bear canines (p), and silver buttons (e) and conch shells (j). The latter pair is only found in one cluster, explaining both their pairing as well as their plotted distance from the other artifacts (Fig. 5). Both silver and conch have been associated with shamanic roles in Ohio
Hopewell (Carr and Case 2005c), but they only occur together in the Genesee Valley in the Northeast, and in separate mounds. Silver buttons are present in one other northeastern mound in the Niagara River cluster, not included in this analysis. The other two pairings are more likely to indicate some cultural association, such as a connected meaning or common use among a particular population. Bear canines have been inferred to be indicators of membership in the Bear clan (Thomas et al. 2005), while copper beads are described as items of personal prestige (Turff and Carr 2005). Bladelets and narrow gorgets are the only pairing of a prior presence artifact with a Middle Woodland introduced artifact. Gorgets are perceived to be prestige markers in Ohio Hopewell, while bladelets carry shamanic meaning, but only if they are of some unusual material (Carr and Case 2005c). Otherwise they are considered personal items, since they are found in habitation contexts. In the Northeast, however, bladelets of any material are rare, and so far have only been recorded in mound contexts. It is possible that all bladelets in the
Northeast carried meaning beyond a personal level.
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Reel gorgets (h) and copper crescents (c) are found only in one mound cluster each, explaining their relative plotted distances. The general direction from orientation of these distantly plotted artifacts corresponds to their unique clusters. The closest plotted location to reel gorgets is Rice Lake, the only cluster in which they are found. The plot for Rice Lake (F) is found along a line from the reel gorget plot to the orientation point of both axes. The same is true for copper crescents and Northwestern Pennsylvania (B), and the silver button/conch shell pair and the Genesee Valley (D).
The two plotted dimensions account for only 56.5% of the inertia, but the mapped distributions translate well to the landscape. The chi-square probability value for total inertia is .0800. Considering the overall artifact attributes, there seems to be little differential patterning in artifact distribution among the various regions. The only outlier that can be noted, except for singular representation of some artifact types, is the Rice
Lake cluster.
Test Two: Prior Presence Artifacts
For the second analysis, only artifacts that are known to have been used in burials prior to the Middle Woodland period are included (Table 1). This is to see if any difference in patterns of artifact distribution can be detected for those that were traditionally in use in the region, as opposed to those introduced in the Middle Woodland period. The two dimensions for this analysis explained 80.12% of the inertia, and the total inertia had a chi-square p – value of .0512. Compared to the first, this analysis indicates that there is a difference in distribution pattern when artifact types likely introduced through the Ohio Hopewell are omitted from the assemblage. While there is
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Figure 6. Prior presence artifacts graph. CA output biplot for only Middle Woodland artifacts that are known to have been present in the Northeast prior to the Middle Woodland period. Upper case refers to locations and lower case refers to artifact types listed in Table 1.
still a lack of strong associating patterns, Rice Lake (F) is brought closer to the other locations in terms of distance from the origin of the dimension 2 axis, although it is still the most distant on the biplot map (Figure 6). Seneca River (E) remains nearest the centroid, but the other locations shift in relation to one another. Most notably,
Southwestern Pennsylvania (A) and St. Lawrence Valley (G) switched in relative distance from the Genesee Valley cluster (D). The Southwestern Pennsylvania assemblage is more similar to that of the Genesee Valley when Middle Woodland introduced artifacts are included, and less similar when looking at just artifacts that were present in the region prior to the Middle Woodland period. The upper Allegheny Valley 94
(C) and Northwestern Pennsylvania (B) clusters drew much closer together on the biplot map for this analysis, suggesting that the regions grew less similar after the introduction of new artifacts in the Middle Woodland period. This seems to reflect a differential acceptance of artifact types and perhaps related ideology from Ohio Hopewell between these two adjacent populations. The pairing of copper beads and bear canines is still evident, as these are the only examples of artifact pairing from the first analysis that were present prior to the Middle Woodland period.
Test 3: Hopewell Introduced Artifacts
I recognized that performing a correspondence analysis on the Middle Woodland introduced artifacts would just confirm the results of the first two analyses: that there was a difference in patterns from one set to the other. However, I wanted to look at the distributional aspects of the Middle Woodland introduced artifacts (Figure 8), to see how they contributed to the difference between the distributions of the first two analyses, since they are most likely introduced to the region through interaction with the Ohio Hopewell.
This was essentially the original test analysis plotted in Figure 4, with additional data and revised locations. Figure 7 plots the results of the new correspondence analysis, which was surprisingly linear. This was because the St. Lawrence cluster included only one artifact from Seeman‟s trait list, the copper finger ring, and none of the additional artifacts were included. No other northeastern cluster included finger rings in their assemblages, so the St. Lawrence cluster had a high contribution (97.6%) to dimension one of the analysis. This effectively compressed the contributions to dimension one from all other clusters, resulting in the awkward linear distribution. The two dimensions
95 explained 66.47% of the inertia, and total inertia p-value is .0165, but the biplot is hardly informative. To remedy this, the St. Lawrence record was omitted in a subsequent run of the numbers. This allowed the distributions of the other locations to be freely examined, as plotted in Figure 8. The portion of explained inertia for this analysis is 65.64%, and the total inertia chi-square probability value was .4515.
The first notable feature about the biplot (Figure 8) is its dissimilarity to the original one in Figure 4. In the original, four location points clustered around the centroid
Figure 7. Introduced artifacts graph. CA output biplot for only artifacts introduced to the Northeast during the Middle Woodland period. Note strong influence from outliers St. Lawrence cluster (G) and copper ring (b). Refer to Table 1 for location and artifact names.
96 in a linear fashion, arranged south to north. The spatially removed groups were Rice Lake
(F) and Northwestern Pennsylvania (B), as well as Southwestern Pennsylvania (A). The updated data revise the map to reveal the linear clustering around the centroid still present, but only three location points are closely spaced. These include the Genesee
River (D) and upper Allegheny Valley (C), which were clustered in the original biplot, and the Seneca River (E) group, part of the old Point Peninsula designation, similarly clustered in the original. Southwestern Pennsylvania was pulled out of the cluster by the inclusion of the elbow pipe, an artifact from that singular location. Rice Lake maintained
Figure 8. Introduced artifacts graph omitting St. Lawrence outliers. CA output biplot for Middle Woodland introduced artifacts, omitting outliers. Patterns discussed in text noted in yellow. Refer to Table 1 for location and artifact names.
97 a clear distance from the others. Northwestern Pennsylvania remained somewhat outside the cluster, though the point was arranged within the linear pattern and was closer to upper Allegheny Valley position with the addition of new data that included more shared traits. Still, when compared with the prior presence artifact plot (Figure 6), the distance between the two is marked.
Discussion.
These exploratory analyses yielded interesting insights into the distribution patterns of the artifacts. The patterns produced here, coupled with the variation exhibited in the regions as presented in the descriptive sections of this chapter, suggest that not all Middle
Woodland mound building populations in the Northeast were engaged to the same degree in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. Rice Lake appears to be consistently different from the other regions, perhaps reflecting a cultural distinction.
There does not appear to be a directional pattern to the differences, but the linear cluster maintains a slight south to north pattern from the original analysis, beginning at
Northwestern Pennsylvania rather than Southwestern Pennsylvania. Ohio Hopewell items may have been diffused via the Allegheny River Valley or via an overland route through
Northeast Ohio.
A marked difference evident between the adjacent Northwestern Pennsylvania and Upper Allegheny populations suggests that an overland route may have been unlikely, since it would have passed from Northwestern Pennsylvania into the upper
Allegheny Valley. These groups seem to have been more similar prior to the Middle
Woodland period, if the prior presence artifacts were indeed present in both communities
98 prior to the Middle Woodland period. Diffusion between them would likely result in more similar distributions among Middle Woodland introduced artifacts. On the other hand, diffusion via the Allegheny would have had to pass through Southwestern
Pennsylvania, where the distribution was less similar as well. The plotted position for
Southwestern Pennsylvania resulted from the inclusion of the elbow pipe (Fig. 8: g), a singular artifact in the region. The only other such pipe known from the Northeast is from
Cain Mound in the Cattaraugus Creek cluster, not included in this analysis. These sandstone elbow pipes are not the same type as those listed among Seeman‟s (1979)
Hopewell Interaction Sphere artifacts, but they do appear to have been introduced to the
Northeast during the Middle Woodland period, so they were included. The original analysis of Middle Woodland introduced artifacts, without the stone elbow pipe, plotted
Southwestern Pennsylvania within the linear cluster, at the base of the south-to-north line.
Further data are necessary to fully assess directionality in the distribution of
Middle Woodland introduced artifacts, but the patterns suggest they originate from southwest of the region. For now, it seems that the Allegheny Valley is the more common dispersal route, though the local Northwestern Pennsylvania cluster may have shared traits with adjacent mound building groups overland in eastern Ohio.
Burial Treatment Distribution Analysis
The resulting patterns disclosed in the artifact analysis, and the similarly qualitative database for burial treatment led me to perform a correspondence analysis for burial treatment as well. All of the burial treatments found in the Northeast are included, from all of the regions with adequate burial information (Table 3). In addition to the
99 seven clusters used in the artifact analysis, the Niagara River cluster was included in this analysis. While only three mounds with burial data were available from this cluster, the same number was available for the Seneca River cluster, so both were included. The largest number of mounds from a cluster was 12, from the upper Allegheny Valley. In a few cases, flexed burials were differentiated from semi-flexed, but this was not consistent throughout the dataset, so semi-flexed burials are included with flexed for this analysis.
The portion of explained inertia represented by the two dimensions in this study is
72.63%, while the chi-square for total inertia had a p-value of .4412. Figure 9 illustrates
Figure 9. Burial treatment graph. CA output biplot graph for burial treatment types (lower case) and regional cluster locations (upper case) listed in Table 3. Patterns discussed in text noted in yellow.
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Burial A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. Treatment SW Pa NW Pa Allegheny Genesee Seneca Niagara Rice Lake St. Lawrence (N=7) (N = 5) (N = 12) (N = 6) (N = 3) (N = 3) (N = 10) (N=4)
Red Ochre 43% 60% 50% 67% 67% 0 10% 50% Yellow Ochre 14% 20% 25% 0 0 0 0 0 a. Bundle 29% 0 17% 33% 0 67% 60% 0
10 b. Flexed 57% 40% 17% 33% 100% 0 60% 25%
1 c. Extended 57% 0 33% 33% 0 33% 10% 25%
d. Re-articulation 0 0 0 0 0 0 10% 0
100% 100% 92% 67% 33% 67% 50% 75% e. Cremation f. Isolated Skull 0 0 0 17% 0 0 0 0 g. Multiple Bundle 0 0 8% 33% 0 33% 10% 0 Table 3. Burial treatment. Percentages of mounds containing certain burial treatments within each Northeast cluster with available data. Letters refer to plotted points on Figure 9.
0 0 the biplot of the analysis, revealing two distinct clusters. The first is the pairing of the
Genesee River (D) and Niagara River (F) clusters. They share a suite of burial traits not unlike most of the other regions, but what sets them apart from the other, more inclusive cluster is the relatively high frequency of multiple bundle burials (g) – more rare or absent in all other regions. The more pronounced grouping on the biplot includes
Southwestern Pennsylvania (A), Northwestern Pennsylvania (B), upper Allegheny Valley
(C) and St. Lawrence River (H). The latter region is surprising given the distance from the other three and the number of other regions located between them, but the factor that seems to bring them together is a high incidence of cremation (e) in relation to the other treatments. As it did in the artifact analysis, Rice Lake (G) stands apart from all other regions, and the Seneca River cluster (E) also appears to differ. Two burial treatments appear isolated on the biplot. Isolated skull (f) and re-articulation (d), are represented in only one region apiece.
Discussion.
The burial analysis confirms the variability among Northeast Middle Woodland mound building groups, especially in support of the notion that Rice Lake was fundamentally different from the other regions. It is difficult to assess which, if any, of these burial traits were introduced during the Middle Woodland period, along with mound building behavior. A stronger pattern of association between some groups is evident in burial treatment distribution than is evident in artifact distribution, suggesting that the underlying mortuary behavior is more consistent than the material objects associated with it.
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Mound Dimensions Analysis
Three dimensions are consistently reported for northeastern mounds: height, width and length (diameter if the mound is circular). In an ideal situation, other measurements, such as angle of slope, would allow an estimate of volume of fill; there would have been no erosion; and, of course, no digging or plowing would have occurred.
This not being an ideal situation, any attempt at statistical analysis must include several assumptions. My assumptions in approaching this analysis include: 1) in general, the mounds in the various northeastern regions have been subject to similar formation processes prior to their measurement, 2) the measurements taken are consistently accurate across the regions, and 3) the measured mound dimensions can serve as a proxy for the original dimensions of the mound. That being said, length and width are probably better indicators than height, since height records for a single mound are rarely consistent. In any event, the results of this analysis are meant to be preliminary in nature, to be compared with the results of the above analyses, and to be tested with more complete data and more rigorous methods in the future.
For this analysis, the length, width and height of mounds from each region were compared using a two-sample, two-tailed t-test with unequal variances. The vast majority of the comparisons revealed no statistically significant differences in the mound dimensions from each region. Height difference was statistically significant between the
Seneca River mounds and most other groups, with the exception of Cattaraugus Creek and Southwestern Pennsylvania (see Appendix B for p-values). All of the mounds from the Seneca River sample measured lower than one meter. This is most likey be due to
103 looter activity or plowing, but a few of the mounds, like Bluff Point, were notably smaller in length and width than most northeastern mounds. There were fewer significant differences in length and width between the various regions. Northwestern Pennsylvania lengths were significantly different from four other clusters, including three nearby clusters: upper Allegheny Valley, Conewango Drainage, and Southwestern Pennsylvania.
There were only two comparisons in which both length and width were significantly
Mean Mean ratio Width Length Cattaraugus (N=5) 13.67 14.97 0.91 Conewango (N=8) 13.35 13.94 0.96 Genesee (N=10) 9.75 10.32 0.94 Lake Ontario (N=5) 9.67 9.67 1 NW Pa (N=6) 8.44 9.15 0.92 Niagara (N=4) 8.99 13.18 0.68 Rice Lake (N=13) 8.76 18.71 0.47 Seneca (N=3) 6.55 6.78 0.97 SW Pa (N=7) 14.04 14.89 0.94 Upper Allegheny (N=15) 10.52 12.18 0.86
Table 4. Mound width-to-length ratios. Measured in meters.
different: that of the Conewango Drainage and Northwestern Pennsylvania, and that of the Conewango Drainage and the Lake Ontario cluster (denoted in red and orange in
Appendix B). The dimensions reported from the Conewango Drainage are consistently larger than those from the other two regions.
In addition to the t-tests, a comparison was made of width-to-length ratios. This was done to detect any patterns that may emerge with the combination of the dimensions,
104 notably because mounds from Rice Lake seemed to be longer than most. Not surprisingly, the value from Rice Lake was much lower than that of all other regions. The nearest value came from Niagara River, while the value of 1.00 from Lake Ontario resulted from the sample consisting of all reportedly circular mounds.
Discussion.
While the results of this analysis may well result from differential formation processes and measurement inadequacies, there is evidence in the individual cases that my assumptions about these issues, outlined above, are not baseless. The results of these comparisons lead me to conclude that there is variation in mound sizes between the regions that reflects differences in the mound building behavior in those regions. Because they compare individual dimensions, the t-tests did not reveal a pattern of differentiation for the Rice Lake mounds that differed from the others markedly. The comparison of length-to-width ratios was necessary to illustrate that aspect of differentiation, demonstrating once again that Rice Lake seems to fundamentally differ in their expression of the Middle Woodland mound building concept.
CHAPTER DISCUSSION
It is my hope that the above descriptive summaries and accompanying data and analyses will serve as a foundation for future research on the mound building groups of the northeast. I have attempted to provide a comprehensive account of Middle Woodland mounds in the Northeast, but I recognize that this endeavor is by no means exhaustive. I hope that data from many more mounds will come to light, to provide evidence to test the
105 spatial model presented here, and to aid our understanding of the people who constructed these mounds. At the very least, this chapter has demonstrated the variability of the northeastern mounds and their contents. It is clear from the various analyses that some of the regions, Rice Lake in particular, are very different from one another. Even adjacent clusters, like the upper Allegheny Valley and Northwestern Pennsylvania appear to have differences that may translate to cultural distinctions.
There is a noticeable lack of research on non-mound aspects of Middle Woodland people in the Northeast. Data on subsistence and settlement are available only for southwestern Pennsylvania and southern Ontario, and even this is meager. A more complete understanding of the subsistence and settlement patterns in the Northeast will help in our understanding of the interregional dynamics occurring in the Middle
Woodland period, and will shed light on the historical processes of cultural evolution.
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CHAPTER 4
UPPER ALLEGHENY VALLEY MIDDLE WOODLAND SITES
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
This chapter narrows the focus to one of the hypothetical northeastern groups, the upper Allegheny Valley cluster. I will introduce the environmental and culture-historic background of the region before examining specific research conducted thus far in the valley. The research falls into two categories: mound and burial and non-burial studies.
The mound research is centered on the burial population, since artifact data are evaluated in Chapter 3. Artifacts discussed in this chapter are in relation to specific burial contexts, in a qualitative manner. Non-burial research is very limited, and that which is identified in the literature as Middle Woodland is evaluated, though some is clearly not representative of the period.
ENVIRONMENT
The course of the Allegheny River roughly follows the boundary between the glaciated and non-glaciated portions of the Allegheny Plateau. To the north are rounded hills and U-shaped valleys typical of glaciated highland terrains. To the south the hills are more rugged, and valleys are more characteristically V-shaped. This non-glaciated region
107 is known as the Salamanca Re-entrant, and is the northernmost area in eastern North
America untouched by glaciers. During the last period of glaciation, some 20,000 years ago, glaciers advanced up to, but not beyond, the upper Allegheny Valley (Miller 1973).
The upper Allegheny Valley is filled with glacial outwash and lake deposits. The soils upon these are silt loams of the Valois, Chenango or Castile series (Puglia 2007). Larger tributary valleys, like Great Valley and Little Valley have the same general soils. Smaller tributary valleys, like the Ischua, Five Mile and Haskell Creek valleys are generally of the
Chenango, Pawling or Holderton series (Puglia 2007). North of the Allegheny Valley, the soil profile of the glaciated hillsides is generally of the Volusia or the Mardin series, while the glaciated hilltops are generally Ischua, Yorkshire or Napoli. Non-glaciated hillsides to the south of the river valley are of the Buchanan, Rayne or Portville series.
The soils of the rugged, non-glaciated hilltops are of the Carrollton, Kinzua or Onoville series.
Prior to European settlement, the forests along the first and second terraces above the river generally consisted of cottonwood (Populus deltoids), sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), silver maple (Acer saccharinum), butternut (Juglans cinerea), and black willow (Salix nigra) (Gordon 1940). The third terrace was likely within the white pine-
American elm forest that covered much of the upper Allegheny Valley (Gordon 1940).
Today the land is mostly agricultural. Nearly the entire second terrace is tilled and planted from time to time.
Wildlife observable in the immediate vicinity includes white-tailed deer
(Odocoileus virginianus), eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus), the rufescent
108 woodchuck (Marmota monax rufescens), and numerous woodland bird species. Other regional fauna include the American black bear (Euarctos americanus), eastern raccoon
(Procyon lotor), red fox (Vulpes fulva), beaver (Castor canadensis), and many others.
The river is home to many species of fish and waterfowl.
The climate in southwestern New York is temperate, with cold winters and moderate summers. The mean temperature recorded in nearby Allegany State Park in
January is 21.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and in July is 66.3 degrees Fahrenheit (NCDC 2004).
Annual precipitation is 45.20 inches (108.8 cm), with around 20 inches (51 cm) falling in the growing season (NCDC 2004). In this region the growing season varies with elevation. In the valley the frost free period normally ranges from 99 to 145 days (NCDC
2004).
CULTURE HISTORY: EXAMINING A NORTHERN TRADITION
Generally, the culture history section is a generic run-down of the currently accepted classifications of cultural material found in a region, in chronological order, generally following the Midwestern Taxonomic Method (McKern 1939). For my dissertation, I decided that I wanted to incorporate an element of research into the cultural background section since chronological relationships are relevant to the development and waning of mound building behavior in the region.
Archaeologists have long suggested that a great Northern Tradition, or Woodland
Tradition encompassed the various cultural constructs in eastern North America, having roots in the Archaic (see Griffin 1952, 1967; Caldwell 1962). Ritchie (1955) called it a
109 burial cult, and indeed, burials have provided the most evidence for its existence. It seems likely that other aspects of culture were shared broadly as well. Mound building in the
Middle Woodland period developed from mound building in the Early Woodland period, which may have derived from the habit of placing the dead in knolls and glacial features in the Archaic.
Subsequent regional and local variation in behaviors resulted from normal cultural evolution in differing social and geographical contexts. The various regions maintained ties through an interaction sphere that reached its apex during the Middle Woodland period. Recent comparisons using ethnographic studies have shed light on possible mechanisms for social interaction and stability (eg. Carr and Case 2005a), but do not address the historical patterns suggested by the culture historians. Was there a broad historical relationship among groups participating in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere, and if so, how far-reaching was it? Did it encompass the entire sphere or just a fraction of it? These are some of the questions that are raised by the results of the artifact analyses in particular. The trait lists of the cultural historians involved extensive overlap from one cultural construct to the next, and it turns out that much of what is considered
Hopewellian is found in burial contexts from up to a thousand years prior. As presented in Chapter 3, there appears to be a distinct difference in the distribution of artifacts introduced to the Northeast during, and those which existed prior to, the Middle
Woodland period. This suggests a diffusion of cultural material and probably ideas from the Ohio Valley into the Northeast, but interaction between these regions had a long history prior to that. It is possible that a shared ancestral tradition facilitated such
110 interaction, and provided the legitimacy of the ties that these widely varying groups felt.
Ritchie, Griffin, and Caldwell, among others, felt that the ancestral tradition was spatially centered on the northern half of the Eastern Woodlands.
One clue to the possible spatial extent of the hypothetical Northern Tradition comes from artifact distributions. Though artifacts are often widely shared between cultures through diffusion, the process of diffusion occurs through direct or indirect interaction, and spatial distributions can help reveal spheres of such interaction. Willey and Phillips (1958) termed the broad sharing of a specific trait between otherwise unrelated groups a horizon style. An analysis of the distribution of common projectile point types (horizon styles) through time reveals recurring patterns of interaction that provide testable boundaries for these spheres. It is a fair assumption that the longer a sphere of interaction lasts, the more likely the participants relate to one another in some way, whether involving cooperation or belligerence.
Distributions used for this exercise are those illustrated in Justice‟s (1987) Stone
Age Spear and Arrow points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United States, and those described in Ritchie‟s (1971) New York Projectile Points: A Typology and Nomenclature.
Problems inherent with the archaeological record and patterns of modern archaeological investigation make it probable that these distributions are not precise, but they do provide a level of accuracy that is sufficient for the purposes at hand.
The first regional shared trait evident in the Northeast occurred with the development of a regional variant or derivative of the pan-North American Clovis point technology around 11,000 years ago, known as the Holcombe or Crowfield point. These
111 points are distinguished from the general Clovis type by their exaggerated convex blades that result in a more distally situated maximum point width, and their tendency to be fluted on one side only (Justice 1987). The range for this variant is centered on the western Great Lakes, with the upper Allegheny Valley on the extreme eastern edge of the distribution. Holcombe or Crowfield points, along with other fluted point types, such as
Cumberland varieties, have been found along the Allegheny River and its tributaries.
Even with regional variation, interaction with the broader North American community was evident at this time. By 10,500 years ago, another regional type joined Holcombe in the Northeast with a distribution expanded to the Atlantic coast. This was the largely unfluted Hi-Lo point, which was similar in shape to the prior fluted points, but with an incurvate constriction adjacent to the base, similar to a weak notch (Justice 1987). A more widespread unfluted point type that occurred at this time level is the Agate Basin point, suggesting that some interaction was still happening between regional groups.
These connections appear to have continued through the Early Archaic, to around
8,900 years ago, even with increasing heterogeneity of types. Types like Kirk Corner
Notched, Palmer Corner Notched, and Kirk Stemmed occurred over most of what is now the eastern United States, while Hardaway points were mainly found in the southeast. A series of chronological types began in the Lower Ohio Valley at this time, initially including Kirk-derived Stillwell, Charleston, Pine Tree and Decatur points. The bifurcated Rice Lobed point developed in the same area around the same time, and subsequent bifurcate points spread from there across the Mid-Atlantic region to the coast.
Bifurcates sharing this distribution include MacCorkle and St. Albans, from prior to
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8,500 years ago, and LeCroy and Kanawha Stemmed, lasting until around 7,800 years ago.
Other types in the Lower Ohio Valley chronology remained there, like the Eva 1 and 2 types, lasting successively from around 8,000 to 4,000 years ago, and the White
Springs and Benton Clusters, with types in succession from 7,000 to around 4,000 years ago (Justice 1987). By this Middle Archaic period, pan-eastern North American point types were gone. Widespread types still occurred, but were generally limited to northeastern distributions, like the later bifurcates above, southeastern distributions like that of the Morrow Mountain 1 and 2 types, or midwestern distributions like that of the
Raddatz type. These wider distributions were replaced by tighter regional distributions by the Late Archaic.
A stable northeastern diachronic distribution began around 5,500 years ago, with the Lamoka type and continued with the various Brewerton types and Genesee type, dating from around 5,000 to 3,700 years ago (Ritchie 1971; Justice 1987). The region includes modern southern New England, New York generally south of the Adirondacks,
Pennsylvania, southern Ontario and Michigan, and Northern Ohio. A few of the types extended south into extreme northern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky, and some extended west to include the portions of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin that adjoin Lake
Michigan. The general distribution was maintained for Late Archaic types like Snook
Kill, which is a Genesee type variant that lasted until 3,600 years ago, and Susquehanna and Perkiomen Broad point types, dating from 3,700 to around 2,700 years ago – into the
Early Woodland period (Justice 1987). Another Early Woodland type with this general
113 distribution is Meadowood, including its preform/cache blade Pomranky variation, dating from around 3,300 to around 2,500 years ago (Justice 1987).
During the Late Archaic and Early Woodland period, a number of interesting cases emerge in type distributions. The Turkey-tail Cluster, including various notched and cache blade varieties, may represent a renewed interaction among groups between long-stable type distribution areas around 3,500 years ago. It had a wide distribution that extended from the stable Lower Ohio Valley distribution area north to the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan and east to the Hudson Valley. This overlapped only half of the contemporaneous Meadowood distribution, reflecting a differential acceptance of this type among local groups that continued to generally share other types as they had for around 2,000 years. Differential acceptance underscores the importance of understanding the local groups to fully comprehend the significance of broader relationships hinted at by these distributions.
The beginning of Early Woodland mound building behavior correlates to the appearance of the Cresap Stemmed point, dated to around 3,000 to 2,500 years ago. The distribution of this type overlapped the southern periphery of the Meadowood distribution. The subsequent Adena Stemmed point, dating from 2,800 to 2,300 years ago, followed the expansion of Adena cultural ideas, with a distribution that exceeded that of mound building behavior. This distribution was the widest since that of the bifurcated points of the Early Archaic, nearly 5,000 years prior. Adena Stemmed points were present throughout the entire Meadowood distribution, and extended as far south as the northern Gulf Coast of Florida.
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In contrast, the Robbins point type that followed in the Adena core region had a much more limited distribution, extending from the Lower Ohio Valley into New York and from western West Virginia to Lake Erie. In culture-historic terms, Robbins points are considered a late Early Woodland type, even though the date range substantially overlaps that of the Snyders point type, considered to be a Middle Woodland diagnostic.
The Robbins type appears to have replaced Adena Stemmed within its range around
2,300 years ago. Snyders points emerged around 2,200 years ago, expanding over much of the Adena Stemmed range (Justice 1987), except notably New England and the
Southeast. The type extended further west than Adena Stemmed, to include modern
Missouri and parts of adjacent states. In the Northeast, it stopped at roughly the same place as the Turkey-tail distribution. Justice noted that variations of the Robbins hafting element “share certain similarities with the Snyders type” (Justice 1986:188). This may be an evolutionary development from one to the other, but the production of both
Robbins and Snyders types ceases by around 1,800 years ago. The overlapping distribution and contemporeneity of these types may reflect differential behavior of local groups within the sphere of interaction, with some groups preferring one over the other.
In any event, both types are replaced by regional variants of the Lowe Cluster, which began to appear around 1,900 years ago (Justice 1987). In the Northeast, it appears that Snyders-like points survive another hundred years before Chesser Notched points replace them around 1, 700 years ago within their range. A cultural diversification is suggested by the development during the Middle Woodland period of a new point technology in the eastern half of the former Meadowood distribution. The Fox Creek type
115 is a thick stemmed point and the Greene type is a lanceolate form (Ritchie 1971). Both are found from the Hudson Valley east to the Atlantic coast. These are the local Middle
Woodland point types, and persist until around 1,200 years ago, when Jack‟s Reef Cluster points spread from central and western New York.
Jack‟s Reef point types developed from Chesser Notched points when the former were adapted to bow-and-arrow technology around 1,500 years ago. The corner notched variety is known as Jack‟s Reef Corner Notched, and the side notched variety is known as
Raccoon Notched (Justice 1986), although Lantz (1989) proposed an alternative classification for Raccoon Notched including both side notched and corner notched forms. There is also an un-notched form known as Jack‟s Reef Pentagonal. The distribution of Jack‟s Reef Cluster points encompasses all of the former Meadowood distribution, south and west to northern Alabama and eastern Illinois.
By 1,100 years ago, the broad triangular Levanna point joined the Jack‟s Reef
Cluster types in the eastern two-thirds of this range, and by 800 years ago, triangle points had been refined to the Madison type, a smaller and more narrow arrow tip that became the first pan-eastern North American point type since the Kirk Clusters, some 7,200 years prior.
In summarizing the major northeastern point distributions above, I hope to have illustrated the dynamic change that has occurred through thousands of years of interaction, while also providing a sense of regional stability through time. The diachronically stable patterns of distribution that are evident leading up to the Middle
Woodland period may represent stable interaction spheres. Whether they represent
116 traditions in the culture historical sense is subject to future investigation. Nevertheless, these institutional relationships most likely contributed to the success of the Hopewellian fluorescence, which seems to have roots in both the northeastern and Lower Ohio Valley stable distribution areas.
MOUND AND BURIAL RESEARCH
In Chapter 3, from 11 to 16 of the 38 mounds from the upper Allegheny Valley were used in the various comparative analyses. The general locations of the upper
Allegheny Valley mounds are illustrated in Figure 10. Nine of the mounds, those with relatively detailed burial information, along with a similarly detailed non-mound record, are the focus of this chapter. All ten sites were excavated in the 1930‟s and 1940‟s, most under a Pennsylvania Historical Commission project funded by the Works Progress
Administration (Carpenter 1956; McConaughy and Johnson 2003). In most cases burial information is limited to number and type of burial, and any accompanying artifacts, but a few accounts include an assessment of general age at death and sex.
The limited data prevent meaningful quantitative analyses, so qualitative comparisons are offered, along with an interpretive descriptive account of the burial population. A crude preliminary estimate of the Middle Woodland population within the valley is calculated from the burial population of the nine mounds, extrapolating to
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1
1
8
Figure 10. Map of upper Allegheny Valley mound locations. Red indicates sites used in Chapter 4 analyses. Small dots are single mound locations, large dots are multiple mound locations. Numbers of mounds used in analyses are in parentheses, as well as non-mound site at Sugar Run.
0 account for the total number of mounds, and considering potential non-mound burials such as those found at the Sugar Run site (McConaughy and Johnson 2003).
As outlined in Chapter 2, looting and antiquarian activity in the 1800‟s often involved digging straight down from the mound apex, or occasionally digging a trench from one side to the center. Interested only in the burial artifacts, they believed the central tomb to be the most lucrative location. As a result, they often left large sections of the mounds intact. Such is the case for five of the nine mounds considered in this chapter.
Three of the mounds, comprising the Sugar Run group, appear to have escaped looting altogether (McConaughy and Johnson 2003), while looting at Corydon Mound was limited to the upper levels (Carpenter 1956). In some cases, looters left enough clues to discern the character of the burials they disturbed, even if they stripped them of their material possessions.
Below are accounts of the ten sites, followed by an overall summary and discussion of the valley‟s Middle Woodland community. The discussion will involve the population estimate, as well as behavioral comparisons among the populations responsible for the local mounds and between these and other mound-building populations of the Northeast.
Irvine Mound 1.
Carpenter (1956) reported that Irvine Mound 1 was opened in 1885 by Ransom, working for Thomas‟ (1894) survey for the Smithsonian Institution. The mound was subsequently fully excavated in 1937 by Schoff through the Works Progress
Administration‟s (WPA) Frontier Forts and Trails Survey, administered by the
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Pennsylvania Historical Commission (PHC). Leveled and spread by plowing, the mound measured around .91 m high and 15.84 m in diameter in 1885. It was located west of the mouth of Brokenstraw Creek, on the north bank of the Allegheny River in northwestern
Pennsylvania.
A minimum of four poorly preserved Middle Woodland burials were interred in 2 slab-covered pits and 2 cists sunk below the duff layer of the unprepared mound floor.
Additionally, a crescent-shaped cobblestone pavement was present on the mound floor, but may not have been a burial structure (see Carpenter 1956: Plate 7). The central burial was that of an adult, apparently undisturbed, entombed in a large type-A cist with interior measurements of 1.75 m wide and 1.52 m deep, and a cover that measured 5.33 m across.
The remains were too badly deteriorated to determine sex and the burial position was not mentioned, though the cist size suggests an extended burial. Only two artifacts were preserved with this individual. One was a broken slate narrow gorget, and the other was a tubular object resembling a blocked-end pipe. This was crafted of a nine inch section of giant cane (Arundinaria gigantea) wrapped in successive layers of sheet silver, bark, and mud or clay (Carpenter 1956). It is interesting that such an artifact would be found at a place known for generations as Brokenstraw, however giant cane is not currently found in the upper Allegheny Valley. The nearest native stands occur in southern Ohio. A similar silver-covered cane section was found in North Benton Mound in eastern Ohio (Magrath
1945).
The second burial was disturbed, possibly a partial cremation, within a smaller type-A cist. The cist measured 2.29 m across the cover, with interior floor dimensions of
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.97 m by .46 m (38 in X 18 in). Ransom reported that the skull was placed upon a sheet of mica. No other associated artifacts were reported by Schoff (Carpenter 1956). The two slab covered pits each contained a badly disturbed non-cremated burial. Associated artifacts are not mentioned for either of these interments.
Further burials were indicated by the presence of calcined and unburned bone fragments throughout the mound fill, and while Middle Woodland artifacts were also reported from the fill (eg. mica flakes, bladelets, and Lowe Cluster points), Late
Woodland and Contact period artifacts were also found, introducing the possibility of successive burials. For this reason, I have decided to conservatively report four as the minimum number of Middle Woodland burials in Irvine Mound 1.
Irvine Mound 2.
Located northwest of Irvine Mound 1, Irvine Mound 2 was larger, measuring approximately 15.24 m by 19.81 m across and 1.37 m high. Irvine Mound 2 was also opened by Ransom in 1885 and completely excavated by Schoff in 1937. This mound featured a prepared sand and gravel floor that appeared to form a ring, but Carpenter
(1956) noted that the interior may have been disturbed by looting, so it is possible that the sand and gravel extended beneath the entire mound. A ring of cobblestones measuring
1.89 to 2.13 m by .41 to 1.07 m in cross section was deposited around the crest of the mound, approximately .76 m above the sand and gravel floor. Carpenter (1956) suggested that this may have been a reinforcement structure. A crescent-shaped structure was present in this mound as well, but here it was made of gravel and yellow clay, placed about 1 m above the mound floor. It partially enveloped a cobblestone platform on the
121 same level, approximately level with the cobblestone circumvallation. The platform, upon which a cremation had been placed, had been constructed over a circular pit that contained two levels of dark organic soil. Accompanying the cremation were a fuchsite cone, a copper covered wooden ornament, and mica flakes (Carpenter 1956). Another cremation was found northwest of the first, just beneath the edge of the circumvallation, with no associated artifacts.
Six non-cremated prehistoric burials were interred in the mound as well, but four of these appear to be successive burials. These four were interred in a type A oval cist in what appears to have been a multiple bundle burial, and were accompanied by red and yellow ochre, oxidized iron pyrites with a strike-a-light, an oval pendant and a Levanna type projectile point. Such points first appear in dated contexts around AD 600-800
(Justice 1987). This multiple grave was found beneath a Contact period burial, one of five interred in the upper portions of the mound.
The two remaining burials, one a bundle burial and one probably flexed, had no reported associated artifacts, but Carpenter (1956) points out that the latter burial was disturbed, and was the central burial. It is possible that this burial was looted. While little other than their relative contexts identifies these as such, for the purposes of the population estimate, these two burials have been included in the Middle Woodland burial population. Therefore the total for Middle Woodland interments in Irvine Mound 2 is four.
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Sugar Run Mound 1.
The Sugar Run mounds, three conjoined mounds at the confluence of Sugar Run and the Allegheny River in northwestern Pennsylvania, are the only mounds in the valley that appear to have escaped looting. They were all fully excavated by Bliss and Carpenter in 1941, under another WPA project administered by the PHC (Bliss 1942; McConaughy and Johnson 2003). Because these mounds overlap, they may offer a unique diachronic perspective for Middle Woodland burial practices, possibly representing cultural changes within the local population through time. Alternatively, Carr (2005c) has surmised that recurring tripartite themes in mound and earthwork contexts in Central Ohio represent a social system involving three cooperative communities strengthening their alliance by burying their dead together. The conjoined mounds at Sugar Run may result from such a system. Only one of the mound components is dated, however, so it is not clear how much time had elapsed between burial episodes.
Sugar Run Mound 1 was the first built and largest of the three. An oval structure measuring around 14.63 m long and 8.23 m wide, it included extensive irregular cobblestone floors that some have interpreted as effigies (McConaughy and Johnson
2003). This floor was apparently placed upon deposits of charcoal and sand in some places and on the unprepared ground surface in others.
All of the nine burials within Mound 1 were cremations. Some of these were interred in sub-floor pits, including three found beneath the cobblestones of the mound floor. One additional cremation was beneath the cobblestone floor, but rested upon the humus surface. Also resting upon the humus surface were three additional burials, one
123 beneath a layer of cobblestones that was isolated from the main sections of the cobblestone floor. The central cremation burial was in a subfloor pit lined with cobblestones that were piled up around the edges, spilling out to blend with the cobblestone floor. Cobblestones were placed over this cremation as well, at the base of the pit. One pit burial was interred in a section devoid of cobblestones, but was partially surrounded by the cobblestones of the northeast section of the floor. None of the Mound
1 burials was accompanied by preserved artifacts, but all nine have been included in the
Middle Woodland burial population. A radiocarbon date of 1700 BP +/- 70
(McConaughy and Johnson 2003-Beta 106838) from charcoal found in one of the pit burials supports this interpretation.
Sugar Run Mound 2.
Sugar Run Mound 2 was an earth mound that was found to clearly overlap Mound
1 to the south, suggesting a subsequent burial event. The architecture was quite different, but this could possibly indicate a social differentiation rather than a temporal change.
Whereas cobblestones were the main medium of feature construction in Mound 1, Mound
2 features consisted mainly of sandstone slabs. Mound 2 measured 6.10 m by 6.65 m, and like the others, was around .91 m high from the original base.
The central feature was a set of type A rectangular burial cists placed adjacent to one another, apparently in the same event. Two adult males were placed extended within these cists, both accompanied by preserved offerings. One was placed with two mica sheets, a narrow gorget, three cache blades, a turtle carapace, an antler tine, and a deposit of red ochre (McConaughy and Johnson 2003). The other individual was interred with 54
124 cache blades, a galena crystal, two mica sheets, a narrow gorget, an antler fragment, a chert flake, and deposits of red and yellow ochre.
The four remaining burials in Mound 2 were cremations. Two of these were placed in sub-floor pits, one lined with pebbles. The pebble lined pit also contained 5 mica flakes, chert flakes and a broken gorget, while no preserved offerings were found in the other. One cremation adjacent to the mound edge shared with Mound 1 was scattered over a larger area than the others, prompting speculation that it may have been a Mound 1 burial disturbed during construction of Mound 2 (McConaughy and Johnson 2003). There were no associated burial offerings preserved nearby. The final cremation was apparently placed in a pit dug after the mound was completed (McConaughy and Johnson 2003).
Placed in the pit with the cremation were a copper awl and 14 cache blades. The associated artifacts are consistent with a Middle Woodland burial, so this is not considered a successive interment.
A partial sandstone slab circumvallation was placed on the slope of the mound, near the base, apparently for reinforcement. Most of this was placed on the edge adjacent to Mound 1, suggesting an attempt was made to ensure the two units remained separated.
The artifacts and cist types found in Sugar Run Mound 2 suggest that all of the burials are from the Middle Woodland period, despite the two cremations with no associated offerings. The Middle Woodland burial population from this mound is six.
Sugar Run Mound 3.
The fill from Sugar Run Mound 3 overlapped both Mounds 1 and 2, indicating it was the last built. It was also the smallest, measuring only 4.11 m by 6.10 m. Only two
125 individuals were interred in Mound 3. Both of these were placed during the same episode.
The first was an extended burial placed on the apparently unprepared mound floor (a duff layer was found beneath). Upon the torso of this individual, a cremation was situated.
Accompanying these burials were gorgets, a pendant, an oval mica sheet, copper fragments, a flake tool, a sandstone abrader, and a deposit of red ochre. Both of these burials are included in the local Middle Woodland burial population, making a total of 17 from the mounds at Sugar Run.
Sugar Run Non-mound Burials.
In the immediate vicinity of the Sugar Run mounds, an additional 34 cremations and five non-cremated flexed burials were uncovered in an area subsequently identified as a Late Woodland village. Artifacts in association with the flexed burials were Late
Woodland types, suggesting they were associated with the village deposits. Four of the cremations, however, were accompanied by Middle Woodland artifact types, including cache blades, mica sheets, gorgets, and red and yellow ochre deposits (McConaughy and
Johnson 2003). A radiocarbon date obtained from charcoal from one of the cremations with artifacts was 1170 BP +/- 50 (McConaughy and Johnson 2003-Beta 106839). This late date was rejected as a contamination from the late Woodland deposits. Despite the date, the cremations have been included in the Middle Woodland burial population for the purposes of this study for two reasons: 1) the associated artifacts, when present, are clearly Middle Woodland types, and 2) there are no recorded instances of Late Woodland cremation burials at any other site in the region. All Late Woodland interments found in mounds or elsewhere within the upper Allegheny Valley have been either flexed or
126 extended burials. While this may be a unique instance of Late Woodland cremation burial, the limited evidence suggests otherwise. I have therefore interpreted the Middle
Woodland burial population to number 51, from all of the Sugar Run contexts.
Cornplanter Mound 1.
Of the five mounds at Cornplanter Run, only Mound 1 had reliable burial information, and even this was limited as these mounds had been severely disturbed by looting. The mound measured 7.62 m by 9.14 m, and stood about .91 m high. A 1926 looter uncovered a burial of unknown characteristics, said to have been accompanied by mica, a blade of vanport chert, and “numerous other artifacts” (Carpenter 1956: 96).
Pennsylvania Historical Commission excavations in 1941 revealed two of the disturbed burials to have been in type A circular cists. No human remains or preserved offerings were left in place in the first cist, but fragments of calcined bone from a cremation were discovered in an undisturbed crevice within the second cist. A cache blade and red ochre was also recovered. A disturbed slab cist was located in Cornplanter
Mound 2, but nothing was left intact within. Though each of the five mounds here probably contained at least one burial, only the two Mound 1 burials are included in the initial Middle Woodland burial population count.
Corydon Mound.
Situated on a rise east of the Allegheny River between Willow Creek and Tracy
Run, Corydon Mound was yet another upper Allegheny Valley mound excavated under the PHC with WPA funds. This mound was badly disturbed, so no dimensions were reported. At the time of excavation, fragments of non-cremated human remains were
127 encountered upon removal of the sod (Carpenter 1956). Carpenter believed these to represent the remains of four burials that had been reportedly exhumed by looters in the
1800‟s. It is unknown whether these were Middle Woodland burials, but the presence of a
Late Woodland pot and triangle point in the mound fill suggest they may have been successive interments. Five cremations were uncovered all at the same general level, though Carpenter was unable to establish a clear stratigraphy. There was no duff line, suggesting a prepared mound floor, but it was difficult to discern the plan of the mound, and no features were evident (Carpenter 1956).
No artifacts were preserved in association with the cremations, but a Chesser
Notched point was found in the lower fill. The remains of one adult individual were copper-stained, implying an offering that has since deteriorated. Two other individuals were identified as adults, and one a young adult. The fifth was determined to be a child or adolescent, based on the presence of immature molars (Carpenter 1956). It was not possible to identify the sex of the individuals.
While no surviving artifacts were associated with the cremations, the apparent presence of copper with one, and the presence of a Chesser Notched point, along with the fact that they are cremations, leads me to consider the five lower burials to be of Middle
Woodland origin. With no contextual information for the non-cremated remains, I do not feel comfortable including them. The Middle Woodland population from Corydon
Mound is interpreted to be the five individual cremations.
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Kill Buck Mound.
This mound, investigated in 1949 by Carpenter (1950a), is located on the
Allegany Reservation near the village of Kill Buck. This was a circular mound with a diameter of around 10.67 m, and a maximum height of .84 m. Although the Kill Buck mound had been dug into extensively by looters, many of the burials had escaped disturbance because the mound was built on a sloped surface. The southern half blended in to the natural slope, so looters mistook the northern half for the full extent of the mound (Carpenter 1950a). A humus layer delineated the original ground surface, confirming the slope.
Nine burials were recorded, none of which were cremations. Three were interred in sub-floor pits while the other six were placed on the mound floor. One of the pit burials was interpreted to be the central burial: an adult buried in the extended position, too decayed to determine sex. This individual was adorned with earspools and an irregular pentagonal pendant, and was interred with two large flakes of chert. The two other pit burials, both disturbed, were two adults with no preserved offerings. Two other adults were present, one with no preserved artifacts in association. The other was interred with copper beads, oxidized iron pyrites, an un-perforated gorget, a cache blade and a few untyped side-notched points. One burial consisted of an infant calva with no associated artifacts. Two juveniles, estimated to be around 8-10 years old were placed atop one another in bundle burials, also with no preserved artifacts in association. One other juvenile was buried in a flexed position, with two ground slate fragments and a deposit of unidentified calcined bone placed behind the head.
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For this study, all nine burials are interpreted as Middle Woodland interments.
The absence of cremations suggests that the builders of this mound had a fundamentally different approach to the afterlife than those of the other mounds. It may represent a local community with a belief system that varied concerning burial treatment from their contemporaneous neighbors, or a mound that was built on a different time level from the other mounds considered in this chapter. Perhaps some of the 31 mounds with limited burial information had been similarly lacking in cremations.
Vandalia Mound 1.
In 1941, Edwin Carpenter and Wesley Bliss excavated at a few of these mounds under a WPA program. Bliss (1942) briefly described the excavation of one of the mounds, with little detail. In 1950, Carpenter published a more detailed account, including brief mentions of two other mounds. Working from notes and memory,
Carpenter mistakenly locates the mound on the south bank of an abandoned riverbed, south of the river, and north of Route 17. The road he was referring to is actually the
South Nine Mile Road, as Route 17 (now Route 417) is located north of the river. This mound was slightly oval, 9.75 m by 8.08 m, and was approximately .97 m high. It contained the remains of 13 individuals, twelve of whom were cremated. The sole non- cremated burial was that of an adult male, buried in a central stone cist. This burial had been disturbed by looters, and no associated grave offerings were recovered during
Carpenter‟s investigation (Carpenter 1950a). Two of the cremations were associated with a foot-wide stone pavement or berm that arched around to frame the north half of the mound floor. At the ends of the arch the stones formed an expanded pile of cobbles.
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Beneath the eastern pile was a cremation with red ochre. Another cremation was located next to the western pile. Two other cremations were located east of the central burial cist.
One of these was disturbed by looters, but the other was sprinkled with red ochre and chert debitage. The other 8 cremations were interred together in a subfloor pit. Two were stained by copper, although the artifacts were no longer present. One of these was associated with a chunk of bright green clay. One young adult had no apparent grave offerings. Another was buried with a slate gorget and a ball of gray clay. An adult and child were cremated together and buried with a slate gorget and cache blades of
Onondaga chert. Two other children were buried with offerings: one with a copper awl and the other with a slate gorget and pendant, and a stone celt. Mayer-Oakes (1955) and
Ritchie (1994) reference this mound report.
In the same year of Carpenter‟s publication, Guthe (1950) visited the mound site during an archaeological survey for UB. This was nine years after the excavation took place. Guthe describes the mound as 20 feet in diameter and 3 feet high, and within 30 feet of the road. Today the site retains some semblance of a mound, with a pockmarked surface indicating that looters have continued to try their luck after Carpenter‟s thorough investigation. The 13 individuals found in Vandalia Mound 1 are believed to be Middle
Woodland interments, and will be treated as such for the present study.
UPPER ALLEGHENY BURIAL POPULATION
A summary of the burial information from the 10 sites presented above can be found in Appendix C. These data combine to provide some preliminary understanding of
131 the burial population and by extension the living population of the upper Allegheny
Valley. An unlimited number of questions can be raised by this information, but the limited nature of the data can provide potential answers for only a few. How many people may have lived in the valley at any given time? What criteria may have been considered for mound burial, or inclusion of non-perishable artifacts? Why were some cremated and some not? Detailed information about gender, age, general health, etc., would be useful in answering these types of questions. Unfortunately, most of these remains were documented as an afterthought, with priority given the artifacts. In most cases, no attempt was made to recover or preserve human remains – in many cases they ended up in the backfill. Even with its deficiencies, the record for the Upper Allegheny is one of the better regional records in the Northeast. Although only 10 of the 39 known mound and burial sites in the region has sufficient burial records for even a limited analysis such as this, of the 88 Middle Woodland burials from these 10 sites, 81 were undisturbed prior to their archaeological excavations.
Efforts to identify age and gender were limited, however, so the demographic picture for the region is far from complete. Only three individuals were identified by sex, all of whom were male. In effect, there are no known female burials, and artifact types are not good indicators of gender unless something is known in advance about context.
Field et al. (2005) found that social roles indicated by prestige or leadership items were gendered variably in local contexts. For example, females were most often buried with prestige items in southwestern Ohio mounds, but rarely in mounds from northeastern
Ohio. Some female individuals have been identified in other Northeast regions, but the
132 presence of burial goods is highly variable. In Avella Mound in the Southwestern
Pennsylvania cluster, an individual identified as female was interred with a number of chert projectile points, flakes and a beaver incisor (Cowin 2003). While these suggest activities performed by this individual and perhaps beaver clan membership (Thomas et al. 2005), no leadership or prestige is indicated. A female buried in Princess Mound in the
Rice Lake cluster, however, was accompanied by a copper celt (Kenyon 1986), interpreted to indicate a leadership or high prestige role (Carr and Case 2005c). Evidence also suggests in some Middle Woodland populations there may have been very little division of labor, with women and men apparently performing similar tasks (Rodrigues
2005). So although two individuals in the upper Allegheny Valley were buried with lumps of clay, assuming clay was worked by a specific gender would be speculative.
Cremations of an adult and child were placed together in Vandalia Mound 1, but again, since nothing is known about local gender roles (much less the relationship between the individuals), it cannot be assumed that this is a mother and child. While it is likely that some of the known burial population in the Upper Allegheny is female, nothing can be stated with certainty on the matter.
Age identifications in the records are a bit more available, but limited nonetheless.
Age ranges were reported in four very general categories: infant, child, young adult and adult. Only 26 individuals were afforded such a disclosure. Of these, 57.7% were categorized as adult, 11.5% as young adult, 26.9% as child and 3.8% (one individual) as infant. The single infant burial probably reflects a differential treatment of infant deaths, since far more infant deaths are expected within any given population. Estimates for
133 infants in other Middle Woodland burial populations have reached 43.3% with hypothetical limited growth in the living population (Asch 1976). The estimate is higher if zero-growth is hypothesized.
While the data are limited, an analysis of the burial treatment and distribution of non-perishable burial offerings among these age sets offers insights that can serve as a starting point for future inquiry. Table 5 lists the number of individuals in each age set that received each of five burial treatments and three burial structures, and whether or not
Cremations Extended Flexed Bundle Unk N/C cist Adult 6 3 0 0 6 5 Young Adult 3 0 0 0 0 - Child 4 0 1 2 0 - Infant 0 0 0 0 1 0 Offerings 8 3 1 0 2
No pit floor Ochre ochre Offerings No off. Adult 5 2 2 9 9 2 Young Adult 2 - 0 3 1 2 Child 3 3 0 7 4 3 Infant 0 1 0 1 0 1
Table 5. Burial treatment by age. Top set also includes number of each burial type that included offerings. Dashes in burial structure columns denote an unknown.
pigment or offerings were interred with them. Only adults were placed in the extended position, and no adults in the limited sample were flexed or buried in a bundle, although the treatment of six non-cremated adults was undetermined. All of the individuals identified as young adults were cremated. In the sample, only children were buried in the
134 flexed position or in bundles. Burial in cists may have been reserved for adults, but records for one young adult and one child burial didn‟t indicate if a burial structure was present. Pigment, in the form of ochre was included with two adult burials, and no others.
Offerings were present with most individuals, but two of the three young adult burials had no non-perishable artifacts in association.
The number of each of the five burial treatments that included offerings is also listed in the upper tier, to illustrate distribution of artifacts by burial treatment. All individuals in extended and flexed positions had accompanying artifacts, as did most cremations. The only treatment that did not have any associated artifacts is bundle burial.
Burial artifacts have long attracted the attention of researchers, but only recently have archaeologists developed theoretical models pertaining to possible artifact meanings (eg.
Seeman 1995, 1998; Cowan 1996; Carr and Case 2005a).
The various contributors to Gathering Hopewell (Carr and Case 2005a) worked from a model that incorporated ethnographic data from the Human Relations Area Files
(HRAF), to develop a number of plausible symbolic interpretations of burial artifacts.
Categories such as Shamanic or Shaman-related, Leadership-related, and Personal
Prestige-related artifacts were developed for the Ohio Hopewell (Carr and Case 2005c).
Though the sample was limited, I organized the artifacts from known burial contexts in the upper Allegheny Valley mounds to see how they fit Carr and Case‟s model. Table 6 lists the types of artifacts in Carr and Case‟s categories that are present locally, and Table
7 displays their distribution overall, as well as their distribution among the age-identified burial population. The number of items in each category is limited compared to those
135 found in Ohio Hopewell (Carr and Case 2005c) but the presence of a few key
Hopewellian items, such as mica sheets and copper earspools, indicates that there was some interaction, whether direct or indirect. Items identified in Ohio Hopewell as personal prestige items are rare (only two instances occurred among Upper Allegheny burials), so they have been included in Table 7 with leadership-related items. Shaman- related artifacts are well represented, and in the case of the two extended male burials
Shaman-related Sodality Personal Leadership Utilitarian mica sheet copper earspools projectile point fuchsite cone chert flakes
silver covered reed copper awl stone tablet stone celt iron pyrite chert scraper galena crystal worked slate antler tine
Non-Shamanic Clan Personal Leadership Membership Prestige gorget turtle carapace? copper beads pendant
Table 6. Role-related burial artifacts. Lists artifacts found in direct association with upper Allegheny Valley burials, in categories of role- associated meaning (after Carr & Case 2005c).
from Sugar Run Mound 2, several of these are packaged together, along with leadership- related items, as they have been demonstrated to be in Ohio Hopewell mounds (Carr and
Case 2005c). This suggests that the upper Allegheny Valley population may have had a socio-religious structure not unlike Ohio Hopewell. If so, the few types of artifacts
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Shamanic Leader/Prestige Sodality Clan Utilitarian None Upper Allegheny Totals 14 14 1 1? 19 53 Adult 7 5 1 1? 6 4 Young Adult 0 1 0 0 2 1 Child 0 2 0 0 0 2 Infant 0 0 0 0 0 1
Table 7. Distribution of role-related artifacts. Number of role-related artifacts (after Carr and Case 2005c) in Upper Allegheny burials overall and by age categories. Leadership and personal prestige items have been combined.
representing other categories may mean that other artifact types served as those symbols in this region, perhaps perishable items. This is definitely the case in the clan membership category, as the items that indicate clan membership are animal “power parts” (Carr and
Case 2005c), usually teeth, which do not preserve well in the Upper Allegheny region.
Conversely, the limited number of artifacts in some categories could reflect fundamental differences in artifact meaning or even ideology between the two populations.
Crude Population Estimate.
Attempts at population estimation from burial populations have had mixed reception (Buikstra and Konigsberg 1985), and the limited nature of the sample available from the upper Allegheny Valley prevents any serious attempt at population estimation.
As an academic exercise, I decided to calculate a very crude estimate based on Asch‟s
(1976) mound survey method. The main equation in this method is P=D/Ld, whereas P is the population estimate, D is the number of dead, d is the crude death rate, and L is the
137 length of the time period in question. In the Upper Allegheny case neither the crude death rate nor the length of time period can be calculated with certainty, so a range of possibilities is explored for each.
The crude death rate is calculated from the mean age at death, and since the age at death categories are too vague in the sample for a precise measurement, I will use three hypothetical means: 50 years, 40 years and 30 years, to cover the plausible range, given the broad categories. In Asch‟s model, the mean age at death (Ā) is equal to 1/d if the population is stable, less than 1/d if the population is growing and more if it is decreasing, though the value should hover near the stable figure. The number of people who died (D) is roughly the number of mounds (and in this case, non-mound burials) times the mean size of the burial population. There are 88 recorded burials across 10 sites, so the mean is estimated to be 8.8 burials per site. This figure would be 6 burials per mound, if we omit the 34 non-mound burials at Sugar Run. The number of known burial sites in the region is 39, so D is estimated to be 343 with non-mound burials, 228 without. Inclusion of the
Sugar Run non-mound burials here assumes that they are an anomalous occurrence. It is possible that such burials can be found near other mounds in the valley as well, but none have yet been recorded. If so, then the burial population would be larger. To entertain this possibility, a third set of calculations was conducted assuming, as at the Sugar Run site, there were an additional 10 non-mound burials for each mound present. In that case,
D=608.
The length of time Middle Woodland period mounds were being built in the upper
Allegheny Valley is unknown, but the few radiocarbon dates for mounds across the
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Age at D=228 Death 25 30 40 50 100 57 69 91 114
Time 200 29 35 46 57
Span 300 19 23 30 38
(yrs) 400 14 17 23 29 500 11 14 18 23 (crude death rate) (d=.04) (d=.033) (d=.025) (d=.02) Age at D=343 Death 25 30 40 50 100 86 104 137 172 Time 200 43 52 69 86 Span 300 29 35 46 57 (yrs) 400 21 26 34 43
500 17 21 27 34
(crude death rate) (d=.04) (d=.033) (d=.025) (d=.02) Age at D=608 Death 25 30 40 50 100 152 184 243 304 Time 200 76 92 122 152 Span 300 51 61 81 101 (yrs) 400 38 46 61 76 500 30 37 49 61
Table 8. Crude population estimate. Estimates of Middle Woodland stable population in the upper Allegheny Valley considering various possible combinations of crude death rate and time span, and three estimates of burial population (D) discussed in text.
139 northeast, including the one from Sugar Run Mound 1 (McConaughy and Johnson 2003), date them to within the first 300 years AD. Therefore, I have calculated using a range from 100 to 500 years. Table 8 gives the range of stable population numbers for each scenario, considering different time spans and different crude death rates.
The estimates were very low, with the highest placing the stable population at
304, or .38 per km² (.99 per mi²), for a duration of 100 years with a mean age-at-death of
50 years. Such a low population estimate would suggest that the subsistence pattern was probably little changed from the Archaic period foraging strategy, however, the true population was probably higher. It is assumed in the model that all mounds are accounted for, and all burials were included in or around mounds. A lack of infant burials was noted above, and it is possible that other differential treatment existed as well. A (perhaps large) percentage of burials from the period may be unaccounted for in the available record.
This and other confounding issues, a few of which I have touched on above, limit the applicability of these results, other than to serve as a base for testing hypotheses. With these problems acknowledged, a low population density would help account for the lack of visibility of Middle Woodland habitation sites on the landscape.
NON-BURIAL RESEARCH.
During the mound investigations of the 19th and 20th centuries, little effort was made to locate associated non-mound sites on the landscape. In the 1800‟s and early
1900‟s, large and conspicuous Late Woodland villages were often erroneously associated with the mounds, so there was no impetus to look any further. Indeed, as late as the
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1940‟s archaeologists thought that the Late Woodland village deposits at Sugar Run were from the Middle Woodland period (McConaughy and Johnson 2003).Throughout the
1930‟s and 1940‟s, archaeologists in the upper Allegheny Valley were busy focusing on the mounds and the burial artifacts interred therein.
Cultural Resource Management (CRM) projects were undertaken in the 1960‟s and 1970‟s for the Kinzua Dam project. The dam resulted in the inundation of parts of the upper Allegheny Valley by the Allegheny Reservoir. The reservoir work was a salvage operation conducted during the filling of the reservoir pool, and attention was focused on large proto-Iroquoian sites that had previously been undetected (Dragoo and Lantz 1975).
The occasional Middle Woodland artifact was noted, suggesting the presence of minor components, but these were not investigated. An interesting artifact from a proto-
Iroquoian feature at site 30Ca16 was a fragmented, unusual platform pipe of limonitic schist, with the tubular bowl rising at a 45º angle from the end of a roughly triangular winged platform (Dragoo and Lantz 1975). A similar pipe was illustrated from near
Chillicothe, Ohio, by Shetrone (1930:155), who assumed it to be Hopewellian. Another fragmented example turned up near the site of the Cold Spring Creek mounds, a few miles north of 30Ca16 (Robert Dean, personal communication). It is unclear in what time period these pipes were created, but the distribution suggests they may be of Middle
Woodland origin.
Archaeologists conducting a survey project for the Southern Tier Expressway
(SR 17; I-86) noted the presence of a few artifacts in non-mound contexts that were similar to those found in mounds (Dobbs and Dragoo 1975; Hughes 1976). Near the Kill
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Buck mound, a series of sites were recorded by Environment Consultants, Inc., a now defunct CRM firm, and the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. A few of these yielded artifacts that suggest a Middle Woodland component, but for the most part these were shallow deposits, subsequently confined to plow zone contexts (Hughes 1976). Two of these produced Middle Woodland side-notched points described as Snyders-like, and at a third site two Middle Woodland cache blades were located (Hughes 1976). Shovel testing at these sites failed to produce further Middle Woodland artifacts or sub-plow zone deposits (Hughes 1976). A site described as a Point Peninsula site is of the Early Late
Woodland period with Jack‟s Reef type points and pottery. One other site recorded as
Middle Woodland is actually an Early Woodland Meadowood site.
The Archaeological Survey at the SUNY University at Buffalo conducted investigations along the Southern Tier Expressway right-of-way as well. These resulted in two collections with items from suspected Middle Woodland components, curated at the Marian White Museum at the university. The sites from which they were collected are within the localized non-mound survey area for this dissertation. Museum director
Sarunas Milisauskus graciously allowed me to access the collections to collect metric data and images for inclusion in the comparative analyses for Chapter 5. The Lemon Site, actually three distinct loci, and the McCaffery site (four loci) are summarized below.
Lemon Site.
The Lemon Site (UB 86) was a collection of three distinct artifact distributions located on the south bank of the Allegheny River, south of Vandalia, NY. The UB
Archaeological Survey conducted an uncontrolled surface collection resulting in the
142 detection of the three loci along the natural levee adjacent to the river. This site was located in the Allegany Territory of the Seneca Nation of Indians, so detailed soil data are not available. The valley here contains soils within the Vallois-Chenango-Castile general soil group (Puglia 2007).
Lemon Site 1 was located on the northeast end of the tract, in a triangular field bounded by the river, the South Nine Mile Road, and the driveway to the old Lemon house (Fig. 11). It was subsequently disturbed by building construction. A total of 93 artifacts were recovered during the survey, summarized in Appendix D. One corner notched point fitting the Brewerton type was found, as well as an untyped point with a short stem. Of the 16 potsherds from the site, six were cordmarked and the rest were
Figure 11. Map of Lemon tract survey. Lemon site loci are outlined in red.
143 plain. One may have had cord-impressed decoration, but no rimsherds were present.
Lemon Site 2 was a low-density lithic scatter located on a roughly north-south rise in the field to the southwest of the old Lemon house (Fig. 11). A dirt road now cuts through the site. A total of 25 artifacts were collected (Appendix D), including two grit- tempered cordmarked potsherds, and an oddly asymmetrical stemmed point fragment.
Nothing diagnostic was recorded from the site.
Located just northeast of site 2, Lemon Site 3 was close to the river, near the old
Lemon house (Figure 11). It has been mostly destroyed by the construction of a gravel
Figure 12. Pottery fragments from Lemon 3. Thick (7.7-10.8mm), grit tempered neck and rim fragments with horizontal cordmarking on the interior. Possibly a local Middle Woodland type, but Lemon 3 also has known Late Woodland types.
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lot. The UB collection consists of 110 prehistoric artifacts, one historic kaolin pipe fragment and one bone fragment. The collection also includes several large fragments of thick, grit-tempered pottery. Most of these represent sections of two pots, one with linear patterns of tiny dentates on the exterior and horizontal cordmarking on the interior (Fig.
12), and the other with a cord-impressed cordmarked exterior and smooth interior. These pottery attributes led the original researchers to suggest that the site was from the Middle
Woodland period (UB Site Files n.d.), although no other diagnostic artifacts were found and no radiocarbon dates are available. Up to five additional pots are represented by other rim and neck sherds, including one Ontario Oblique sherd from the Late Woodland
Figure 13. Map of McCaffery tract survey. McCaffery site loci are outlined in red.
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Allegheny Iroquois phase. The artifacts are discussed further in Chapter 5, where metric aspects are compared with those of other sites in the local area.
McCaffery Site.
The McCaffery site (UB 55) is a series of five fields that were investigated during the same survey that produced the Lemon site. Each field was subject to an uncontrolled surface survey, resulting in collections from three of the five. The first field was located on the west side of a farm road, north of a railroad bed that is now the Southern Tier
Figure 14. Late Archaic or Early Woodland point from McCaffery 1. Resembles Meadowood, but may be a Brewerton Side-notched variant. Clarence Onondaga chert.
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Expressway (Fig. 13). Both this field and field two are now part of a pond, the result of a gravel borrow-pit for the highway.
Artifacts collected from the first field included 238 prehistoric artifacts (Appendix
D) and a few historic items. Of 18 bifaces and fragments, five were identifiable projectile points. These were identified as Archaic forms, mainly Brewerton side and corner notched, Lamoka. The original excavators identified one Meadowood point (Fig. 14), but the size and relative thickness (5.7mm) suggest that it is probably Archaic. Rough stone tools dominated the assemblage from McCaffery 1, including six pitted stones and 13 notched stones categorized as netsinkers. There were five grit tempered ceramic fragments, one of which was thick (11.7mm), and cordmarked on both surfaces. This trait is rare for Late Woodland pottery, but is commonly found in Early Woodland examples.
It may occur in Middle Woodland varieties as well.
The second field, located on the farm road across from field one, contained two artifact concentrations (Fig. 13), but the artifacts were collected as one unit (Appendix
D). Both concentrations were along the northern edge of the plowed field, adjacent to field three. All of the 105 artifacts collected were of lithic material, including nine biface fragments, only one of which was diagnostic: a heat-damaged Brewerton Side-notched base. Two bone fragments were recovered as well, but these appeared to have been modern.
The third field, just north of the second, produced a total of 147 prehistoric artifacts (Appendix D). Among the seven bifaces and fragments were a few possible
Middle Woodland types. One, described as “similar to Snyders” (UB Site Files) is shown
147 in Figure 15, A. It is broadly notched at the corner, and does not fit local Archaic types.
Another broadly corner-notched point that may be a local Middle Woodland variant is shown in Figure 15, B. McCaffery 3 also included a Late Woodland Levanna type point and an Early Woodland Forest Notched point. An unusual notched stone with four
Figure 15. Two possible Middle Woodland points from McCaffery 3. Both are made from Clarence Onondaga chert, but (B) is heat damaged.
notches rather than the usual two was recovered among the rough stone implements.
Ceramic fragments totaled 39, with 14 cordmarked (Fig. 16), and only one rimsherd. The rim was cordmarked on the exterior and had cord-impressed hatches along the lip on the interior (Fig. 17, A-B). The lip itself was plain. There were no examples of Late
Woodland decoration present, but plain and cordmarked-only vessels occur in the Late
Woodland period as well. One sherd was tempered with shell only, while another was a mixture of shell and grit. The rest were grit temper
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Figure 16. Cordmarked potsherds from McCaffery 3. Typical of upper Allegheny Valley thick cordmarked pottery, sherds like these are often interpreted as Middle Woodland artifacts (see Chapter 5 for discussion).
Figure 17. Rimsherd from McCaffery 3. Cordmarked exterior (A) and cord-impressed interior (B).
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Two rows of apparent hearths were exposed in field four during plowing, but these were obliterated by the disking process before investigators could access them. No artifacts were found by the survey crew in the vicinity of the features. This field is still extant at the east corner of the old farm road and the South Nine Mile road.
The fifth field was along the South Nine Mile opposite a pasture from field four.
The owners indicated that collectors had found artifacts there in the past, so it was surveyed, but nothing was found. This field is now the site of another borrow-pit pond.
Six test trenches were excavated at various positions outside the plowed fields
(Fig. 13), four of which contained prehistoric artifacts. Pits one and two contained debitage flakes, and in pit three, debitage flakes and a biface fragment were recovered.
Pit four produced a corner-notched Archaic biface fragment and other chert artifacts. An apparent thermal or refuse feature was uncovered, containing around 120 fire cracked rock fragments, but no details are recorded. No pottery was encountered in any of the test units.
CHAPTER DISCUSSION.
While much of what the people who lived in the upper Allegheny Valley left behind in mounds has been lost to the elements or stolen by looters, enough remains to allow us to peer into select aspects of their lives. Further investigation of mounds in the region is doubtful because most have been obliterated, and most agree that the few that are left should be preserved. I have demonstrated in this chapter that, although the available data from mounds are limited, they can be used for fruitful analysis. Similar,
150 perhaps more intensive investigations can be made of other northeastern drainages for future comparative analysis.
The analyses of the mound data suggest that there are some similarities between
Hopewell and the local population in both artifact types and the underlying ideology. The grafting of Hopewellian material expression onto the local mortuary behaviors could be facilitated by the commonality of the belief system, or could reflect ideology having been diffused from Ohio Hopewell. The limited analyses in Chapters 3 and 4 support the former hypothesis.
The lack of visibility of Middle Woodland habitation sites thus far is illustrated by the data from the few potential Middle Woodland sites discussed above. A potentially low population density may help explain this, but the burial population may be underrepresented in the archaeological record. Though very few potential Middle
Woodland sites have been found in the upper Allegheny Valley, finding more depends on identifying their signature in the archaeological record. The Lemon and McCaffery sites, specifically the Lemon 3 and McCaffery 3 loci, have provided a few clues as to what may comprise a potential Middle Woodland assemblage in the valley. These sites are further considered in the next chapter, adding the limited metric data to the developing potential profile.
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CHAPTER 5
LOCALIZED NON-MOUND SURVEY
FIELD METHODS.
Since so few potential Middle Woodland non-mound sites have been identified in the upper Allegheny Valley, I adopted a canvassing approach, and all sites located were treated as potentially Middle Woodland, or potentially having a Middle Woodland component. Sites were evaluated for their possible identification as Point Peninsula or
Ohio Hopewell components, as well as components of other time periods more well- represented in the archaeological record of the valley, such as Archaic and Late
Woodland. Because multicomponent sites are the norm for the region, artifact analyses were designed to discern intersite differences that may reveal any information concerning the presence or absence of components, or composition of the overall site.
Working with various landowners and various land use issues required a flexible research design. Landowners were first contacted by mail, with a brief explanation of the project and a request for permission to investigate on their parcel or parcels. At this stage, few refused permission outright, but several neglected to respond. Subsequently, a few of the non-responses were contacted in person, and agreed to allow investigations. Different landowners agreed to different aspects of investigation, as well. For example, some
152 allowed surface survey of plowed surfaces, but no excavation. In addition, some areas were plowed, others were not; some areas were planted with sensitive crops, others were not. As a result, each location required a unique set of methods, and a uniform set was not attainable. However, my research design was flexible enough to accommodate the various circumstances. Because the purpose of the investigation was discovery of potential sites, intensive survey techniques were not required. In most cases, I expected potential sites to be confined to the plow zone, as most sites are in this region (Cowan
1999). Where permission was granted, data were collected in a manner that is in accordance with the requirements of the New York State Historic Preservation Office guidelines for Cultural Resource Management. Figures 18, 19, 23 and 39, illustrate the methods that were employed on each available tract.
To locate potential sites, a siteless survey was employed (Dunnell and Dancey
1983), meaning that the tracts were systematically tested as if no known sites were present, which was the case in most instances. The project area was defined as a space between two known mound groups, and the tracts of land sampled were determined by the will of the landowners, though an effort was made to include as much acreage as possible. The systematic investigation utilized modern archaeological methods, including standardized shovel testing, magnetic survey and controlled surface survey. In ideal cases all three methods would be used, however, conditions in most cases were far from ideal.
In most cases, controlled surface survey was the only method possible. Fortunately, this was the preferred method, as it is the most efficient manner to obtain a quality sample for analysis, as well as site spatial and structural information (Dancey 1998). For each parcel,
153 a 40 meter grid system was established with a Total Station, oriented to magnetic north.
The grid was divided using measuring tapes, into 20 meter squares, which were in turn divided into five meter squares. The Total Station was then used to record elevation statistics relative to the local field datum at each five meter point.
Plowed parcels were subject to controlled surface surveys, beginning with 10 meter transects. Where artifact concentrations occurred, the five meter units were collected individually, with artifact locations recorded either in one meter blocks or by triangulation. These artifact concentrations were interpreted as sites, and at each a magnetic gradiometer survey was conducted in 10 or 20 meter square units to check the potential for subsurface features.
Where permitted, non-plowed parcels were investigated using standard New York
State CRM techniques. Square, 50 cm shovel tests were spaced on the grid at 10 meter intervals. Isolated positive shovel tests were subject to further testing, at five meter intervals in the cardinal directions surrounding the initial shovel test. As with the plowed parcels, artifact concentrations were interpreted as sites, and a gradiometer was employed to look for subsurface features.
The gradiometer used was a Geoscan fluxgate FM 36, which uses two vertically stacked magnetic sensors to measure 1) thermoremanant magnetization produced by heating in contexts such as earth ovens or hearths, and 2) magnetic susceptibility anomalies due to buried organic soils (Clark 1996). In two cases, permission was granted to investigate subsurface anomalies detected by the gradiometer. The results from these tests, discussed in the site summaries below, can be used to infer possible types of
154 features indicated by gradiometer anomalies at other sites in the area. All soil from subsurface testing was screened for cultural material through ¼ inch mesh.
In addition to artifacts and sites recorded during the project fieldwork, collections and artifacts from additional tracts were included in the analyses for this chapter. These include the Lemon and McCaffery tracts discussed in Chapter 4, as well as the Boser and
Five Mile tracts, and Bockmier 1 site, which were subject to uncontrolled surface surveys during a reconnaissance project in 1998 and 1999. Cultural Resource Management activity in the area covered several additional tracts and road right-of-ways. Most of these provided negative data for site location, with the exception of the I/A Barie tract (Dean and Carpenter 2007a; 2007b) and a small project on the St. Bonaventure campus
(Perrelli, personal communication). Another site included in some of the analyses was the
Bockmier Point site (Howard et al., forthcoming), adjacent to and possibly part of
Bockmier 1. This site was investigated during field schools for SUNY Geneseo in 2001 and 2002. Much of the land within the city of Olean and the village of Allegany has been modified by development and the construction of a series of flood abatement levees, so little land in these areas was available for investigation. About 716 acres of land were involved in the project, forming a patchwork of coverage totaling approximately 12% of the undeveloped valley floor between the Vandalia mound group and the Forness mound group.
In all, 26 sites ranging from very low density lithic scatters to sites with large Late
Woodland village components were identified within the project area. Seven have already been discussed in Chapter 4 (the three Lemon and four McCaffery sites). The various
155 remaining sites are summarized in the next section, and their utility to the Middle
Woodland habitation quest is discussed. While detailed reports from the 11 sites located during project fieldwork are beyond the scope of this dissertation, many of the sites are important enough to warrant their production in the near future. The artifacts collected in the field and accessed from curated collections were processed in the lab for analyses detailed in the Lab Methods section, following the site summaries.
SITES ON THE ALTENBURG TRACTS.
The Altenburg North Field is located south of the Allegheny River on the first terrace floodplain. It is located on a rectangular parcel of land between two gravel pit lakes (Fig. 18). The field is low, but has several high spots that escape normal spring flooding. There is no second terrace at this point along the river, unless a high ridge that extends from the west side of the property a third of the way into the field is considered a remnant of a second terrace. Ms. Altenburg reported that the high ridge escaped flooding from both the 1942 and 1972 floods, the last two major flood events in the valley. The third terrace rises directly from the first terrace, which was completely under water during both episodes. Soils vary in this field, and include Middlebury silt loam along the river, Allard silt loam on some of the rises along the west side, Scio silt loam in most of the low area along the east side, and Olean silt loam to the south, along the base of the third terrace (Puglia 2007). Erosion from the terrace has produced a zone of dense gravel within the Olean silt loam.
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Figure 18. Map of South Nine Mile Road. Altenburg North tract, IA-Barie tract, and Karl tract denoted, with sites marked in red.
The field was plowed, so a controlled surface survey was conducted. First, the entire field was walked along transects set at 10 meter intervals. Interestingly, very little was found on any of the rises. The highest rise yielded a total of three flakes situated about 6 m apart. This has been denoted as an isolated find spot in Figure 18, but future investigation may warrant a site designation. The flakes were secondary reduction flakes of Clarence chert. Ms. Altenburg didn‟t recall ever collecting on the rise, but she remembered her father had found a “well,” described as cobblestones arranged in a circular pattern, on the rise. This could possibly have been the remains of a prehistoric feature, but no signs of any such structure were evident during the modern survey.
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Two other sites were located in the initial survey, and subjected to a more intensive surface collection. Corn was planted, so subsurface investigation was not permitted. The remote location of the sites prohibited the application of a gradiometer survey as well. The first site was located in a low spot along the west side of the field, between the river and the highest rise (Fig. 18). The second was located on the opposite end of the field along the river, with a more substantial distribution, although the density was similar.
Altenburg 1.
A grid of five-meter square units was set up from a local datum, situated at the field edge and labeled E100 N100. The intensive surface survey covered a roughly rectangular area of 1225 m², extending 55 m north to south and 20 to 25 m east to west.
Of 49 units surveyed, 12 were positive, representing a contiguous distribution of around
300 m². The distribution likely continues to the west, into a narrow wooded strip of the adjacent property, between the river and the gravel pit lake (Fig. 18). The site is situated upon the riverside Middlebury silt loam (Puglia 2007).
A total of 37 artifacts were collected during the survey (Appendix D). All but three of the artifacts were debitage flakes and flake fragments. All of the source- identified chert artifacts from this site were of Clarence Onondaga (Appendix F). None exhibited any remnant cortex material. Only 10 complete flakes were found. Because of the small sample, this site was omitted from the flake analyses.
Two biface fragments and one utilized flake comprise the tools from the site. One biface fragment was a proximal fragment, and the other was a thick (5.9 mm) distal
158 fragment, with large flake scars. The utilized flake was curvilinear, with one long edge
(42.8 mm) retouched. All three were crafted from mottled tan and gray Clarence
Onondaga chert. No pottery or non-chert tools were recovered.
The absence of flakes with cortex may indicate that primary reduction did not occur at this site, but the limited sample size may be a factor. Secondary reduction activity is evident based on the flake sizes, and resharpening may have also occurred.
There is no indication this site was occupied later than the Archaic period.
Altenburg 2.
Northeast of Altenburg 1 was another low density lithic scatter recorded as
Altenburg 2 (Fig. 18). This site was also located in a low area, but extended onto a higher area to the east. A local datum was set at the north edge of the field, near the modern river bank. This was labeled E500 N500, but not in relation to the local datum at
Altenburg 1. A total of 3500 m² were surveyed in 140 five-meter square units. Only 31 units were positive, representing two spatially distinct scatters separated by less than 15 m. While these may represent two distinct activity areas or temporally separated components, they are treated as one site for preliminary analysis, because the total area was only around 775 m². The site is located mostly on Middlebury silt loam, with a small section extending south onto Scio silt loam (Puglia 2007). The change is noticeable on the ground by a marked decrease in sand and an increase in gravel. The artifact assemblage includes 42 debitage flakes and flake fragments, 4 bifaces and biface fragments, 3 flake cores, and one utilized flake (Appendix D). No non-chert artifacts were recovered. Cortex material was present on at least two flakes.
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The distribution of the bifaces and flake cores form a rough arch around the north edge of the main lithic scatter areas of the site. All are made from Clarence chert. One biface is a thick (9.6 mm) medial fragment. Another appears to be a proximal fragment with a rounded base. Roughly flaked, this may be a broken piece, rejected during production. The third biface is a complete ovate blade, roughly flaked from a pebble core, with some of the cortex material still present. It doesn‟t have any edge wear or pressure flaking, and may have been rejected. The fourth biface is a complete projectile point with shallow but wide side notches, close to the base. The base is weakly bifurcated, suggesting it is of the MacCorkle type from the early Woodland period, around 9000 to
8500 BP (Justice 1987). It is 40 mm long and has a maximum thickness of 7.8 mm.
Two of the flake cores are tabular and one is a pebble core with flakes removed from a quarter of the surface. One of the tabular cores has a prepared edge that may represent preparation for flaking or use as a blade tool.
The presence of pebble cores and flakes with cortex material indicates that primary reduction probably occurred at this site. Secondary reduction occurred as well, and resharpening may have occurred. No evidence is present for a Middle Woodland component at this site.
Altenburg Yard Stray Find.
The field occupying the third terrace, above and just south of Altenburg North
Field, has been called Altenburg Yard Field, due to its proximity to Ms. Altenburg‟s home. This field extends from the terrace edge south to Ms. Altenburg‟s actual yard, behind her house, garden and barn (Fig. 18). East of the house, the field further extends
160 south to the road (S. Nine Mile). The soil here is Chenango gravelly silt loam (Puglia
2007).
This field was plowed and surveyed along transects set at 10 m intervals. A single, small distal fragment of a biface, probably a projectile tip, was located near the edge of the field behind the house. No other prehistoric artifacts were encountered.
Historic artifacts in the field are probably associated with the Altenburg residence. The family has lived there for more than 70 years. Ms. Altenburg said she had never found any prehistoric artifacts in this field, and doesn‟t recall her father having found any either.
The probable tip fragment has been recorded as Altenburg Yard Stray Find.
Altenburg South Stray Finds.
The Altenburg South Field is located approximately a third of a mile west of the
Altenburg home, along the South Nine Mile Road (Fig. 19). It is south of the road, and extends half a mile to the southeast, also between two gravel pit lakes. An abandoned railroad grade splits the parcel into two fields. Each field had been plowed, so each was surveyed along transects set at 10 m intervals. The southernmost field yielded no artifacts. A fourth terrace occurs in the northernmost field, and one possible flake of
Clarence chert was located along the edge of it. Two more Clarence chert flakes were located along the road (Fig. 19). These are recorded as Altenburg South Stray Finds 1-3, though those close to the road could mark the presence of a site. A house and barn were once located on the property, close to the road, and Ms. Altenburg recalled collecting artifacts in the yard next to these buildings. Unfortunately, wheat was planted, so investigations beyond the initial controlled surface survey were not permitted.
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Figure 19. Altenburg South tract. Stray finds denoted.
Altenburg Tracts Summary.
The diagnostic lithic material and absence of pottery from both Altenburg 1 and
Altenburg 2 suggest that they both are pre-Woodland period sites. The projectile point from Altenburg 2 may indicate an Early Archaic component. Ms. Altenburg‟s curated collection contains diagnostic artifacts from all temporal periods, but this is not reflected in the sites of the north field. While Ms. Altenburg remembered collecting from the area of the field “beyond the rise,” and “nearer the river,” both applicable to the two sites, because she could not remember any particular artifacts that came from these locations, the collection is of little help in the interpretation of the actual sites. Activity at both sites included secondary bifacial reduction, and likely included resharpening, however primary
162 reduction appears to have occurred only at Altenburg 2. Gradiometer surveys at these sites could help determine the preservation of subsurface features, and the potential of the sites to yield further information. Further investigation at the roadside stray finds in the south field is recommended as well, however there is no evidence at any of these locations for a Middle Woodland component.
KARL AND IA-BARIE SITES
The Karl and IA-Barie sites are located south of the Allegheny River on a well- defined second terrace of Allard silt loam. The first terrace is mostly Tioga silt loam, and the third terrace (including its slope) is Chenango gravelly silt loam (Puglia 2007). The
Karl field, covering the entire second terrace, was plowed during the project fieldwork.
The unplowed first terrace, including a natural levee along the river, was investigated with interval shovel tests, and no cultural material was encountered except a few fragments of ferrous metal fence wire. Artifacts were confined to a roughly 30 m strip along the second terrace edge, and were present from the eastern to the western edges of the plowed field. The distribution is continuous from the Karl site to the IA-Barie site, defined during a CRM survey for a proposed gravel pit (Dean and Carpenter 2007a;
2007b), and most likely continues onto the adjacent property to the east.
Though it was plowed, permission to investigate that parcel was not granted, because the owner said he had never noticed anything in his field. Nearly each day I was there, he would visit, intently observing the investigation process at the Karl site. One day, toward the end of fieldwork there, he brought a large flake core of Clarence
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Figure 20. Flake core. Found on the parcel east of and adjacent to the Karl site. A similar core is present in the Altenburg Collection. Clarence Onondaga chert.
chert over and donated it to the project (Figure 20), saying he‟d just plowed it up and it was the first thing he‟d ever found on his property. A similar core was included in the
Altenburg Collection, but with no provenience. These cores are larger than the typical pebbles available in the area, and their presence suggests that at least some of the chert used in the area was brought in from the source area, most likely the quarry at Diver‟s
Lake (Wray 1948), discussed further in the Chert Sourcing section, below. A few flakes were noticed in the field as I walked with him to the find spot (Figure 18). I mapped the location of the core with a hand-held GPS device and discussed it for a while with him. I now have permission to investigate his parcel, which I will do at some point in the future. 164
Karl.
A surface survey was conducted over the entire Karl second terrace field along 10 m transects, and a 5 m grid was set up for intensive collection along the terrace edge, where an extensive medium density lithic scatter was evident. A gradiometer survey was conducted covering most of the surface distribution, and several anomalies were present in the data. Interval shovel testing was not permitted because of the feed crop present, but permission was granted for limited anomaly testing along the terrace and field edge. Ten of these anomalies were excavated (Table 9), revealing four subsurface features, further described below.
The Karl site spans the parcel owned by Marcia Karl, and continues onto adjacent properties, overlapping with the IA/Barie site to the west (Fig. 18). The intensive survey covered 3925 m², extending from the east edge of the field 55 m west, and 80 to 90 m from north to south. Of 157 units, 109 were positive, yielding a total of 340 artifacts. The distribution covers an additional 2900 m² to the west, but crop growth prohibited testing beyond the initial 10 m transects of the controlled surface survey. Nine artifacts were collected in that area, including one along the western field edge, adjacent to the IA-Barie site. In addition to the 349 artifacts collected in the surface surveys, 240 artifacts were collected during the anomaly excavations, which covered a total of only 8.5 m². The surface surveys yielded an average of 2.2 artifacts per 5 m² unit, while the excavations yielded an average of 28.2 artifacts per square meter.
Only 5 of the 589 total Karl site artifacts were not made of chert (Appendix D).
They included four pitted stones from the surface surveys, and one flat river pebble of
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Figure 21. Karl Site hafted biface tools. a) untyped stemmed point, unknown chert. b) medial fragment with tapered shoulders present, Edgecliff chert. c) Brewerton Eared base fragment, Edgecliff chert. d) Brewerton Side-notched base fragment, Clarence chert. e) Brewerton Corner-notched modified into a scraper, Clarence chert. f) untyped corner- notched or stemmed point from Feature 4, Clarence chert. g) untyped corner-notched point, unknown chert. h) untyped stemmed point, Reynales chert.
sandstone that had been partially drilled from both sides, found during anomaly excavations. A total of 29 bifaces and fragments were found: 25 from surface collections and four from excavations. These include eight projectile points and fragments (Fig. 21) and three preforms and fragments (Fig. 22 b-d). Recognized point types include the three
Brewerton series points (Fig. 21 c-e). There are no recognized Woodland period types, but four of the projectile points are un-typed (Fig. 21 a, f-h). Figure 21(g) has elongated 166 corner notches that form an expanded base similar to some Middle Woodland types, like
Steuben Expanded Stem or Lowe Flared Base, but the base lacks the typical exaggeration and the overall form is narrow. Figure 21 (h) appears to be an unusually broad Lamoka point. One medial fragment has tapered shoulders reminiscent of Susquehanna points
(Fig. 21 b), but no confident assessment can be made without the base. Two bifaces are tools made from flakes modified on both faces, one with a graver tip (Fig 22 a) and one with a curved blade edge (Fig. 22 e).
Nearly 82% of the chert at the site was identified, and nearly half of the unidentified chert was burnt. Clarence chert was the most abundant form, though several varieties were present in the sample (Appendix F). Of the 10 flake tools and 14 cores
Figure 22. Karl Site biface tools and preforms. a) graver, Seneca chert. b-d) preforms, Clarence chert. e) scraper with curved blade edge, Clarence chert.
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(Appendix D), all but two cores were of Clarence chert. The others were made from
Seneca and Reynales chert.
By request of the farmer leasing the tract, anomaly excavation was limited to within 10 m of the terrace edge. Twelve anomalies fit this criterion, and ten were chosen for testing. These included a dipole with maximum magnetic variance from -8.96 to
+8.40 nT, and nine monopoles with maximum variance values ranging from +3.12 to
+14.7 (Table 9). Each was initially tested with a 50 cm² shovel test. Three of the tests revealed relatively intact features, two of which were partially excavated to obtain
Test Maximum No. Values (nT) Result 1 3.89, na FCR fragments, no evident feature 2 3.72, na no evident feature 3 9.73, na FCR filled large shallow feature (Feature 1) 4 8.40, -8.96 FCR fragments, ferrous metal fragments, no evident feature 5 3.12, na small remnant feature (Feature 2) 6 3.91, na one large FCR, no evident feature 7 6.27, na FCR filled feature (Feature 3) 8 3.77, na basin feature with FCR (Feature 4) 9 4.95, na FCR fragments, no evident feature 10 14.7, na no evident feature; section is not plowed
Table 9. Magnetic variance values. Maximum measured variances from the background remanent magnetivity for each of the ten anomalies that were tested at the Karl site, and corresponding excavation results. FCR = fire-cracked rock.
profiles and soil samples. The largest variance occurred in a small section that was not plowed, and no feature was evident from test excavation. This probably represents a local variation between remanent magnetivity of plowed versus unplowed soil. 168
Features.
Feature 1 was a shallow thermal feature filled with fire-cracked rock (FCR). It measured 1.3 m from north to south, and slightly larger from east to west, although a small section continued into the unexcavated west wall. No diagnostic artifacts were associated with the feature, but flakes were found throughout. Charcoal samples and soil samples were collected for future analysis.
Feature 2 was a shallow remnant feature with flakes and bits of charcoal.
Charcoal samples were collected, but there were signs of rodent disturbance beneath the deposit.
Feature 3 was another FCR filled thermal feature, but time limitations prevented an expanded excavation beyond the initial 50 cm² unit. The feature continued into the walls to the east, west and south, from around 20 cm south of the north wall. The unit was backfilled to be reopened at a later date.
Feature 4 was a basin-shaped pit with a thermal component. The 1 X 1 m expansion revealed the southeast quarter of the feature, with profile views in the north and west walls. A small corner-notched or stemmed point (Fig. 21 f) was embedded in the feature fill.
The absence of pottery and the lack of recognized Middle Woodland lithic artifacts limits the utility of this site for the current study, other than as a comparative example of an assemblage most likely dominated by Archaic components. The presence of relatively intact prehistoric features beneath the plow zone makes this an important site
169 that will likely yield valuable settlement and subsistence information on the Archaic period through future research.
IA-Barie.
The Barie parcel was purchased by IA Construction for an expansion of their gravel pit from the west. It was subject to Phase 1 and Phase 2 CRM surveys, including two controlled surface collections, interval shovel testing and test units located at shovel tests that indicated a likely presence of sub-plow-zone cultural material (Dean and
Carpenter 2007b). The surveys revealed a lithic distribution extending the width of the parcel, from the terrace edge south around 40 m on the east to around 20 m on the west.
The gravel company decided to avoid the site and dig to the south, preserving the IA-
Barie site.
Dean and Carpenter (2007b) collected a total of 377 artifacts, including 31 bifaces and fragments, 14 flake cores and 13 retouched flake tools (Appendix D). Though 66 complete flakes were collected, these were recorded by weight rather than dimensions, so they could not be incorporated into the flake analysis. Chert types were not recorded, but
16 of the 19 artifacts illustrated in the reports are made from Clarence chert. Artifact types suggest that the use of this section of terrace edge occurred over a broader range of time than that of the Karl site. Two stemmed points with concave bases resemble Late
Paleo-Indian Hi-Lo points from around 10,000 to 10,500 years ago. Most of the diagnostic artifacts are Middle to Late Archaic, including a Genesee point, and several
Brewerton Side-notched points. One Late Woodland Levanna point was found, and a few possible Early Woodland Meadowood points (Dean and Carpenter 2007a; 2007b).
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Non-chert artifacts included two pitted stones and two pecked hammerstones. No pottery was recovered, suggesting that Woodland use may have been limited to logistical camps. There is no indication that the site was used during the Middle Woodland period.
SITES ON THE BOCKMIER, THREADGILL AND WIEDMAN TRACTS
There are at least eight sites located in a series of fields that crosses three parcels along the river just west of Fivemile Creek (Fig. 23). The Threadgill, Bockmier and
Wiedman tracts span the first, second and third river terraces, and multiple soil types. The fields have long been a favorite of collectors, as is typical for easily accessed fields in the region, but useful data are still available within the archaeological deposits.
Bockmier 1.
The Bockmier 1 site is located on a natural levee of Tioga silt loam north of the river. It is adjacent to, and may be a continuation of, the Bockmier Point site, investigated during the SUNY Geneseo summer field schools in 2001 and 2002 (Howard et al., forthcoming). Both of these sites have major Late Woodland components from the
Allegheny Iroquois phase, represented by a particular ceramic assemblage (discussed below) and triangular projectile points. A third related site, Wiedman, is to the northeast.
Although the artifact distribution between Bockmier 1 and Wiedman is continuous (Fig.
23), the sites are arbitrarily delineated by a small area of low artifact density between them. Bockmier 1 covers over 6300 m² along the river, the entire width of the field. The
Bockmier Field site collections, from 1998 and 1999 uncontrolled surface surveys,
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Figure 23. Map of Fivemile Creek tracts. Sites outlined in red.
indicate that the site has multiple components. Individual components are likely much smaller, with the possible exception of the Late Woodland component.
This site was not plowed at the time of investigation for this project, and shovel tests were not permitted in that section of field, so a grid was set up from a datum point at
E172 N199 of the Bockmier Point site grid for a magnetic survey. A transect of shovel tests had been conducted into the field in 2001 to determine if the distribution of artifacts from the Bockmier Point site continued into the field. It continued for 70m into the field to the northwest (Howard et al., forthcoming).
A total of 40 bifaces and fragments were collected at Bockmier 1 (Appendix D), though most were fragmentary. Projectile points include types from the Archaic and Late
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Figure 24. Bockmier 1 Site biface tools. a) amorphous tool, Edgecliff chert. b) modified side notched point (hafted scraper), Clarence chert. c) production rejected preform, Edgecliff chert. d) Archaic point fragment, Clarence chert. e) Levanna triangle point, unknown chert (probably heated Huronian). f) Madison triangle point, Clarence chert. g) Madison triangle point, Clarence chert. h) stemmed point, Clarence chert.
Woodland periods (Table 10, Fig. 24). From the 1105 flakes and fragments, 288 complete flakes contributed to the flake analysis below. There were 69 flakes that were modified for use as tools, and included in the tool technology analysis (Table X; Fig. X).
Twenty-two rimsherds (Fig. 25) and 32 decorated potsherds from a minimum of
13 vessels are included among the 523 potsherds collected from the site. The majority of the vessels are recognized Late Woodland types, mostly Ontario Oblique varieties.
Exterior surface treatment for 183 potsherds with both surfaces intact broke down as
173 follows: 80 were cordmarked, 100 were smooth, and three were too rough to interpret.
While a few of the cordmarked sherds top 10 mm in thickness, the mean is 7.44 mm for this site. Since most of the rims from the site appear to be Late Woodland in origin, it is likely that most of the pottery is from that time period. Some thicker cordmarked pottery is present, but only represented by body sherds, which can be thick in Late Woodland vessels. There are no lithic diagnostic artifacts that indicate a Middle Woodland component.
Figure 25. Bockmier 1 Site unique vessels. a) Criss-cross patterned rim sherd. b) – e), h), j), k), m) Ontario Oblique rim sherds. f) damaged rim sherd with possible appliqué strip (removed). g) smooth rim sherd. i) rim sherd with tiny impressions. l) neck sherd with cord impressed oblique decoration.
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The Bockmier Point datum was used to set up a grid system at Bockmier 1 for gradiometer testing. Twelve 20 m² units provided coverage over the portion of the site where the uncontrolled survey maps indicated the highest relative density of artifacts.
Magnetic maps resulting from the survey indicate several subsurface anomalies that are potentially prehistoric features. No excavations were permitted in the field at that time, so the anomalies must await future testing. The surface artifacts suggest that there are likely to be Late Woodland features present. There is no evidence for the presence of a Middle
Woodland component from the available data.
Bockmier Terrace.
The Bockmier Terrace site straddles the Bockmier and Weidman parcels on the third terrace, next to the Farm Market buildings (Fig. 23). The soil is Allard silt loam on the level terrace, and grades to Unadilla silt loam on the slope (Puglia 2007).
Because the space is used yearly for sensitive crops, subsurface testing was not permitted. This site was subject to controlled surface survey according to the research design. Limited distribution data were available from previous uncontrolled surface collections, and the artifacts from these were available for analysis as well. A gradiometer survey was conducted to assess the likelihood of subsurface features at the site.
Prehistoric artifacts are distributed throughout the plowed section of the terrace, extending around 50 meters along the terrace edge, and 35 meters in from it. The controlled surface survey produced a total of 147 artifacts (Appendix D) in a low density scatter covering about 925 m². The distribution may continue along the terrace edge to
175 the east, and likely once continued to the west, where the buildings are now located. Mr.
Bockmier said that he found an “arrowhead” behind the main building once.
In addition to the artifacts from the controlled surface survey, another 80 artifacts had been collected in uncontrolled surface surveys in the past. These were recorded on crude maps, so only general spatial information is available, but this generally conforms to the distribution obtained through the controlled survey. Flakes and flake fragments
Figure 26. Bockmier Terrace bifaces. a) – c) Genesee points, Clarence chert. d) corner- notched point, unknown chert. e) stemmed point, Clarence chert. f) side-notched point, Clarence chert. g) base fragment, Clarence chert.
176 total 171, of which 91% are of identified chert types (Appendix F). Ten flakes were utilized, exhibiting retouched edges, and four of these with heavily retouched edges are classified as uniface tools. There are 17 blocky chert fragments interpreted as shatter.
Of 27 bifaces and biface fragments, three relatively complete projectile points
(Fig. 26 a-c) conform to the Genesee type (Justice 1987). All of these are made from
Clarence chert. Four point fragments include a corner notched base fragment (Fig. 26 d), side-notched and stemmed base fragments (Fig. 26 e-g). All appear to be Archaic forms.
Twenty other biface fragments are mostly non-diagnostic medial, distal and blade fragments, though one is an ovate base fragment and a few are amorphous.
Four pitted stones were collected, three having the pecked shallow pits often interpreted as nut processing stones (Parker 1910), and one having the ground conical pits that are less confidently interpreted as fire kit or drill kit bases (Dean, Personal
Communication). One ground stone tool fragment is too fragmentary to suggest its function, but it has a formed blade edge similar to that of a celt or axe head. A single, weathered grit tempered pottery fragment was collected from the site.
Five 10 m² gradiometer units covered much of the central portion of the site, resulting in maps of a few weak anomalies under the surface, but due to the lack of
Middle Woodland diagnostics and the presence of cultigens, excavation was deferred to a later date.
The Bockmier Terrace site is a low density lithic scatter that appears from the artifacts to be mainly an archaic occupation. The presence of three Genesee type points and a Brewerton corner notched point suggest that a major component of the site is from
177 the Middle to Late Archaic period, from around 5000 to around 3700 BP (Justice 1987).
The grit tempered pottery fragment suggests that some use was made of the third terrace by people in the Woodland period, when most activity appears to have occurred on the second terrace. However, there is no indication of the time period involved. Ground proofing of magnetic anomalies on the terrace could potentially provide more solid dates from radiocarbon dating of charcoal material within subsurface features, if such features are indeed present.
Bockmier 3.
Bockmier 3 is a low density lithic scatter located within a belt of Teel silt loam near the base of the third terrace, north of Bockmier 1 (Fig 23). The site covers 1200 m² with only 27 artifacts recovered during the controlled surface survey. Flakes and fragments totaled 21. One flake was formed into a leaf-shaped tool, with two retouched edges. There were two blocky fragments interpreted as shatter. Three biface tools were found, including a triangular form with a convex base (Fig. 27 b) and a basal-notched point (Fig. 27 a) resembling the Eva 2 type, from the Tennessee Valley, which dates from around 6000 to 4000 BP (Justice 1987) A similar point was recovered at the IA-Barie site
(Dean and Carpenter 2007a; 2007b). The third was a rough tool fashioned from a pebble.
Pebble cortex was present on three flakes as well. A fire-reddened sandstone cobble with a pit pecked into one face was recovered. There was no pottery, and no Middle Woodland artifacts were evident, so no further investigation was undertaken for this project.
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Figure 27. Bockmier 3 Site and Bockmier 4 bifaces. a) basal notched point, Clarence chert. b) triangle point with convex base (damaged), Clarence chert. c) Levanna triangle point, Clarence chert. d) Madison-like pentagonal point, Clarence chert. e) modified Madison point, Huronian chert.
Bockmier 4.
Bockmier 4 is a widely scattered collection of probably stray find lithics from an area of the field west of Bockmier 3 (Fig. 23). The eight artifacts were found in an area of around 800 m², and most likely are not related to one another, other than through relative proximity. Three triangle points were found, one of Clarence chert, conforming to the
Levanna type (Fig. 26 c), and another of Huronian chert, conforming to the Madison type
(Fig. 26 e). The third, made of Clarence chert, was probably an elongated Madison variety (Fig. 26 d), but is pentagonal in overall form. Another biface was a rough
179 stemmed point made from a thick flake of an unknown light gray chert. A large (38.5 mm by 39.1 mm) flake tool was also present, and a single flake fragment. Though the triangle points are Late Woodland point types, no pottery was recovered from the area around the finds. If the artifacts represent a utilized space on the landscape, it would most likely be a
Late Woodland special use site, but the lack of debitage suggests that it is a collection of stray artifacts associated with one or more of the numerous sites on the second and third terrace nearby.
Bockmier Point.
The Bockmier Point site was investigated during two field schools for SUNY
Geneseo, in the summers of 2001 and 2002 (Howard et al., forthcoming). It was located in a small wooded peninsula at the confluence of the Allegheny River and Fivemile
Creek (Fig. 23). A total of 22 m² of a single component Late Woodland deposit was excavated, resulting in a collection of 3245 flakes and fragments, 80 of which were retouched (Appendix D). There were also 16 biface fragments, ten of which were
Levanna or Madison triangle points. Eight flake cores, two pecked hammerstones and a pitted stone with pits on both faces complete the lithic portion of the collection. Ceramic items included five pipe fragments and 1966 vessel fragments. A minimum of 25 unique vessels is represented by 47 rims found at the site. In addition to artifacts, paleoethnobotanical samples were recovered from pit features, acknowledging the use of maize and squash, as well as a number of fruits.
Since the site is a Late Woodland single component site, it was useful as a comparative marker in the technology analysis. The size of the site is unknown, but
180 postmold patterns suggest that it extends far beyond the excavated portion. A pair of shovel test transects radiating into the adjacent field revealed a continuous distribution of artifacts 70 m out, into what is known as Bockmier 1.
Dorcas.
The Dorcas site is a low density artifact scatter located along the base of the slope to the third terrace (Fig. 23). It occupies a sliver of Unadilla silt loam on a slight rise above the low Teel silt loam belt.
A 5 meter grid originally set up for the Weidman site surface collection (below) was extended out to cover the Dorcas site as well as the adjacent Doris site to the west, on the same landform. The artifact distribution at the Dorcas site covered approximately
675 m², in an area roughly 45 m east to west and 20 m north to south. One 20 m² gradiometer unit was set up within the collection grid (Fig. 23). The east end of the distribution may continue beyond the plowed field.
A total of 149 artifacts were recovered from this site, including 124 debitage flakes and flake fragments (Appendix D). Of these, 81.1% were made from identifiable chert sources, mostly Clarence Onondaga (Appendix F). One flake exhibited possible cortex material. There were nine chert artifacts classified as shatter.
Chert tools included one complete biface tool, four biface fragments, two flake cores, two flake tools and two utilized flakes. The complete biface tool is an untyped side notched projectile point with a convex base (Fig. 28 a). It is made from Seneca chert and is similar in overall form to Middle Woodland types, with wide notches and a convex base that was not ground. A proximal fragment of a Meadowood type projectile point
181 was found as well, made from tan and gray Clarence chert (Fig. 28 b). The three other biface fragments, also made from Clarence chert, are non-diagnostic. One is a distal fragment, probably a projectile point tip; another is a nondescript tool of an odd shape.
The third is formed from a pebble, is unfinished, and may be a production reject. The flake cores are similar in size, and one has cortex material present. Both are made from
Clarence chert. The utilized flakes and flake tools are of Clarence chert as well. Each of the utilized flakes has one utilized edge. One of the flake tools was oddly shaped from a distal fragment, and exhibits two retouched edges. The other, also crafted from a distal flake fragment, has heavily retouched edges forming three probable graver tips.
Figure 28. Dorcas Site artifacts. a) untyped side notched point, Seneca chert. b) Meadowood point (tip damaged), Clarence chert. c), d) cordmarked, cord impressed potsherds.
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In addition to the chert tools, two pecked pitted stones were located. One had a pit pecked into one surface and pecking on most other surfaces. This pitted stone had been reddened, probably by thermal exposure. The other one had pits pecked into the two opposing faces of the stone.
Four pottery fragments complete the artifact collection from the Dorcas site. All are grit tempered, and two are well worn from exposure to the elements. These two sherds measure 6.8 and 8.3 mm in maximum thickness. The third and fourth are cordmarked and cord impressed, with maximum thicknesses of 8.5 and 11.5 mm (Fig. 28 c, d). No rimsherds were recovered.
The presence of pottery fragments and the absence of triangle points suggest that this might be a Woodland site predating the main Bockmier Field and Weidman site components. The presence of an Early Woodland Meadowood point supports this, but the pottery is not attributable to any particular period. Further complicating any interpretation is the untyped point with affinities to Middle Woodland types, as well as the proximity of this site to the Doris site, where Late Woodland artifacts were found (see below).
The gradiometer survey suggests there may be subsurface features from which radiocarbon dates could be obtained. Further investigation is necessary, but the presence of cultigens prevented further investigation during this project. This site cannot be ruled out as a potential Middle Woodland site, and will be revisited in the future.
Doris.
The Doris site, another low density artifact scatter, shares the slight rise or bench below the third terrace with the Dorcas site. They are separated by a small depression in
183 which artifacts were absent (Fig. 23). The soil is Unadilla silt loam. Less than 15 m separates the nearest artifacts from each site, and indeed they may have been a contiguous site with two spatially distinct activity areas, or it may be simply that an erosion event created the separate distributions. The diagnostic artifacts from the two sites suggest that a differentiation is warranted. With an artifact distribution covering
Figure 29. Doris Site bifaces. a) production reject. b) Brewerton side notched point. c) Otter Creek side notched fragment. d) – g) stemmed points and fragments. h) corner notched point. All Clarence chert.
184 approximately 875 m², the Doris site is slightly larger than the Dorcas site. It extends around 60 m east to west and 25 m north to south.
The same 5 m grid was extended from the Weidman site to conduct the intensive surface survey. A total of 93 artifacts were collected (Appendix D). Debitage flakes and flake fragments numbered 67. Cortex material was not apparent on any flakes or flake fragments. Six chert fragments are interpreted to be shatter. Only 79.1% of the chert was sourced, most of it being Clarence chert (Appendix F).
Eighteen chert tools and fragments were recovered from the Doris site, all made from Clarence chert. These include thirteen bifaces and fragments, three flake cores and two flake tools. Eight of the bifaces are proximal fragments, with identifiable basal forms. Of these, five are stemmed, two are side notched, and one is a triangle point base.
The triangle fragment (Fig 29 a) is thick, with a hump that the knapper was unable to remove. It may have been broken and rejected. The side notched points are both archaic forms, one a complete Brewerton Side-notched point (Fig. 29 b), and the other (Fig. 29 c) a fragment broken lengthwise that conforms to the Otter Creek type (Justice 1987). The stemmed points may represent at least two temporal occupations. Although none of them fully conform to described types, one (Fig. 29 g) resembles the Lamoka type (Justice
1987), and one (Fig. 29 e) could fit either the Robbins type or Snook Kill type (Justice
1987). Two may be Genesee or Snook Kill variants (Fig. 29 d, f), and the last is a small, complete untyped corner notched point (Fig. 29 h). The remaining biface fragments are medial and distal fragments, and blade edges.
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The flake cores are blocky, ranging from 28.1 to 41.7 mm in maximum length.
All are made from Clarence chert, as are the two flake tools. One flake tool exhibits retouch on the interior surface edges, and the other is retouched on two edges.
Two potsherds are included in the collections for the Doris site. Both are grit tempered, and one has a plain outer surface finish. The exterior of the other potsherd is damaged, so the finish cannot be determined. The presence of pottery and a triangle point opens the possibility that this ledge at the base of the third terrace may have been an activity area on the landscape of the Late Woodland period, when much of the second terrace appears to have been utilized (see Bockmier 1 and Weidman sites). Archaic period occupation is suggested by the presence of Brewerton and possible Otter Creek type points, which Ritchie describes as “genetically related” (1971:41), and the Genesee cluster types, Genesee and Snook Kill. All of these types have been dated to from around
3900 to 3600 BP (Justice 1987). The presence of these types at the adjacent Bockmier
Terrace site, above Doris site on the third terrace, suggests that the two may be contemporaneous activity areas for the same occupation, or that some material may have slumped through erosion or been dumped from above onto the ledge.
Some examples of the Snook Kill type resemble the Robbins type, a later type found on Adena and Hopewell sites from around 2500 to 1800 BP (Justice 1987). One
Doris site point is morphologically closer to Robbins (Fig. 29 e), with a more substantial stem and more pronounced tangs than normally found on Snook Kill points; however the presence of the other typed points from the same period as Snook Kill lends support to the interpretation that this point is a Snook Kill variant. Further research, including
186 radiocarbon dating, could resolve this question. Unfortunately, the presence of cultigens limited the site availability during fieldwork.
Wiedman.
The Wiedman site is located northeast of the Bockmier Field and Bockmier Point sites, on a rise along an old channel of the Fivemile Creek (Fig. 23). It is mapped within the Teel silt loam zone (Puglia 2007), but the soil on the rise more resembles the more well-drained Tioga silt loam of the levee closer to the river. A portion of this site was exposed by the plow, revealing an artifact pattern indicating the site continued into the wooded area to the south and the un-plowed adjacent field to the west. Shovel testing in these two areas confirmed the site continuation. In all, the site covers approximately 2800 m², forming an oval extending roughly 50 m from north to south and 70 m from east to west. The artifact distribution was mainly confined to the rise, with some artifacts concentrated on the slope to the east.
Gradiometer surveys covered most of the site, with a 20 meter grid extending from a local datum set at the southwestern edge of the plowed field. Twenty 20 m² units were mapped west of the datum, and one 10 m² unit was mapped in the wooded area south of the datum (Fig. 23). Possible subsurface features were detected in the units closest to the plowed field, as well as in the wooded area to the south.
A 5 m grid was set up in the plowed field for an intensive surface survey, and extended to the south for shovel testing in the wooded area. Shovel testing in the adjacent unplowed section of the field was conducted on a 10 m grid to minimize disturbance to
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Figure 30. Wiedman Site lamellar flake. Clarence chert.
the hay crop. While anomaly testing in the field was not permitted, one shovel test from interval testing indicated that a magnetic anomaly that happened to be on the transect was probably a subsurface prehistoric feature. Below the plow zone was a deposit of darker soil with artifacts and charcoal present. A shovel test in the wooded area was also situated on an anomaly, and had a similar cultural layer. This shovel test was expanded to a 1 X 1 test unit, which verified the presence of a thermal feature. This was a broad, shallow pit with lithic and ceramic artifacts in a zone of dark organic soil, contained within a layer of reddened soil that conformed to the overall pit shape. A few fragments of FCR were
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Figure 31. Wiedman Site bifaces. a) triangle point base, unknown chert (fire crazed). b) convex based triangle point, Seneca chert. c) Madison-like pentagonal point, Clarence chert. d) Levanna point base, Seneca chert. e) Lamoka point, Clarence chert. f) Lamoka point, Huronian chert. g) side notched point, Clarence chert. h) graver, Clarence chert.
encountered within and around the feature. A few of the pottery fragments were rinsherds, conforming to the Ontario Oblique type from the Late Woodland period (Fig.
32).
In all, the Wiedman site investigation produced 1314 lithic and ceramic artifacts
(Appendix D). There were 589 flakes and fragments, 22 of which were retouched or formed into uniface tools. One of these (Fig. 30) was a delicate lamellar tool that
189 resembles a Middle Woodland bladelet. It does not, however, appear to have been struck from a prepared bladelet core. This site contributed 182 complete flakes to the flake analyses below. Five flake cores were recovered, as well as 17 biface tools and fragments. Two were Archaic projectile point forms, including two Lamoka points (Fig.
31 e, f). Three were triangle points from the Late Woodland period, conforming to the
Levanna and Madison types (Fig. 31 a, c, d). Two other roughly triangular points exhibited atypical traits: one (Fig. 31 b) had a convex base, and the other (Fig. 31 g) appears to have been modified with notches and a rounded tip. A bifacial tool with three graver tips (Fig. 31 h) was also recovered.
Ceramic fragments totaled 745, one of which was a pipe rim fragment (Fig. 32 f) and 8 of which were vessel rimsherds (Fig. 32 a-e, g-h). Seven of these rimsherds represent at least six unique vessels all of which are variations of the Ontario Oblique type. Figure 32 (g) is too weathered to discern a pattern. A few of the body sherds from the site exceed 10 mm in thickness, but no thick rims were found.
Artifacts at the Weidman site indicate that it is a multicomponent site, and like
Bockmier 1, it has a major Allegheny Iroquois phase component. Without radiocarbon dating, it is unclear how the sites relate to one another, but the limited ceramic assemblages are similar, suggesting a close temporal arrangement. No convincing evidence for a Middle Woodland component was recovered, despite the resemblance of the lamellar flake to a bladelet.
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Figure 32. Wiedman unique vessels. a) – e), h) Ontario Oblique rim sherds. f) pipe rim fragment. g) weathered rim sherd.
Threadgill.
Like the Bockmier Terrace site, Threadgill is situated upon Unadilla silt loam on the slope, and Allard silt loam on the level of the third terrace (Puglia 2007). The site is a collection of four lithic scatters extending the width of the parcel (probably continuing on either side) from the base of the third terrace up the slope and terrace edge, and continuing to the north edge of the field and probably into the yards beyond (Fig. 23).
Though the loci may represent one continuous utilized landscape, they are spatially discreet.
Threadgill Locus 1 is a very low density lithic scatter on the west side of the field, on the third terrace. The locus extends approximately 30 meters north from the edge of 191 the terrace, and about 15 meters east from the western edge of the field. It is likely that the distribution continues to the west into the unplowed adjacent parcel. The density of the lithic scatter is slightly higher toward the terrace edge.
The prehistoric artifacts collected during the controlled surface survey include 8 flakes and flake fragments, one of which exhibits reworking on two edges. Four of the eight flakes and fragments measured over 30 mm in maximum dimension. Also collected were a fragment of chert shatter; a uniface tool crafted from a thick flake and steeply truncated at the distal end (Fig. 33 f); and a projectile point (Fig. 33 a), conforming to the
Brewerton side-notched type (Justice 1987). All lithic artifacts are made from Clarence chert. Historic refuse (bottle and window glass, ceramics) was present, but in low quantities.
Threadgill Locus 2 is a small, very low density lithic scatter located on the terrace edge 25 meters from Locus 3 and 35 meters from Locus 1. It covers perhaps 10 square meters and consists of one flake, a flake fragment, a biface tool and a biface fragment.
All of the artifacts are made from Clarence chert. The biface fragment is a tip fragment, exhibiting heat damage in the form of discoloration (fire crazing) and potlids. The complete biface tool is nearly circular in shape, with a pronounced tip (Fig. 33 d). Crafted from tan and gray Clarence chert, it is likely a preform, as it does not exhibit any use- wear or sharpening.
Threadgill Locus 3 is a very low density prehistoric lithic scatter mixed with a higher density of historic refuse from the mid 19th century. The historic component consists of bottle glass, metal fragments, and various types of ceramics, including a large
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Figure 33. Threadgill Field bifaces. a) Brewerton side-notched point. b) medial fragment with possible flute channel. c) Lamoka point. d) preform with pronounced tip. e) squared base asymmetrical biface f) uniface tool. All Clarence chert.
number of “kaolin” pipe fragments, some of which were collected for future analysis.
The prehistoric component extends approximately 35 meters north from the terrace edge, and about 35 meters west from the eastern edge of the field. A total of ten prehistoric artifacts were found widely scattered. These are all lithic items, including four flakes and flake fragments, a fragment of shatter, four biface tools and fragments, and one uniface tool. One flake fragment is made from Clarence chert, and the others are
193 from unidentified cherts. Of the biface tools, one is oddly shaped, with a squared base and a distal end that tapers to one side (Fig 33 e). That side was broken off, so it is difficult to interpret a function for the tool, but it may have been a perforator or drill. Two are medial fragments, one thin and the other thick. The thicker fragment has a flake scar running lengthwise on one face, resembling a flute channel (Fig. 33 b). It is also fire crazed, with potlids. One complete biface is present, in the form of a narrow corner notched projectile point (Figure 33 b) resembling those of the Lamoka type (Justice
1987). All of the biface tools and fragments are made from tan and gray Clarence chert.
The uniface tool is a rough fragment made from Seneca chert, and is fire crazed with potlids.
Locus 4 is at the base of the third terrace, and may represent artifacts pulled over the terrace edge by the plow. It is a very low density scatter of flakes, thinning out to the south away from the terrace base. This section of the second terrace is part of a low Teel silt loam back channel, likely an abandoned river channel, flooding extensively every spring. All of Locus 4 but a thin sliver along the Unadilla silt loam base of the third terrace is subject to annual flooding. A total of nine flakes and fragments were widely scattered over an area of about 6000 m², with five collected close to the foot of the terrace. All were made from Clarence chert, and all were between 10.1 and 30 cm.
The Threadgill site encompasses four discrete loci that may represent a contiguous cultural landscape occupied during the Archaic period, and possibly during the Paleoindian period. The sparse nature of the distribution suggests short term
194 occupations, and the presence of large debitage fragments at locus one indicates that early stage reduction was occurring at that location.
The absence of prehistoric pottery and other Woodland period diagnostics precluded more intensive investigation of the site for this project. There is no indication that a Middle Woodland component is present. While the low artifact densities may discourage further research, the possibility of a Paleo-Indian component may make it worth the effort. Paleo-Indian artifacts are known from the area, but no sites have been scientifically investigated to date.
CANTICLE FARMS SITES.
Canticle Farms is a cooperative horticultural farm located south of the Allegheny
River, across from the Bockmier-Weidman fields (Fig. 23). The farm manager, Mark
Prinz, maintains strips of plowed land for members of the co-op to grow vegetables for their own consumption. These strips are at regular intervals and have been in place for the last ten years. Most of the farm is located on the second terrace, which, at this location, extends 220 meters before rising to the third terrace. Closest to the river, the soil is Allard silt loam, which is also located on the third terrace here. The slope of the third terrace, and its immediate surroundings, are Unadilla silt loam (Puglia 2007).
From time to time, artifacts had been recovered from the field, including two
Brewerton Side-notched projectile points. Permission for testing was limited to surface survey due to the cultivation activity and foot traffic on the non-plowed sections, and collections were to be returned to the farm co-op for display once analysis was complete.
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During the project, strips were in various stages of growth and freshly plowed strips were scattered throughout. This prevented the use of an arbitrary system of collection, so the strips were numbered and measured, and observed as they became available. Positions of a handful of flakes were mapped, but no collection was made, except for a greenstone celt (Fig. 34) that was photographed and measured before being returned to the farm manager. Flakes were scattered over much of the area nearest the greenhouses, and no flakes were present on or below the third terrace.
A small section of field adjacent to the strips to the west was plowed for a pumpkin and gourd patch (Fig. 23), and this section was subject to a controlled surface survey according to the research design.
Canticle Farms 1.
Canticle Farms 1 represents the sparse lithic scatter in the area of the farm where the strips occur. It is likely that the site extends toward the river, beneath the South Nine
Mile Road. The nature of the cultivation activities in this section of the parcel limited the methods of investigation, and likely influenced the outcome of the surface collections.
Though the scattered remains may represent more than one site, the farm manager indicated that flakes are regularly seen in most strips. In addition, a local collector indicated that a substantial portion of his collection came from the field now occupied by the co-op farm. Tentatively, the strip area has been treated as a single site. Points in the manager‟s collection are all Archaic Brewerton and Lamoka points. The only other artifact collected from the site was the celt (Fig. 34) mentioned above.
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Figure 34. Canticle Farms 1 celt. Gneiss.
Canticle Farms 2.
Canticle Farms 2 is a low density 900 m² lithic scatter in the northwestern corner of the parcel, where the pumpkin patch was located (Fig. 23). This may be a part of a continuous distribution of artifacts along the river from Canticle Farms 1 and into the adjacent parcel. This section of the parcel was freshly plowed during the project, and a grid was set up for controlled surface collection according to the research design. A total of 24 lithic artifacts were recovered within 15 meters of the north edge of the plowed
197 section. The distribution extended from one side of the section to the other, likely continuing on both sides.
Debitage from the locus totals 21 flakes and fragments, 90% of which are made from Clarence chert. Of the remaining two flake fragments, one is made from Seneca chert while the other is from Edgecliff chert. One complete flake exceeds 30 mm in length, and none measure less than 10 mm. No cortex is evident on any of the debitage.
One flake core of Clarence chert was recovered, and one biface tool. The biface, also of
Clarence chert, is a small stemmed point with the base snapped. The blade edges are blunt, and may have been ground. Similar small, blunt-edged tools are found at the
Fourmile site (see below). A pitted stone with conical pits on both faces was the only non-chert artifact recovered from the site.
Canticle Farms 3.
Canticle Farms 3 is a very low density lithic scatter located south of Canticle
Farms 2 (Fig 23). It represents four Clarence chert artifacts widely scattered over the south end of the field, roughly 25 meters by 30 meters, located more than 25 meters from
Canticle Farms 2. These artifacts include two complete flakes, both between 10 and 30 mm (though at the low end), and one flake fragment. A biface was also recovered: the rounded basal fragment of an oval blade tool or preform. This may be a production break, but it is well-formed and the edges are retouched.
Canticle Farms Summary.
The Canticle loci are relatively low in artifact density, and do not appear to result from Middle Woodland occupation. There is no pottery, and the diagnostic artifacts are
198 recognized Archaic forms. While the co-op farm may yield further data, the nature of the operation limits controlled archaeological investigation.
FIVEMILE SITES.
The O‟Meara Field is located on the north bank of the Allegheny River, and the east bank of Fivemile Creek, opposite from Bockmier Point (Fig. 23). The field was collected through uncontrolled surface surveys from 1999 to 2001. The owner at that time has since passed on, and the current deed holder did not respond to a request to investigate the property.
Three soil zones are present in the field, corresponding to landforms. The south half of the field lies on a natural levee adjacent and parallel to the river. As on most levees along the river, the soil is Tioga silt-loam (Puglia 2007). North of this is a depression that extends from a former river or creek channel. This depression and the rise immediately north of it (probably an old natural levee) consist of Middlebury silt-loam.
The north end of the field is a low area, dropping gradually from the rise. This area is poorly drained in comparison to the rest of the field, and the soil is Niagara silt loam.
Two prehistoric sites were identified in the field, on the well-drained soils of the rises. The uncontrolled surveys were recorded with rough maps and field notes. These were analyzed to discern a general distribution of artifacts.
Fivemile North.
The first site was discovered on the north side of the depression that bisects the field (Fig. 23). The distribution of artifacts appears to be limited to the Middlebury silt
199 loam rise. Few artifacts were found in the Niagara silt-loam zone, and there were no concentrations there. Fivemile North forms a continuous distribution of artifacts from
Fivemile Road to the west edge of the field, covering roughly 8400 m².
A total of 1031 artifacts were collected from this site (Appendix D). The vast majority of these were lithic artifacts, although 13 grit-tempered ceramic fragments were found. While the few pottery fragments suggest a Woodland period presence, it is unclear whether this is associated with the Late Woodland component evident at the Fivemile
South site (see below). Four of the potsherds were cordmarked, and the rest were too weathered to make a determination. One steatite vessel fragment was recovered.
Of the 32 bifaces and fragments recovered, 11 are complete enough for possible identification, however only four of these are recognized types: Lamoka (Fig. 35 g)
Brewerton side-notched (Fig. 35 b,c) and Brewerton corner notched (Fig. 36 b). These indicate that the site was occupied at some point during the middle to late Archaic period, between 5500 and 2700 BP (Justice 1987). A stemmed point with tapered shoulders (Fig.
36 e) does not conform to a type, but may be a Susquehanna broad point variant. There are two unnotched base fragments: one is ovate with rough flaking (Fig. 36 g) and one is triangular, thin and finely flaked, with a slightly concave basal edge (Fig. 36 f). There are no triangle points in the assemblage of Fivemile North.
Other tools in the assemblage include a hafted scraper (Fig. 35 a), one finely knapped blade with a single corner notch (Fig. 35 e), a scraper resembling a preform (Fig.
35 f), a stemmed, blunt-tipped biface that may have served as a strike-a-light (Fig. 35 h),
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Figure 35. Fivemile North bifaces. a) hafted scraper, Clarence chert. b) asymmetrical Brewerton side-notched point, Edgecliff chert. c) Brewerton side-notched point, Clarence chert d) rough biface, Clarence chert. e) single-notched biface, Clarence chert. f) end scraper, Clarence chert. g) Lamoka point (blade altered or damaged), Clarence chert. h) possible strike-a-light, Clarence chert.
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Figure 36. Fivemile North biface fragments. a) medial fragment with shoulders present, unknown chert (fire crazed). b) Brewerton corner-notched point, Clarence chert. c) drill tip, Clarence chert. d) drill tip, Clarence chert. e) stemmed point, Clarence chert. f) thin triangular blade, Clarence chert. g) ovate blade, Clarence chert.
202 and two drill tips (Fig. 36 c,d). Flake cores total 23, and 13 flake tools were present. Only
78.7% of chert from the site is identified, mostly Clarence (Appendix F). Non-chert stone tools include a single notched netsinker and 12 pitted stones of various types. One of these was fashioned from a large celt or gouge fragment.
There are no diagnostic Middle Woodland artifacts, but the presence of pottery suggests the presence of a Woodland component. Untyped points are present, leaving the possibility open for an occupation during the Middle Woodland period; however the overall forms of the points suggest an Archaic origin. The steatite fragment may be an indication of a Late Archaic or Early Woodland component. The known artifact types suggest that the major component is from the Middle to Late Archaic period.
Figure 37. Fivemile South pottery fragments. All grit tempered.
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Fivemile South.
The Fivemile South site extends along the Tioga silt-loam natural levee, from the bridge to the west edge of the field (Fig. 23), covering approximately 8700 m². The site likely extends beyond the field along a narrow point adjacent to the river. The distribution varies in density, with the greatest concentration of artifacts on the west end, closest to the Fivemile Creek floodplain.
The site has a total of 458 recovered artifacts (Appendix D), including 66 grit tempered ceramic fragments. Only 31 potsherds are relatively intact with both surfaces present. Of these, nearly half have smooth exterior surfaces while just over a quarter are cordmarked (see Fig. 45). The rest are too rough to determine a finish. Three rimsherds, representing three unique vessels, are illustrated in Figure 37. One features a tool
Figure 38. Fivemile South bifaces. a) Levanna point base, Clarence chert. b) Levanna point base, unknown chert (fire crazed). c) Levanna point base, Seneca chert. d) stemmed or corner-notched point, Clarence chert. e) biface fragment, Clarence chert.
204 impressed design on the rim edge (Fig. 37 c), while the other two are Ontario Oblique variants from the Late Woodland period.
The lithic material consists mostly of debitage, but 16 bifaces and fragments are included. Three triangle point bases conforming to the Levanna type (Fig. 38 a-c) confirm the major Late Woodland component of the site. One roughly made corner- notched or stemmed point (Fig. 38 d) is untyped. The remaining bifaces are fragmentary, including mainly tips and blades, and one amorphous fragment (Fig. 38 e). Only six utilized flakes are present, and two unifacial tools. Four pitted stones were found, as well as a few historic items. No compelling evidence for a Middle Woodland component was present, although the base of the untyped point (Fig 38 d) resembles an expanded stem characteristic of some Middle Woodland types.
FOURMILE FIELD.
Fourmile Creek is the southern boundary of the Boser tract, or Fourmile field, bounded to the north by an abandoned railroad bed. Most of the tract is under cultivation at one time or another of the year, with crops that are rotated semi-annually. Up to three different cultigens have been growing in the field at one time, interspersed by fallow field sections. This field was subject to a patchwork of uncontrolled surface surveys, eventually covering the entire field. Cultural material was limited to the northern third of the field (Fig. 39), and concentrated in the northeast corner.
Fourmile Site.
Situated west of the Allegheny River off West River Road, the Fourmile site is located on a natural levee adjacent to the river (Fig. 39). The soil there is Tioga silt loam
205
(Puglia 2007). Diagnostic artifacts suggest that it is a multicomponent site, with a major component from the Early Woodland period. This site was located during an uncontrolled surface survey in 1999. Artifacts were scattered in varying densities over a 7500 m² area.
Though the owner gave permission for a controlled surface survey at the site, cultigens present both summers of field activity prevented this, so the site cannot be further defined.
Mr. Boser stated that the field was badly eroded by the 1972 flood. A local collector who habitually walked the field in the early 1970‟s described a landscape of small channels dug into the field after the deluge. In one of these, he located a cache of
Figure 39. Map of Boser tract survey. Fourmile site outlined in red.
206 chert bifaces (Fig. 40) in what he described as “a pocket” in the bank of one of the eroded channels. They are crudely formed, roughly triangular bifaces that conform to the type commonly found in Middle Woodland mounds of the region. Close by, he and his wife located a pink bladelet of vanport chert (Fig. 41). Normally he would have left it, believing it was merely a flake. He said he kept it only because of its color. He was surprised to learn that it was a diagnostic artifact, and said he probably overlooked others while collecting. In the region, bladelets have only been located within Middle Woodland mounds, so this may indicate the presence of an undocumented mound, or it may
Figure 40. Middle Woodland cache blades. Eberle collection, from Fourmile Site or nearby. All Clarence chert.
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Figure 41. Middle Woodland bladelet. Eberle collection, from Fourmile Site or nearby. Vanport (Flint Ridge) chert.
represent the first evidence of a local bladelet in a non-mound context. The cache blades suggest that a mound or perhaps non-mound burial was present. It is not clear if these artifacts came from within the area defined as the Fourmile site, but the collectors indicate that it was in the vicinity of the site. While no cache blades or bladelets were located during the 1999 survey, a banded slate gorget or pendant fragment, drilled from both faces, was found (Fig. 42 n). This fragment could be from the Early Woodland component as well, as the form is unclear. In the region, wide gorgets generally date to the Early Woodland period, while narrow forms date to the Middle Woodland.
A total of 173 artifacts were collected from the site, including 26 mostly weathered potsherds (Appendix D). Of 12 potsherds with an intact interior and exterior surface, seven have cordmarked exteriors, five are smooth. Three weathered specimens may have been decorated with incised lines, but these could merely represent damage
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Figure 42. Fourmile artifacts. a) – b) distal point fragments from Susquehanna cluster (Orient and Susquehanna Broad), Clarence chert. c) stemmed point, Clarence chert. d) stemmed point, Huronian chert. e) expanded stemmed blunt biface, unknown chert. f) stemmed blunt biface, Clarence chert. g) Madison triangle point fragment, Clarence chert. h) Vosburg point, Seneca chert. i) Meadowood drill, Clarence chert. j) asymmetrical stemmed point, Clarence chert. k) pentagonal biface, Clarence chert. l) stemmed point base, unknown chert. m) Levanna or Madison triangle point fragment, Clarence chert. n) drilled gorget or pendant fragment, banded slate.
209 from weathering. All interior surfaces are smooth. Two weathered potsherds are shell- tempered, and all other potsherds are tempered with grit.
Chert items include 20 bifaces and fragments, 11 retouched flakes and flake tools, and 87 flakes and flake fragments, 32 of which are complete (Appendix D). There are 4 flake cores present, and 23 blocky fragments that are classified as shatter. Most of the material used is Clarence Onondaga chert (Appendix F).
Among the bifaces are two well-crafted distal fragments (Fig. 42 a, b) that are probably Susquehanna Broad point variants from around 3700 to 2700 BP (Justice 1987).
A Meadowood drill is also present, dating to around 3300 to 2500 BP (Justice 1987).
These diagnostics indicate a strong Early Woodland component, but other components are present. The Archaic period is represented by an asymmetrical stemmed point (Fig.
42 j), and a stemmed point fragment (Fig. 42 l), both conforming to the Genesee cluster
(Justice 1987), as well as a Vosburg corner notched point (Fig. 42 h) from the Brewerton cluster (Justice 1987). Late Woodland triangle points (Fig. 42 g, m) further complicate the site. A biface of roughly pentagonal form is present (Fig. 42 k), perhaps indicating a
Late Middle Woodland presence (1500 to 1000 BP). There are also four curiously small stemmed bifaces that are untyped. Two have pointed tips (Fig. 42 c, d) and two are blunt
(Fig. 42 e, f). These relatively thick, diminutive points are similar to those reported at the
Dunsfort site in southwestern Pennsylvania, which George (2004) suggested were used for extracting nutmeat. The Dunsfort site points, mostly of the Fairchance type (George
2004), were generally slightly smaller than those presently considered. Radiocarbon dates place the Dunsfort site major component in the 1600 to 1400 BP range (George 2004).
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The Fourmile site non-chert lithic assemblage is limited to three pitted stones and three ground stone tools. The ground stones include a heavily damaged greenstone celt and the previously mentioned gorget or pendant fragment (Fig. 42 n).
The assemblage suggests a long history of use, with a major early Woodland component. The apparent presence of cache blades and a bladelet in the area indicate the presence of a Middle Woodland component, but it is unclear whether this is a mound or non-mound component. The presence of the small, thick points may indicate a non- mound Middle Woodland component, but more research is necessary. Further research is planned for the near future.
LAB METHODS.
All artifacts were counted and measured individually, and various attributes were quantified and compared between sites. Most of the collections were relatively small, which limited the types of analysis that could be performed, but a suite of five analyses were found that could be applied to these data. Three comparative lithic analyses were performed: general tool frequencies, whole flake dimensions, and chert sourcing. Each of these procedures is described in a designated section below. Pottery was subject to two comparative analyses: surface treatment, and mean thickness. These are described in their own sections below as well. These five comparative analyses were conducted under the assumption that the sites located are multicomponent sites. The purpose was to assess the applicability of each of these methods in discerning temporal and functional information in such situations, and to see if Middle Woodland components can be detected.
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General Chert Tool Technology Analysis.
Table 10 lists the few diagnostic tools, those that can be assigned more or less confidently to a particular time period. In many cases, more than one time period is represented, indicating multiple components within a site, but even those with only one diagnostic type present may be multicomponent sites. The following analyses will help to discern the nature of the sites. Because so few tools were found from which temporal inferences can be made, I produced Table 11 to compare the overall tool type frequencies. Cowan (1999) found that technological activity differences that can sometimes be translated into temporal distinctions could be discerned from proportions of points and bifaces in relation to cores and retouched flakes. Unfortunately, Cowan didn‟t include the Middle Woodland among his periods, but together with other data from these analyses, it may be possible to discern patterns that suggest a Middle Woodland component.
Cowan (1999) examined chert artifacts from small upland sites in western New
York, likely single component, from three periods: Late Archaic, Early Woodland and
Late Woodland. The Late Archaic assemblage was fairly balanced, with points and other bifaces totaling just over half of the assemblage and cores amounting to 25%. This fit his expectation that the Late Archaic sites, presumably residential camps of a fairly mobile population, would have chert assemblages that reflected their entire tool kit. According to
Cowan, this translates to an emphasis on biface production, with moderate core use
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Site Types identified Altenberg 1 na Altenberg 2 MacCorkle Bockmier 1 Levanna, Madison Bockmier 3 na Bockmier 4 Levanna, Madison Bockmier Point Levanna, Madison Bockmier Terrace Genesee Canticle 1 Brewerton Side-notched, Lamoka Canticle 2 na Dorcas Meadowood Doris Lamoka, Brewerton Side-notched, Otter Creek Fivemile North Brewerton Corner-notched and Side-notched, Lamoka Fivemile South Levanna Fourmile Vosburg, Susquehanna Broad, Orient, Meadowood, Madison IA/Barie Brewerton Corner-notched, Otter Creek, Genesee, Meadowood, Levanna Karl Brewerton Eared, Side-notched and Corner-notched Lemon 1 Brewerton Corner-notched Lemon 2 Levanna Lemon 3 na McCaffery 1 Brewerton Side-notched and Corner Notched, Lamoka, Snook Kill McCaffery 2 Brewerton Side-notched, Meadowood McCaffery 3 Snyders(?), Forest Notched, Levanna McCaffery 4 Brewerton Corner-notched Threadgill Lamoka, Brewerton Side-notched Weidman Levanna, Madison, Lamoka
Table 10. Type comparison. Identified point types at project area sites.
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(1999:597; also Table 11). At Early Woodland sites, cores were absent from all but one.
Bifaces, including points, topped 85% of the assemblage. Cowan (1999) suggested that while more expensive to produce, bifaces were more transportable and durable than flake tools, so a site dominated by them represented a short term logistic activity area to which a population occasionally travelled. He left open the possibility that some small Late
Woodland sites would exhibit the same technological signature if they were similar special use logistic areas, but none appeared in the analysis. The small Late Woodland sites he examined had a high proportion of flake cores (75%), and very few bifaces. He surmised this represented more long-term seasonal base camps, which would place emphasis on the less expensive core technology (Table 11).
While Cowan‟s study was limited to small interior sites, some aspects of his predictions should be applicable to small sites in the river valley, and even some larger sites. Archaic sites, for example, should exhibit the same signature for small and large sites if they are all seasonal residences rather than logistic camps. Since many of the project area sites are small, I decided to see how well they fit the predicted patterns. I used snowflake diagrams (Figure 43) to visually portray the expected patterns of basic core technology tools (cores and modified flake tools, including uniface tools, retouched flakes, etc.) and biface technology tools (projectile points and other bifaces), as used in
Cowan‟s (1999) analysis. His assemblage compositions from different periods, representing different technological strategies, are the bottom three. All of the project area sites with more than 10 chert tools are represented by the 15 upper diagrams. They are organized chronologically by the dominant component, identified through artifact
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Site flake flake bifaces points cores tools Altenberg 1 0 2 2 0 Altenberg 2 3 1 4 1 Bockmier 3 0 1 1 2 Bockmier 4 0 1 0 4 Bockmier 1 19 69 33 7 Bockmier Point 8 80 6 10 Bockmier 6 10 20 7 Terrace Canticle 1 0 0 0 2 Canticle 2 1 0 1 1 Dorcas 2 4 3 2 Doris 3 2 4 9 Fivemile 2 2 8 11 5 Fivemile 1 27 13 24 8 Fourmile 4 7 10 10 IA/Barie 14 13 17 14 Karl 14 10 21 8 Lemon 1 4 2 4 2 Lemon 2 0 2 3 0 Lemon 3 4 4 1 0
McCaffery 1 12 8 4 14 McCaffery 2 2 4 7 2 McCaffery 3 4 9 6 5 McCaffery 4 3 0 2 1 Threadgill 0 3 4 3 Weidman 5 22 11 6
Table 11. Technology comparison (after Cowan 1999). Frequencies of core technology tools (left 2 columns) and biface technology tools (right 2 columns) at project area sites.
215 seriation or radiocarbon dating. While multiple components within sites affect the results,
I have made the assumption that any dominant component that fits these expectations will pull the diamond shape toward one or another of these forms.
Only a few project area sites fit the predictions nearly perfectly. The Karl site, though it is rather large, produced a result nearly identical to that predicted by Cowan for a seasonal residence site. Diagnostic artifacts at the site suggest that it is a Late Archaic site with no evidence of a woodland component. Other sites have the same general shape, indicating more of a balance between core and biface technologies than either of the alternative predictions, but are pulled slightly in one direction or another. This is likely due to additional components, whether from a different time period or from another time within the same period with perhaps a different use strategy at the site. Bockmier Terrace, for example, has a slight emphasis on biface production, but not nearly to the extent of the predicted values for a logistic site. While the diagnostic artifacts are mainly Archaic
(Table 10), perhaps the site was used as a logistic camp at some point during the Archaic when it was not a seasonal residence. Or perhaps, as suggested by a single potsherd from the site (Appendix D), it was used as a Woodland period logistic camp. Another site with a similar diagram is the McCaffery 2 site. It too has mainly Archaic diagnostic artifacts
(Table 10), but a possible Meadowood point fragment may indicate an Early Woodland logistic component.
Three other sites are pulled the other direction, with relatively equal emphasis on core and biface technologies. This may represent the presence of a component that leans more toward core technology, like a Late Woodland seasonal base camp. Indeed, two of
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Figure 43. Technology diagrams. Snowflake diagrams of biface technology (above red line) vs. core-flake technology (below red line) for project area sites, placed in order of the hypothetical strongest chronological component (based on artifacts present). Lower left diagrams represent Cowan‟s (1999) categories. Lower right illustrates the category positions. Only sites with >10 classified artifacts are considered.
217 these sites, Lemon 1 and Five Mile North, include pottery (Appendix D).
None of the project area sites fit the model for an early or Late Woodland special logistic use site well. Some, as discussed above, seem to have at least a component that fits the logistic camp category. Three sites, discussed below, may have Early Woodland components of a slightly different character.
Some sites had a general balance between core and biface technology or an emphasis on one or the other, yet had more projectile points or flake tools than expected from Cowan‟s (1999) figures. These produced snowflake diagrams that pointed in the direction opposite that of their counterparts with the same technology emphasis. It may be that these are essentially similar sites, since the technology represented is the same, but in several cases, an argument can be made that these represent a signature of a different type of site.
Six of these had a generally balanced emphasis on technologies like the expected diagrams, but included proportionately more flake tools or projectile points. The
McCaffery 1 site had a relative abundance of projectile points and cores, while the
Fivemile South site had more bifaces other than projectile points, but also more flake tools than cores. The Fourmile site had a similar distribution, but with slightly fewer flake tools relative to cores, and more projectile points relative to other bifaces (Table 11; Fig.
43). The IA/Barie site seemed to have an overall balanced emphasis. These may merely result from the presence of multiple components with differing site use strategies, but it may be that the dominant component had a technological strategy that valued both bifaces and cores, similar to that of Late Archaic seasonal residences. At the other sites,
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McCaffery 3 and Dorcas, flake tools were more common than the other three categories.
Both sites yielded potential Middle Woodland artifacts including pottery.
The Doris site had the most emphasis on biface production of any project area site, suggesting that it may have had a strong logistical camp component, but projectile points dominated the assemblage, and there was a greater proportion of cores than expected for a logistic use site.
The remaining three sites, Bockmier 1, Bockmier Point and Wiedman, are all larger sites with strong Late Woodland components. Bockmier Point and Bockmier 1 may be continuous portions of the same site, but Bockmier Point has a single component, while Bockmier 1 has multiple components. They all have an emphasis on core technology, but unlike the small Late Woodland seasonal base camp expectation (Fig.
43), flake tools dominate the assemblages. Cowan (1999) suggests that more cores than flake tools at the smaller sites translates to more emphasis on expedient, unretouched tools. The proportions at these three sites suggest that at larger Late Woodland semi- permanent settlements, the emphasis is placed upon retouched flake tools. The single component Bockmier Point site exhibits the strongest emphasis on flake tools, which would be expected under this model. The additional components at Bockmier 1 and
Wiedman would dilute the emphasis, but a strong Late Woodland component maintains the general composition.
While more robust samples would be preferred, the results of these comparisons correspond to the seriated time periods surprisingly well. This analysis has demonstrated the utility of comparing tool technologies to aid in identifying site use, and in some cases,
219 temporal range. From the perspective of the dissertation, it was helpful in determining which sites may have Middle Woodland components, and which sites most likely do not.
It is encouraging that McCaffery 3 and Dorcas, two sites that have potential Middle
Woodland diagnostics, have nearly identical patterns of technology use. The slight skew towards flake tools in the assemblage reflects a shared characteristic with Late Woodland semi-permanent settlements, but the balance more resembles a Late Archaic seasonal residence (Fig. 43). The composition for these sites may indicate a transitional settlement strategy between the two. The other site with a potential Middle Woodland component, the Fourmile site, has a unique diagram that may result from the influence of components from other time periods.
Whole Flake Dimensions Analysis.
Debitage analysis generally takes two forms: mass size analysis, in which flakes and fragments are size-graded with devices such as nested sieves, and technological analysis, in which attributes such as platform angle and percent of cortex present are measured. Both methods are intended to discern the technological activity taking place at a site. In size analysis, the notion is that a prevalence of large flakes suggests primarily early stage reduction, while a preponderance of smaller flakes and microflakes suggest secondary reduction, re-sharpening or expedient behavior (Ahler 1989) . Technological analysis was developed mainly through experimental flint-knapping. The object is to identify activity through analysis of individual flakes (Scott 1991). Different activities produce different types of flakes. Problems are inherent with both of these approaches.
Mass analysis fails to differentiate between activities that produce the same size flakes in
220 the same frequency, but not through the same techniques. Technological analysis involves largely subjective categorizations, often resulting in inconsistencies.
Since the scope of this study is limited to finding potential Middle Woodland sites, and since the sites have no expected activity signature for which to test, my analysis of debitage was designed to simply look for differences between sites. Any differences noted were to be combined with evidence from the other analyses to assess the possibility that some of the sites may be Middle Woodland, or have Middle Woodland components.
Unfortunately, the results appear to reflect the various biases in the record more than any original variation in the deposits.
First, a t-test was performed in which mean measurements of maximum length, width and thickness were compared to assess the probability that each assemblage is similar enough to the others to be derived from the same population, in this case inferred to represent activity patterns reflected in the technology analysis. Only complete flakes were used in this analysis, so the sample was limited to sites with more than 20 complete flakes, which numbered 13. While significant (p < .05) differences were found between some of the sites, (Appendix E), the patterns more closely correlate to modern archaeological activity than to prehistoric activity. Sites that were the most different from others included the McCaffery 2 and 3 sites and the Lemon 1 site, with consistently larger flakes than most other sites. Of the 24 site pairings that exhibited significant differences in all three measured flake dimensions, these three sites are involved in all but two cases.
When compared to each other, only one dimension for one pairing (length, McCaffery 2 to McCaffery 3) was significantly different (Appendix E). One of the two cases that did
221 not involve any of these three involved McCaffery 1, which was investigated at the same time as these three. McCaffery 1 was only significantly different in mean length from
McCaffery 2 (Appendix E). The pattern of differences suggest that these four sites collectively could be a unit that is different from the other sites, but the results from the technology analysis suggest that there should be more variability between these four sites. Artifact types collected from the sites support the results of the technology analysis.
What these sites have in common is that they were all collected at the same time, during the late 1960‟s, by the same crew, in an uncontrolled surface survey. The significant differences in size likely result from a collection bias toward larger flakes. The only other pairing that resulted in significant differences for each dimension was Bockmier 1 and
Bockmier Terrace (Appendix E). Flakes from Bockmier Terrace trended smaller.
Table 12 shows a breakdown of the maximum dimension size grades and their percentages of the total from each site. Three size grades were used: small (0-10 mm), medium (10.1-30 mm) and large (over 30 mm). This illustrates the pattern recognized in the t-test results, with the McCaffery and Lemon sites having lower percentages of small flakes than all other sites. It also reveals that they have higher percentages of large flakes than any other site. Maximum dimensions of flakes at these sites tend to be larger as well.
This is not as easily explained by collection bias, as the six sites included in this analysis from the dissertation fieldwork were systematically collected, and all visible artifacts were collected. There is the possibility that the larger flakes from the McCaffery and
Lemon sites reflect differential prehistoric behavior, but it more likely reflects 40 years of
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A) 0-10 mm 10.1-30 mm 30.1 + mm Fourmile 2 29 1 Fivemile N 50 173 12 Fivemile S 21 91 4
Bockmier Tr 13 36 0 Bockmier 1 23 129 2 Wiedman 32 156 12 Doris 4 20 0 Dorcas 8 31 0 Karl 23 103 7 Lemon 1 1 26 3 McCaffery 1 1 48 8 McCaffery 2 0 23 6 McCaffery 3 1 32 3
B) 0-10 mm 10.1-30 mm 30.1 + mm Fourmile 6.3 90.6 3.1
Fivemile N 21.3 73.6 5.1 Fivemile S 18.1 78.4 3.4 Bockmier Tr 26.5 73.5 0 Bockmier 1 14.9 83.8 1.3 Wiedman 16 78 6 Doris 16.7 83.3 0 Dorcas 20.5 79.5 0 Karl 17.3 77.4 5.3 Lemon 1 3.3 86.7 10 McCaffery 1 1.8 84.2 14 McCaffery 2 0 79.3 20.7 McCaffery 3 2.8 88.9 8.3
Table 12. Whole flake size grades. A) Frequency; B) Percentages.
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Site Mean Mean SD SD r length width length width Fivemile 14.37 13.26 6.54 6.81 0.776942 North Fivemile 15.14 13.41 6.67 4.9 0.724428 South Bockmier 1 15.25 14.44 6.16 5.91 0.688116 Bockmier 13.48 11.71 5.58 4.32 0.771383 Terrace Weidman 14.60 13.41 6.32 5.7 0.502340 Doris 13.67 12.69 5.85 4.4 0.600462 Dorcas 13.4 12.76 4.83 4.8 0.692635 Fourmile 16.04 14.48 5.68 4.97 0.798243 Karl 15.2 13.14 6.69 5.52 0.680861
Lemon 1 20.34 19.83 7.68 7.36 0.73684 McCaffery 1 19.11 17.38 6.94 5.78 0.544347 McCaffery 2 23.63 19.78 6.89 5.19 0.756357 McCaffery 3 18.6 17.4 5.97 6.72 0.500636
Table 13. Whole flake length to width correlation values.
collecting. Local collectors have told me they tend to keep larger flakes, to either curate or to discard in an attempt to keep others from finding “their” sites.
In an attempt to overcome potential collection bias, I also compared the length-to- width ratios of complete flakes from each of the 13 sites. The assumption is that differences in the length-to-width ratio can stem from differences in flaking technology.
Table 13 lists the resulting data, with the correlation (r) value. The correlation values ranged from a low of just over .50 (McCaffery 3 and Wiedman) to just under .80
(Fourmile), but the individual values did not reflect the patterns found in either the
224 technology or the type comparison. However, values at sites with stronger Archaic components ranged from .68 (Karl) to .77 (Bockmier Terrace), while those at sites with stronger Late Woodland components ranged from .50 (Wiedman) to .69 (Bockmier 1).
This could represent a difference in flaking technology between the two periods. The values for the sites with potential Middle Woodland components, however, vary widely:
McCaffery 3 - .50, Dorcas - .69, and Fourmile - .80 (Table 13). While flake analyses may be useful in determining site function and temporal placement in single component sites, it seems that multiple components can hinder such analyses unless there is a dominant major component. In the case of this study, the Middle Woodland components may be minor at any or all of the potential sites. The results from this exercise will be better understood when it can be verified whether these are indeed Middle Woodland components, and when more are found for comparison.
Chert Sourcing.
The vast majority of chert found at all of the sites within the project area is from the
Onondaga formation. This layer of sedimentary limestone deposits is exposed in a series of outcrops paralleling the coastline of Lake Ontario, generally 40 km south of the lake.
The geographical feature is called the Onondaga Escarpment, and runs from near
Syracuse in the east to Buffalo in the west, continuing into Ontario across the Niagara
River.
The Onondaga formation is further divided into temporal units or members, some of which produce chert. The earliest is the Edgecliff formation, occurring lowest within
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Figure 44. Upper Allegheny Valley chert. Varieties found at project area sites. a) Clarence. b) Seneca. c) Huronian (Gull River). d) Vanport (Flint Ridge). e) Jasper. f) Edgecliff. g) Reynales.
the Onondaga beds. Edgecliff chert (Fig. 44 f) is a poor quality gray to white chert often with dark gray to black inclusions (Holland 2004). Above the Edgecliff Member is the
Clarence facies of the Nedrow Member, producing Clarence chert (Fig. 44 a), the most common type found at sites within the upper Allegheny Valley, and elsewhere in western
New York. Its quality is variable, but it is generally high quality with a consistent, predictable fracture. The color when fresh is mottled dark gray to black (Holland 2004), but it weathers to a mottled bluish gray with tan inclusions. The next member is
Moorehouse, which produces a gray chert that is rarely found in the valley. The youngest is the Seneca Member, producing Seneca chert (Fig. 44 b), a medium quality chert that is 226 gray or dark gray with white microfossil inclusions (Holland 2004). It is a distant second in frequency of occurrence in the upper Allegheny Valley.
Chert nodules are generally easily removed from the sedimentary beds. As a result, Pleistocene glaciation has deposited chert nodules from this and other sources as pebbles as far south as western Pennsylvania. Indeed, many examples of primary flakes in the project area reveal that locally obtained pebbles were a major source of chert for some upper Allegheny Valley inhabitants. Chert traded over distances, such as from the
Onondaga formation to the Allegheny Valley, takes the form of bifacial cores. Often these are preformed into small blanks which can be further reduced to produce a tool.
Such preforms can be produced from local pebbles as well, so their presence does not indicate trade. Local pebbles tend to be small and of poor quality (Cowan 1999). Fist- sized bifacial cores are encountered occasionally, and while unusually large local pebbles can‟t be ruled out, these are more likely to result from trade or direct access to the
Onondaga formation, around 90 km to the north.
Other cherts are encountered infrequently in the project area. Reynales chert (Fig.
44 g) outcrops north of the Onondaga Escarpment, closer to Lake Ontario. It is generally gray with tiny black carboniferous inclusions (Holland 2004), and has a grainy fracture
(Wray 1948). Like Onondaga, this chert may have been obtained locally in glacial pebbles. Oriskany chert is a grainy black sandstone chert with a glassy sheen (Wray
1948). Though small outcrops occur in Genesee and Livingston counties to the north from which it could conceivably have been brought down by glaciers, it was likely obtained through travel or trade from quarries to the east. Although Oriskany chert was
227 not found during the project fieldwork, a projectile point made from the material was found at the Bockmier Point site, adjacent to Bockmier 1 (Howard et al., forthcoming).
Huronian or Gull River chert (Fig. 44 c) is commonly found as glacial pebbles in the upper Allegheny Valley. Found sparingly at sites in the project area, it has a creamy white or brownish color and reddens with heat, resembling red Jasper. True Jasper is a red or yellow chert that originates to the south, in Pennsylvania. As such, it is not available locally, and was probably obtained through trade or travel. Jasper (Fig. 44 e) is found at a few upper Allegheny Valley sites. Another exotic chert is Vanport, or Flint
Ridge chert (Fig. 44 d), from north-central Ohio. Vanport occurs at a few sites in the project area, in low quantities.
Appendix F lists the percentages of different sources of chert at the project sites, including the collections from the Lemon and McCaffery loci. From 73% to 100% of the chert artifacts were identified to source material, with up to 50% of the unidentified chert due to heat damage (crazing). As mentioned above, Clarence chert is by far the most commonly used material across all the project area sites. At sites with samples of more than 20 identifiable pieces, Clarence represents from 87% to 100% of the identified chert.
The sites with strong Late Woodland components identified through diagnostic artifacts
(Five Mile South, Bockmier 1 and Wiedman), are at the lower end of the range, as is the
Lemon 3 site, at which a Late Woodland Ontario Oblique rimsherd has been identified.
Adding in Seneca and Edgecliff, most assemblages consist of over 95% Onondaga cherts.
The McCaffery 3 and Dorcas sites, potentially with Middle Woodland components, have
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100% Onondaga chert assemblages. Vanport chert, common in Middle Woodland mound contexts in the valley, may not be indicative of Middle Woodland non-mound sites.
Ceramic surface treatment and temper analysis.
Ceramic fragments were found at 15 of the project area sites, but only eight had sufficient quantities for analysis, and even of those, only three were robust samples.
Unfortunately, attribute data were unavailable for the Bockmier Point site, so the site is only included in the decoration discussion. Therefore, comparative ceramic analyses were limited to seven sites.
Figure 45 compares the proportion of plain versus cordmarked fragments from the available sites. Four of the seven sites have a majority of plain potsherds, with the
Wiedman and Fivemile South sites having a sizeable majority. The McCaffery 3 and
Fourmile sites have a majority of cordmarked sherds, while the Lemon 3 site has slightly more cordmarked than plain sherds. Wiedman has a strong Late Woodland component, and the proportions may reflect that. This may indicate that the pottery at Fivemile South is mainly Late Woodland pottery as well. This interpretation is supported by the few decorated rims found at the site. A majority of cordmarked sherds may indicate a sample that results mainly from earlier ceramic components. Lithic analyses discussed above suggest McCaffery 3 is a site with a potential Middle Woodland component, and
Fourmile has a strong Early Woodland component.
The vast majority of pottery recovered during the project was grit-tempered, using granular quartz, sandstone, or rarely limestone. Shell tempering was found in two potsherds each at three of the seven sites for which this attribute was measured. This
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Figure 45. Percentages of plain and cordmarked potsherds. Includes project area sites with available data.
represents 5.1% of the total at McCaffery 3, 7.7% at Fourmile, and 0.3% at Wiedman. At sites with too few potsherds to be included in these analyses, only grit tempered fragments were recovered. Shell tempering has been suggested as a temporal marker in the region, with shell tempering present in low quantities prior to around AD 1000, and then re-emerging after about AD 1350 (Dragoo and Lantz 1975). Shell tempering did occur in adjacent regions during its implied absence from the valley, so it is possible that the occasional shell tempered pot may have been made in or traded into the valley during that time. The scarcity of shell tempered potsherds at project sites, as well as the lack of shell tempered rimsherds to type makes it difficult to interpret their presence. It is
230 tempting to interpret the higher proportions found at Fourmile and McCaffery 3 to be related to their apparently dominant Early Woodland and Middle Woodland components, respectively, but the limited sample sizes at these sites must be taken into account, as well as minor Late Woodland components.
Less than 4% of the pottery sherds from the eight available sites (including
Bockmier Point) were rim fragments. Descriptive accounts are provided in each site section, so comparative summaries are presented here. The vast majority of rims (81%) came from the Bockmier Point and Bockmier 1 sites. Rims from these sites and the
Wiedman site conform to Late Woodland types, most often Ontario Oblique variants.
Two of the three rims from Fivemile South were Ontario Oblique variants as well. A small number of rims were recovered from McCaffery 3 and Lemon 3 that don‟t conform to a described type, although one rim from Lemon 3 is clearly Ontario Oblique.
Although there is no well-defined Middle Woodland ceramic assemblage for the upper Allegheny Valley, Mayer-Oakes‟ (1955) broadly defined Mahoning Cordmarked type has been applied to the typical thick cordmarked, grit-tempered pottery found here.
The cordmarked, cord-impressed rimsherd from McCaffery 3 (Fig. 17) fits the type.
Unfortunately, Mayer-Oakes notes that Mahoning Cordmarked “is rather amorphous and appears to cover a wide range of cultural and temporal differences” (1955:192). Lantz
(1989) identifies several untyped dentate stamped and plain potsherds as Middle
Woodland (prior to AD 500), noting similarities with pottery from Point Peninsula sites in Ontario, as well as sites in Vermont and Michigan. Indeed, some of these were from mounds, and were found in contexts with bladelets of Vanport chert (eg. Lantz 1989: 41).
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While further research may develop a local Middle Woodland assemblage of which these are a part, no similarly decorated ceramics have been recorded within the project area.
Ceramic thickness analysis.
An analysis of pottery thickness was performed, comparing the mean and distribution of thickness of ceramics from the seven sites with available data. Only sherds
Figure 46. Mean and median pottery thickness. Measured in millimeters.
with both interior and exterior surfaces intact with minimal wear were included. Figure
46 compares the mean and median thickness of the pottery from the seven sites. Table 14 presents the p-values from t-tests comparing the mean and distribution of pottery thickness at paired sites. Statistically significant differences (p < .05) occurred between only six of 21 possible pairings (Table 14, in yellow). Four of those involved the
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Wiedman site and three involved Lemon 3. Lemon 3 was one of the sites collected in the
1960‟s that was likely subject to collector bias, but the ceramics at other sites collected at that time are not similarly different from those at more recently collected sites. Wiedman represents a site dominated by the Late Woodland component, but a sizeable component of the Bockmier 1 site is also Late Woodland, and the thickness differences in pottery samples from the two sites are statistically significant. There still may be an element of
McCaf. 3 Lemon 1 Lemon 3 Fourmile Bock. 1 Wiedman Fivemile S
McCaffery 3 0.1165 0.9013 0.0506 0.1057 0.0001 0.7552 Lemon 1 0.1165 0.0659 0.9856 0.4957 0.4173 0.2555 Lemon 3 0.9013 0.0659 0.0200 0.0294 0.0000 0.6276 Fourmile 0.0506 0.9856 0.0200 0.3753 0.2649 0.1469 Bockmier 1 0.1057 0.4957 0.0294 0.3753 0.0000 0.2334 Wiedman 0.0001 0.4173 0.0000 0.2649 0.0000 0.0006 Fivemile So. 0.7552 0.2555 0.6276 0.1469 0.2334 0.0006
Table 14. Pottery thickness comparison p-values. Resulting t-test p-values when comparing mean and distribution of pottery thickness from paired sites.
bias involved, as the Wiedman sample includes excavated artifacts rather than exclusively surface collections. The potential Middle Woodland site in the sample is
McCaffery 3, but the ceramic thickness was only significantly different from that of the
Wiedman site (Table 14).
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CHAPTER 6
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this dissertation is to assess the applicability of the established archaeological constructs of Hopewell, Squawkie Hill and Point Peninsula to the archaeological record of Northeast Middle Woodland mound-building peoples. To this end, I have investigated beyond any previous research on the topic, incorporating mound and non-mound data, and compiling the most comprehensive database for northeastern mounds thus far achieved. Until now, analyses had been mainly confined to the broad regional approach involving a conflation of all northeastern mounds as an analytical unit.
To better understand variability among mound-building populations within the Northeast,
I have taken a more localized approach, first defining and comparing smaller regions based on drainage basins, and then narrowing the scope to one of these regions for more detailed analyses. Investigating the problem in increasing detail at diminishing spatial- social scales has facilitated the discovery of new insights into the interactions between and within local Middle Woodland communities in the Northeast, while revealing that the established archaeological constructs need major refinement in order to be applicable to the regions involved.
234
While further refinement is necessary, the data presented at the broadest analytical level (the Northeast) are consistent with a general model of drainage-based cultural distinctions, as outlined in Chapter 3. Whether these distinctions translate to “phases” or other archaeological constructs requires more research. A larger scale distinction is evident between Point Peninsula populations on the Lake Ontario plain and the populations on the Allegheny Plateau. Ritchie‟s term Squawkie Hill may be applied to these populations, but a revision of the concept is necessary. It is clear that the plateau groups are neither a phase of Hopewell nor of Point Peninsula.
The focus on the upper Allegheny Valley Middle Woodland population, in the second level of analysis, provides new insights into local social interactions and the lives of individuals. Variations in burial practices between and within local mounds are potential indicators of differences in wealth, or social roles. Alternatively, some of the notable differences may indicate temporal change in burial practices, especially differences between mounds.
While the original fieldwork at the third level (conducted between mound sites) was unsuccessful at detailing Middle Woodland non-mound sites, it was successful in testing potential methods for identifying such sites in complex multicomponent assemblages. Results suggest that different combinations of the project analyses are useful for distinguishing dominant temporal components.
235
HOPEWELL, SQUAWKIE HILL AND POINT PENINSULA
Ritchie‟s Squawkie Hill phase was at different times associated with either a
Hopewellian culture or a Hopewellian horizon. Ritchie (1994) hypothesized that
Squawkie Hill traits, whether dispersed through migration or diffusion, entered into the
Northeast via 1) the Ohio drainage to the east, including the Allegheny and Beaver valleys, and 2) the Detroit River to the west. Evidence from the Northwest Pennsylvania cluster (Chapter 3) suggests that some traits may have been dispersed overland south of
Lake Erie as well. The Chapter 3 correspondence analysis of artifacts introduced into the
Northeast during the Middle Woodland period suggests a general south-to-north dispersal, generally along the Allegheny Valley corridor, supporting the directional aspect Ritchie‟s hypothesis. However, correspondence analysis of prior presence artifacts suggests that many traits had already been widely accepted throughout the Northeast before the Middle Woodland period. Differential acceptance of Hopewellian traits suggests some cultural independence between the northeastern groups, despite an apparent common heritage. The diverse combinations of Middle Woodland and earlier traits in the upper Allegheny Valley and elsewhere, supports the notion that trait dispersal involved diffusion rather than migration. It is clear that the Allegheny Valley was not populated by Ohio Hopewell people.
The upper Allegheny Valley and Rice Lake regions were hypothesized to be
“regional centers of expression or development” (Ritchie 1994: 215). It would be expected from such a scenario that Hopewell-related material would be more common in these areas than in other northeastern areas, but this doesn‟t appear to be the case. These
236 two areas have had more mounds professionally explored than others, resulting in more complete assemblages, but the Hopewell-related artifacts are no more prevalent here than elsewhere in the Northeast. There does, however, appear to be a greater number of mounds in these two regions than elsewhere, suggesting either a larger population base or a longer period of mound building. It may be that these two regions represent two locally dominant northeastern groups, perhaps forming the cores of two distinct cultural areas that participated in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere during the Middle Woodland period.
Rice Lake is within the region covered by the Point Peninsula construct, and archaeologists in Canada have demonstrated Point Peninsula affinities to the mounds there (Spence et al. 1990). Mounds found on the lake plain south of Lake Ontario
(Ritchie‟s Point Peninsula homeland) can be included, and it may be the case that what we recognize as Point Peninsula represents this northern group, changing diachronically with outside influences.
As Ritchie (1994) and Seeman (1979) have noted, sites in the southern region, centered on the upper Allegheny Valley, are difficult to include in the Point Peninsula construct. There are material similarities, however, that suggest regular interaction between the two regions, especially during the Middle Woodland period, including after
AD 400, when mound building behavior had subsided.
Squawkie Hill was a construct intended to describe Middle Woodland period mound building groups in the Northeast, but it seems more reasonable to recognize that the groups that practiced mound building in the region were present before and after mound building occurred. Point Peninsula “culture”, therefore, represents a collection of
237 closely related groups occupying drainages on the lake plain surrounding Lake Ontario.
Through time, these people interacted with contemporaneous groups, participating in the
Hopewell-influenced mound building phenomenon during the Middle Woodland period, and carrying on after the practice declined.
Squawkie Hill could be reconfigured to a “culture” referring to the groups in the plateau region surrounding the upper Allegheny Valley, but it must be recognized that these groups were also present prior to and after mound building. Squawkie Hill would be defined as a collection of closely related groups occupying various drainages on the
Allegheny Plateau, interacting with their contemporaneous neighboring groups, and participating in the Hopewell-influenced mound building phenomenon, just like many of their contemporaries across the eastern half of the continent. It is expected that close to the boundary between the plateau and lake plain, the differences between Point Peninsula and Squawkie Hill would be less apparent, especially since there seems to be a shared heritage and friendly interaction between the groups. One issue that must be addressed is that the term Squawkie Hill is derived from one such boundary site. Whatever name is ultimately applied, Squawkie Hill could potentially be viewed as the fourth related cultural complex recognized in the lower Great Lakes region, along with Point Peninsula,
Saugeen and Couture.
Ritchie (1994: 216) estimated the temporal range of Middle Woodland mound building activity to encompass 200 to 400 years, centered at around AD 160, the uncalibrated date from the Lewiston mound. Most of the dates obtained from mounds since then support this estimate, but this support only applies to the mound building
238 phenomenon. If we view Squawkie Hill as the diachronic culture within which this behavior occurred for a time, a temporal range becomes more challenging. Unfortunately,
Early Woodland research has been lacking in the upper Allegheny Valley. Point
Peninsula, to the north, is thought to have originated through interaction between
Meadowood and people to the west, in the upper Great Lakes region (Ritchie 1994). The little available material from the upper Allegheny Valley suggests that Ritchie‟s
Meadowood phase may have been a common ancestral heritage, but much more data are necessary to assess this hypothesis.
After AD 500, when mound building had waned in the region, the local groups appear to have maintained a stable presence in their resident drainages. Lantz (1989) demonstrated that sites of these later Middle Woodland groups clustered in the same areas as the mounds. He considered these later groups the Allegheny River phase, defined as “a merger of local Middle Woodland and intrusive Hopewell cultures” who had migrated from Ohio, which in turn developed into the Allegheny Iroquois (Lantz
1989:47). The analyses in this dissertation do not support the notion of an intrusive
Hopewell population.
A major material signature of these groups is the Raccoon Notched point, a variant within the Jack‟s Reef cluster (Justice 1987), which appears to represent the introduction of bow-and-arrow technology into the region. These are slowly replaced by various triangle points, and disappear by around AD 950 – 1000 (Justice 1987; Lantz
1989). By this time, the distinct Allegheny Iroquois and Mead Island cultures occupy the
239 upper Allegheny Valley, one or both of which may have developed from the Middle
Woodland Squawkie Hill groups.
Viewed as a diachronic entity, Squawkie Hill is a collection of stable populations that accepted mound building behavior and later a new projectile technology, both through diffusion. While cultural evolution eventually requires distinctions between temporally successive cultures, it seems unnecessary to view the changes in this case as changes in cultural identity. This revised Squawkie Hill construct tentatively originates towards the end of the Meadowood phase, around 500 BC, and ends with the rise of the
Allegheny Iroquois and the Mead Island groups around AD 900. Of course, further research is necessary to refine these estimates.
THE LOCAL UPPER ALLEGHENY VALLEY POLULATION
Like the other Middle Woodland mound building groups in the Northeast, people in the upper Allegheny Valley at this time were engaged in the Hopewell Interaction
Sphere, directly or indirectly, and adopted some material traits – and perhaps the meaning of those traits – from the Ohio Hopewell. While some similarities have been noted in
Chapter 4 between the mortuary signatures from Ohio and the upper Allegheny Valley, it is clear that cultural distinctions existed between the two regions. The shared traits are consistent with renewed or intensified interaction between two cultures with a shared ancestry.
The practice of building elaborate earthworks in the Ohio Hopewell regions suggests a difference in religious practices, though it may simply reflect a difference in
240 scale. The tripartite model proposed by Carr (2005c) for the Scioto Valley may be reflected in the three components of Sugar Run mound, but generally the monumental architecture is far less dramatic in the upper Allegheny Valley. No earthworks in the region have been confidently assigned to the Middle Woodland period.
Much more still needs to be understood about subsistence and settlement practices in both regions, but available evidence suggests that the strategies were different. One major distinction is the lack of bladelet technology in the upper Allegheny Valley.
Bladelets and the cores from which they are struck are ubiquitous on Ohio Hopewell habitation and ceremonial activity sites. Not one bladelet core is known from a northeastern Middle Woodland site. Not one bladelet is known from an indisputably non- burial site. These common diagnostic features of habitations and other sites in Ohio appear to be relics in the Northeast, likely with a different function.
Evidence suggests that the Ohio Hopewell engaged in horticulture, utilizing domesticates from the Eastern Agricultural Complex (Smith 1985, 1989; Wymer 1987).
Very little is known about subsistence during the Middle Woodland period in the upper
Allegheny Valley or elsewhere in Northeast, but no domesticates have been identified thus far. While there are reports of Chenopodium from a few sites (Ritchie 1994; King
2004), it does not appear to be the domesticated form.
While problematic, the crude population estimate suggests that the population density at any given time during the Middle Woodland period was likely low. The low visibility of non-mound sites in the archaeological record supports this though, further suggesting that settlements were small-scale, probably band-related.
241
Differences in burial treatment between mounds may be an indication of the evolution of local mound building behavior, or it may represent band-specific variations.
Radiocarbon dating, if at all possible, would help in the interpretation of such differences.
Within mounds, variation in burial treatment more likely represents social organization.
Central extended burial within a cist seems to have been reserved for specific adults, but there is no indication of a rank distinction. Associated artifacts suggest that burial treatment was more determined by social role than by rank. Some evidence, especially from Sugar Run Mound 2, suggests that central burial may have been reserved for shamans.
In cases where cremations were not prevalent, children were placed in bundled or flexed positions. Some children were afforded non-perishable offerings while others were not. It is not clear if this represents a social distinction or differential preservation. Infant burials are underrepresented, suggesting that infants were normally not included in the ritual burial cycle.
The chert tool technology analysis, combined with the artifact type analysis and thick cordmarked pottery presence, has revealed a particular technological signature for a few sites with potential to contain Middle Woodland components. The technology analysis also suggests that these potential Middle Woodland groups were less mobile than local Archaic groups, but not as sedentary as Late Woodland populations. Further research is needed to verify that these patterns indeed reflect Middle Woodland components.
242
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Ideally, biological referents in burial populations could be used to address many of the issues discussed in this dissertation, but the lack of remains coupled with social and political concerns hinder such research in the region. Future Middle Woodland research in the upper Allegheny Valley should be focused on the documentation and analysis of non-mound sites. The apparent invisibility of such sites on the landscape may be due to a number of factors, such as looting and the limited temporal scale, but it may be that
Middle Woodland sites just aren‟t being recognized as such.
In a study of sites in the Susquehanna basin, Wyatt (2003) noted that stemmed and side-notched points from Middle Woodland contexts are often misidentified as Late
Archaic points. Middle Woodland sites are often only recognized as such if known
Hopewellian types like Snyders and the Lowe cluster points are present, but there are local Middle Woodland points, most likely even some that are untyped. Radiocarbon dating is very important to address this potential problem in the region.
Another possible explanation for the apparent invisibility of Middle Woodland non-mound sites is that they have simply been missed. While the local survey encompassed all major landforms within the project area, the project area was limited to the main stem of the Allegheny Valley. It is entirely conceivable that the mounds within the valley were built by people who resided in adjacent, smaller tributary valleys.
Systematic survey of these smaller valleys is necessary in the near future.
The localized approach should continue to be utilized to augment our knowledge of the Northeast mound-building people. Each drainage region should be analyzed in
243 turn, to provide data for more detailed comparisons to better understand the interactions, and perhaps discern cultural boundaries.
Despite working with limited data in a confined time frame with inadequate resources, the fieldwork aspect of this project showed some promise in developing or refining methods to recognize temporal markers in the absence of typology and radiocarbon dates. Since many of the sites in the upper Allegheny Valley are contained within plow zones, such methods will prove useful to future endeavors in the region. The siteless survey and analyses begun in preparation for this dissertation will be continued and expanded throughout the upper Allegheny Valley region as part of a long term research project in conjunction with the Seneca Nation and local educational institutions.
Eventually, these methods can be applied in other localized drainages across the
Northeast.
244
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APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: Mound References for Figure 1.
Southwestern Pennsylvania Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 1 Anderson George 1978 2 Oakmont 1 George 1978, 1992 3 Oakmont 2 George 1992 4 McKees Rocks Swauger 1940; Mayer-Oakes 1955; McMichael 1956; Dragoo 1963 5 Bridgeville George 1992 6 Avella Cowin 2003 7 Meadows Maurer 1975 8 Linn Dragoo 1955 9 Riverview 1 George 1992 10 Riverview 2 George 1992 11 Riverview 3 George 1992 12 Riverview 4 George 1992 13 Riverview 5 George 1992 14 Riverview 6 George 1992 15 Pollock's Hill Cadzow 1932 16 Billy 1 George 1992 17 Logan's Ferry George 1992
Northwestern Pennsylvania Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 18 Nelson Carpenter and Schoff 1951 19 Danner Clark, Lantz and Robinson 1960 20 Clovna 1 Carpenter 1950b 21 Clovna 2 Carpenter 1950b 22 Lawson Carpenter 1950b 23 Miller 1 Carpenter 1950b 24 Miller 2 Carpenter 1950b 25 Miller 3 Carpenter 1950b 26 Findley Lake Parker 1922
Upper Allegheny Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 27 Irvine 1 Scoff 1938; Carpenter 1956 28 Irvine 2 Scoff 1938; Carpenter 1956 29 Irvine 3 Scoff 1938; Carpenter 1956 30 Irvine 4 Carpenter 1956 31 Irvine 5 Carpenter 1956 32 Irvine 6 Carpenter 1956 33 Irvine 7 Carpenter 1956 259
34 Sugar Run 1 Bliss 1942; Mayer-Oakes 1955; McConaughy and Johnson 2003 35 Sugar Run 2 Bliss 1942; Mayer-Oakes 1955; McConaughy and Johnson 2003 36 Sugar Run 3 Bliss 1942; Mayer-Oakes 1955; McConaughy and Johnson 2003 37 Cornplanter 1 Carpenter 1956 38 Cornplanter 2 Carpenter 1956 39 Cornplanter 3 Carpenter 1956 40 Cornplanter 4 Carpenter 1956 41 Cornplanter 5 Carpenter 1956 42 Williams Guthe 1958 43 Corydon Carpenter 1956 44 Red House 1 Larkin 1880 45 Red House 2 Larkin 1880 46 Cold Spring Larkin 1880; Parker 1922 47 Jimerson collector notes 48 Cold Spring Creek 1 Larkin 1880; Parker 1922 49 Cold Spring Creek 2 Larkin 1880; Parker 1922 50 Napoli Larkin 1880 51 Milks UB Site Files 52 Kill Buck Carpenter 1950a; Mayer-Oakes 1955 53 Great Valley Creek collector notes 54 Vandalia 1 Carpenter 1950a 55 Vandalia 2 Carpenter 1950a 56 Vandalia 3 Carpenter 1950a; UB Site Files 57 Vandalia 4 Guthe 1950; Carpenter 1950a 58 Vandalia 5 Parker 1922; Carpenter 1950a 59 Vandalia 6 Carpenter 1950a 60 Forness 1 Larkin 1880; Parker 1922 61 Forness 2 Ellis 1879 62 Forness 3 McCauley 1829; Parker 1922 63 Kent 1 UB Site Files 64 Kent 2 UB Site Files
Conewango Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 65 Randolph Cheney 1860; Larkin 1880; Parker 1922 66 Conewango Cheney 1860; Larkin 1880; Parker 1922 67 Clear Creek Cheney 1860 68 Poland Cheney 1860; Parker 1922; Carpenter 1950a 69 Falconer 1 Thomas 1894; Parker 1922 70 Falconer 2 Thomas 1894; Parker 1922 71 Falconer 3 Thomas 1894; Parker 1922 72 Fluvanna Parker 1922; UB Site Files 73 Ashville Parker 1922 74 Morton Parker 1922 75 Whitney's Landing 1 Thomas 1894 76 Whitney's Landing 2 Thomas 1894; Parker 1922 77 Bemus Point 1 Thomas 1894; Parker 1922 78 Bemus Point 2 Thomas 1894; Parker 1922 79 Cassadaga Lake 1 Cheney 1860; Parker 1922; Smith 1990 80 Cassadaga Lake 2 Cheney 1860; Parker 1922; Smith 1990 81 Cassadaga Lake 3 Cheney 1860; Parker 1922; Smith 1990 82 Fredonia Parker 1922 83 Christy Parker 1922 260
Cattaraugus Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 84 Burmaster UB Site Files 85 Cattaraugus Creek Parker 1922; collector notes 86 Mound 453 UB Site Files 87 Brant collector notes 88 Castiglia collector notes; field verified 89 Pan American 2 Cheney 1860; Benedict 1901 90 Valentine UB Site Files 91 Cain Glamm 1957; Ritchie 1994 92 Russell 14 UB Site Files 93 Persia collector notes 94 Deer Lick UB Site Files 95 Breakers 3 collector notes; UB Site Files 96 Dayton UB Site Files 97 Joles UB Site Files 98 Goldmine UB Site Files 99 Cheney Cheney 1860 100 Pan American 1 Cheney 1860; Benedict 1901
Genesee Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 101 Mapes UB Site Files; RMSC Site files 102 Caneadea White n.d., Howard 2006 103 Portageville Thomas 1894; Parker 1922 104 Liddydyke Ritchie 1944 105 Murray Hill Ritchie 1944 106 Groveland Parker 1922 107 Squawkie Hill 1 Ritchie 1938 108 Squawkie Hill 2 Ritchie 1938 109 Squawkie Hill 3 Ritchie 1938 110 Squawkie Hill 4 Ritchie 1938 111 Beardstown Parker 1922 112 Boyd and Parker Parker 1922 113 Cuylerville Parker 1922 114 Frog Guthe 1959 115 Geneseo 1 Ritchie 1938 116 Geneseo 2 Thomas 1894; Ritchie 1938 117 Springwater Parker 1922 118 Allen Creek Turner 1850 119 Wheatland Carpenter 1950c 120 Brewers 1 Harris 1884; Parker 1922 121 Brewers 2 Harris 1884; Parker 1922 122 Irondequoit Bay 1 Parker 1922 123 Irondequoit Bay 2 Parker 1922 124 Penfield Squier 1851; Parker 1922
Niagara Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 125 East Aurora 1 Larkin 1880 126 East Aurora 2 Larkin 1880 127 Lancaster Squier 1851; Beauchamp 1900 261
128 Armine Street Squier 1851; Beauchamp 1900 129 Snake Hill Houghton 1912 130 Tonawanda Island 1 Turner 1850; Parker 1922 131 Tonawanda Island 2 Squier 1851; Parker 1922 132 Galliger Parker 1922 133 Victoria Park Houghton 1912 134 Yellow Point 1 Boyle 1902; Kenyon 1986 135 Yellow Point 2 Boyle 1902; Kenyon 1986 136 Yellow Point 3 Boyle 1902; Kenyon 1986 137 Lewiston Larkin 1880; Ritchie 1994 138 Kienuka 1 Parker 1922 139 Kienuka 2 Parker 1922 140 Cambria Parker 1922
Seneca Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 141 Clifton Springs Parker 1922 142 Kipp Island Ritchie 1944 143 Bluff Point Carpenter 1950c; Ritchie 1994 144 Conquest 1 Parker 1922 145 Conquest 2 Parker 1922 146 Rector Ritchie 1994 147 Clyde Parker 1922 148 Geddes 1 Parker 1922 149 Geddes 2 Parker 1922 150 Deansboro Parker 1922
Rice Lake Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 151 Miller Rice Lake 1 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 152 Miller Rice Lake 2 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 153 Miller Rice Lake 3 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 154 Miller Rice Lake 4 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 155 Miller Rice Lake 5 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 156 Miller Rice Lake 6 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 157 Miller Rice Lake 7 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 158 Rice Lake 1 Boyle 1897; Johnston 1968a; Kenyon 1986 159 Rice Lake 2 Boyle 1897; Johnston 1968a; Kenyon 1986 160 Rice Lake 3 Boyle 1897; Johnston 1968a; Kenyon 1986 161 Rice Lake 4 Boyle 1897; Johnston 1968a; Kenyon 1986 162 Rice Lake 5 Boyle 1897; Johnston 1968a; Kenyon 1986 163 Rice Lake 6 Boyle 1897; Johnston 1968a; Kenyon 1986 164 Rice Lake 7 Boyle 1897; Johnston 1968a; Kenyon 1986 165 Rice Lake 8 Boyle 1897; Johnston 1968a; Kenyon 1986 166 Princess Mound Boyle 1897; Stothers 1974; Kenyon 1986 167 Prince Mound Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 168 Cameron's Point 1 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 169 Cameron's Point 2 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 170 Cameron's Point 3 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 171 Hastings/Preston 1 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 172 Hastings/Preston 2 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 173 Hastings/Preston 3 Boyle 1897; Kenyon 1986 174 Le Vesconte Kenyon 1986; Ritchie 1994 262
Grand River Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 175 Oneida UB Site Files 176 Dry Lake 1 UB Site Files 177 Dry Lake 2 UB Site Files
Lake Ontario Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 178 Wilson McCauley 1829; Parker 1922 179 18 Mile Creek Turner 1850; Parker 1922 180 Bamber 1 Parker 1922; Ritchie 1944 181 Bamber2 Parker 1922 182 Gasport Parker 1922 183 Lockport Thomas 1894; Parker 1922 184 Four Corners Parker 1922 185 Indian Falls Parker 1922 186 Bone Parker 1922 187 Knowlton Squier 1851; Parker 1922
Chenango Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 188 Newark Valley Parker 1922 189 Greene Beauchamp 1900; Parker 1922 190 Norwich Parker 1922 191 Unadilla Parker 1922 192 Oneonta Parker 1922 193 Susquehanna River Parker 1922 194 Cooperstown Parker 1922 195 Richfield Springs Parker 1922
St. Lawrence Cluster Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 196 Walbridge Kenyon 1986 197 See Spence 1967; Kenyon 1986 198 Cape Vincent Parker 1922 199 St. Regis River Parker 1922 200 St. Regis Island Parker 1922 201 Long Sault 1 Ritchie and Dragoo 1960 202 Long Sault 2 Ritchie and Dragoo 1960 na Perch Lake Mounds Beauchamp 1905; Ritchie 1969 na Massassauga Mounds Beauchamp 1905; Kenyon 1986
Dispersed Mounds Map # Mound Name Reference(s) 203 Canisteo collector notes 204 Charles Cole UB Site Files 205 Shingler Parker 1922 206 Muncy Schoff 1937
263
APPENDIX B: Mean mound dimensions t-test p-values.
Height (p-value) Catt. Cr. Con. Dr. Gen. R. L. Ont. N. Pa. Nia. R. Rice L. Sen. R. S. Pa. U. A. V. Cattaraugus Creek 1 Conewango Drainage 0.605029 1 Genesee River 0.691893 0.146289 1 Lake Ontario 0.600577 0.973439 0.172432 1 Northwest Pennsylvania 0.326483 0.00437 0.29355 0.025144 1 Niagara River 0.725718 0.081436 0.888886 0.134246 0.058354 1 Rice Lake 0.324877 0.004247 0.272077 0.025391 0.9893 0.055997 1 Seneca River 0.148371 0.00057 0.040184 0.008765 0.006382 0.008645 0.001164 1 Southwest Pennsylvania 0.777911 0.339423 0.934102 0.344862 0.433642 0.99956 0.430878 0.158804 1 Upper Allegheny Valley 0.792146 0.208724 0.838715 0.236093 0.173504 0.905794 0.169186 0.018168 0.945136 1
Width (p-value) Catt. Cr. Con. Dr. Gen. R. L. Ont. N. Pa. Nia. R. Rice L. Sen. R. S. Pa. U. A. V. Cattaraugus Creek 1 Conewango Drainage 0.84207 1 Genesee River 0.339607 0.086141 1 Lake Ontario 0.32351 0.049583 0.953219 1 Northwest Pennsylvania 0.326483 0.007984 0.668611 0.186153 1 Niagara River 0.262327 0.041277 0.640002 0.621606 0.655272 1 Rice Lake 0.247564 0.040138 0.587199 0.568673 0.828326 0.896317 1 Seneca River 0.156264 0.100847 0.344939 0.346952 0.545982 0.459051 0.510676 1 Southwest Pennsylvania 0.936572 0.712429 0.186785 0.168468 0.087579 0.126422 0.118886 0.091096 1 Upper Allegheny Valley 0.433672 0.176288 0.6347 0.528702 0.0913 0.342406 0.328703 0.253484 0.26793 1
Length (p-value) Catt. Cr. Con. Dr. Gen. R. L. Ont. N. Pa. Nia. R. Rice L. Sen. R. S. Pa. U. A. V. Cattaraugus Creek 1 Conewango Drainage 0.686236 1 Genesee River 0.251771 0.1025 1 Lake Ontario 0.195238 0.033025 0.641569 1 Northwest Pennsylvania 0.161548 0.014277 0.766182 0.566544 1 Niagara River 0.700934 0.946506 0.412016 0.316502 0.259394 1 Rice Lake 0.475186 0.208854 0.052979 0.036351 0.027511 0.26889 1 Seneca River 0.098664 0.079249 0.28268 0.359071 0.437723 0.154074 0.022151 1 Southwest Pennsylvania 0.985759 0.585156 0.104267 0.062261 0.043727 0.656694 0.399289 0.051423 1 Upper Allegheny Valley 0.47138 0.498584 0.270682 0.085277 0.026186 0.763798 0.122021 0.13015 0.311049 1
Highlighted values are significant (p <.05) comparative differences. Orange denotes both length and width differences; red denotes all dimensions significantly different.
264
APPENDIX C: Additional upper Allegheny burial data.
Sugar Sugar Sugar Sugar Cornplanter Run Run 2 Run 3 Run 1 1 NM Cremations 9 4 1 34 1 Extended 0 2 1 0 Flexed 0 0 0 0 Bundle 0 0 0 0 Unknown Non- 0 0 0 0 1 cremation Total Burials 9 6 2 34 2 Stone Cists (all types) 1 2 0 2 Stone Covered (pit/no 5 0 0 2 0 pit) Pit, no cover 1 3 0 1 0 Floor, no cover 2 1 2 0 Stone Platform 0 0 0 0 Ochre (red/yellow) 0 2 2 4 1 No ochre 9 4 0 30 Male 2 Female Adult (26 up) 2 Young Adult (16-25) Child (6-15) Infant (0-5) Burial With Offering 0 4 2 4 2 Burial Without 9 2 0 30 0 Offering
(Continued below)
265
Irvine Irvine Corydon Kill Vandalia Totals 1 2 Buck 1 (all) Cremations 1? 2 5 0 12 69 Extended 0 0 1 4 Flexed 1 0 1 2 Bundle 1 0 2 3 Unknown Non- 2 0 0 5 1 9 cremation Total Burials 4 4 5 9 13 88 Stone Cists (all types) 2 0 0 0 1 8 Stone Covered (pit/no 2 0 0 1 10 pit) Pit, no cover 0 3 9 17 Floor, no cover 1 6 2 14 Stone Platform 1 0 0 0 1 Ochre (red/yellow) 0 0 2 11 No ochre 1 4 5 7 9 69 Male 1 3 Female Adult (26 up) 2 3 5 3 15 Young Adult (16-25) 1 0 2 3 Child (6-15) 1 3 3 7 Infant (0-5) 0 1 0 1 Burial With Offering 2 1 1 3 9 28 Burial Without 3 4 3 2 53 Offering
266
APPENDIX D: Artifact summaries from surveys.
Fivemile Fivemile Bockmier Bockmier Bockmier Bockmier North South 1 Terrace 3 4 biface fragment 24 15 32 24 1 0 biface tool 8 1 8 3 2 4 clay deposit 0 1 0 0 0 0 complete flake 232 116 288 49 7 0 decorated potsherd 1 6 32 0 0 0 distal flake fragment 157 59 175 33 4 0 drilled stone 0 0 2 0 0 0 flake core 27 2 19 6 0 0 flake fragment 108 43 153 14 4 1 flake tool 1 0 17 2 1 1 ground stone 1 0 4 1 0 0 medial flake 132 39 145 23 1 0 fragment notched stone 1 0 0 0 0 0 pecked stone 0 0 0 0 0 0 pipe fragment 0 0 0 0 0 0 pitted stone 12 4 11 4 1 0 potsherd 3 22 129 0 0 0 proximal flake 184 69 275 42 4 0 fragment rimsherd 0 3 22 0 0 0 shatter 114 33 182 17 2 2 steatite fragment 1 0 0 0 0 0 uniface tool 4 2 0 2 0 0 utilized flake 8 6 52 6 0 0 weathered potsherd 9 35 340 1 0 0 Totals 1028 456 1886 227 27 8
(Continued Below)
267
Wiedman Doris Dorcas Fourmile Karl Karl Surface TU biface fragment 9 7 2 10 19 2 biface tool 8 6 3 10 6 2 clay deposit 1 0 0 0 0 0 complete flake 182 24 39 32 94 39 decorated potsherd 20 0 0 0 0 0 distal flake fragment 94 11 19 17 53 22 drilled stone 0 0 0 0 0 1 flake core 5 3 2 4 8 6 flake fragment 85 9 11 7 8 43 flake tool 8 2 2 0 0 3 ground stone 2 0 0 3 0 0 medial flake 77 10 16 13 56 24 fragment notched stone 0 0 0 0 0 0 pecked stone 3 0 0 0 0 0 pipe fragment 1 0 0 0 0 0 pitted stone 11 0 2 3 4 0 potsherd 213 2 2 12 0 0 proximal flake 129 13 37 18 71 46 fragment rimsherd 9 0 0 0 0 0 shatter 87 6 9 23 24 51 steatite fragment 0 0 0 0 0 0 uniface tool 1 0 0 2 1 0 utilized flake 13 0 2 5 5 1 weathered potsherd 344 0 2 14 0 0 Totals 1302 93 148 173 349 240
(Continued below)
268
Altenburg Altenburg Lemon Lemon Lemon McCaffery 1 2 1 2 3 1 biface fragment 2 2 4 3 0 8 biface tool 0 2 2 0 1 10 clay deposit 0 0 0 0 0 0 complete flake 10 11 29 4 14 57 decorated potsherd 0 0 0 0 13 0 distal flake fragment 7 12 7 0 7 22 drilled stone 0 0 0 0 0 0 flake core 0 3 4 0 4 12 flake fragment 4 4 7 4 6 9 flake tool 0 0 2 2 4 8 ground stone 0 0 0 1 0 3 medial flake 4 6 6 2 3 29 fragment notched stone 0 0 0 0 0 13 pecked stone 0 0 0 0 0 1 pipe fragment 0 0 0 0 0 0 pitted stone 0 0 0 0 0 6 potsherd 0 0 14 1 28 1 proximal flake 8 9 11 3 8 35 fragment rimsherd 0 0 0 0 3 0 shatter 0 7 5 4 8 18 steatite fragment 0 0 0 0 0 0 uniface tool 0 0 0 0 0 0 utilized flake 2 1 0 0 0 0 weathered potsherd 0 0 2 1 11 4 Totals 37 57 93 25 110 236
(Continued below)
269
McCaffery McCaffery McCaffery Bockmier IA- 2 3 TU Pt Barie biface fragment 9 8 3 16* 21 biface tool 0 3 0 * 10 clay deposit 0 0 0 8 0 complete flake 29 36 7 ** 58 decorated potsherd 0 0 0 **** 0 distal flake fragment 10 9 1 ** ^ drilled stone 0 0 0 0 0 flake core 2 4 3 8 16 flake fragment 9 3 5 3165** 237^ flake tool 3 5 0 80*** 2^^ ground stone 0 0 0 0 0 medial flake 11 8 2 ** ^ fragment notched stone 3 2 0 0 0 pecked stone 0 0 0 2 4 pipe fragment 0 0 0 5 0 pitted stone 0 4 0 1 2 potsherd 0 26 0 1919**** 0 proximal flake 19 14 2 ** ^ fragment rimsherd 0 1 0 47 0 shatter 9 8 4 ** 14 steatite fragment 0 0 0 0 0 uniface tool 0 1 0 *** ^^ utilized flake 1 3 0 *** 20 weathered potsherd 0 12 0 **** 0 Totals 105 147 27 5251 384
Symbols denote counts that are included with those of other artifact categories in Bockmier Point (*) and IA-Barie (^) assemblages.
270
APPENDIX E: Mean flake dimensions t-test p-values.
Length (p-value) Fivemile N Fivemile S Bockmier 1 Bockmier T Wiedman Doris Dorcas Fourmile Karl Lemon 1 McCaffery 1 McCaffery 2 Fivemile North 1 Fivemile South 0.3056 1 Bockmier 1 0.1198 0.8864 1 Bockmier Terrace 0.3305 0.1030 0.0481 1 Wiedman 0.7242 0.4697 0.2566 0.2304 1 Doris 0.5856 0.2804 0.2173 0.8969 0.4769 1 Dorcas 0.2765 0.0816 0.0348 0.9401 0.1878 0.8499 1 Fourmile 0.1330 0.4500 0.4612 0.0501 0.1936 0.1348 0.0411 1 Karl 0.2509 0.9467 0.9466 0.0847 0.4060 0.2568 0.0659 0.4718 1 Lemon 1 0.0003 0.0018 0.0016 0.0001 0.0005 0.0007 0.0001 0.0170 0.0019 1 McCaffery 1 0.0000 0.0005 0.0002 0.0000 0.0000 0.0007 0.0000 0.0270 0.0005 0.4720 1 McCaffery 2 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0914 0.0058 1 McCaffery 3 0.0003 0.0044 0.0028 0.0001 0.0006 0.0026 0.0001 0.0749 0.0045 0.3213 0.7067 0.0030
Width (p-value) Fivemile N Fivemile S Bockmier 1 Bockmier T Wiedman Doris Dorcas Fourmile Karl Lemon 1 McCaffery 1 McCaffery 2 Fivemile North 1 Fivemile South 0.8247 1 Bockmier 1 0.0392 0.0730 1 Bockmier Terrace 0.0442 0.0294 0.0002 1 Wiedman 0.6386 0.8152 0.0978 0.0147 1 Doris 0.5717 0.4827 0.0799 0.3738 0.3911 1 Dorcas 0.5693 0.4692 0.0511 0.2926 0.3654 0.9565 1 Fourmile 0.2217 0.2808 0.9608 0.0122 0.3388 0.1595 0.1433 1 Karl 0.8526 0.6904 0.0296 0.0697 0.5184 0.6602 0.6706 0.1856 1 Lemon 1 0.0001 0.0001 0.0006 0.0000 0.0001 0.0001 0.0000 0.0018 0.0000 1 McCaffery 1 0.0901 0.0951 0.1384 0.0487 0.1002 0.0748 0.0757 0.1451 0.0861 0.6483 1 McCaffery 2 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0001 0.0000 0.9755 0.6361 1 McCaffery 3 0.0013 0.0018 0.0155 0.0000 0.0023 0.0018 0.0011 0.0448 0.0010 0.1732 0.3616 0.1113
Thickns (p-value) Fivemile N Fivemile S Bockmier 1 Bockmier T Wiedman Doris Dorcas Fourmile Karl Lemon 1 McCaffery 1 McCaffery 2 Fivemile North 1 Fivemile South 0.4878 1 Bockmier 1 0.0001 0.0000 1 Bockmier Terrace 0.0010 0.0082 0.0000 1 Wiedman 0.0453 0.0081 0.0461 0.0000 1 Doris 0.6517 0.9401 0.0159 0.1395 0.1391 1 Dorcas 0.5522 0.9929 0.0002 0.0220 0.0267 0.9476 1 Fourmile 0.9564 0.6355 0.0263 0.0306 0.2618 0.6829 0.6533 1 Karl 0.3375 0.1175 0.0100 0.0001 0.4089 0.3271 0.1724 0.5763 1 Lemon 1 0.0001 0.0000 0.0257 0.0000 0.0020 0.0005 0.0001 0.0008 0.0007 1 McCaffery 1 0.0001 0.0000 0.0693 0.0000 0.0035 0.0013 0.0000 0.0019 0.0010 0.5408 1 McCaffery 2 0.0000 0.0000 0.0119 0.0000 0.0009 0.0002 0.0000 0.0004 0.0003 0.7757 0.3632 1 McCaffery 3 0.0172 0.0079 0.4594 0.0002 0.1169 0.0230 0.0100 0.0404 0.0565 0.3252 0.6107 0.2191
Highlighted values are significant (p <.05) comparative differences. Orange denotes significant differences in two dimensions; red denotes all dimensions significantly different.
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APPENDIX F: Proportion of identified chert types at project sites. (Following Page)
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Clarence Seneca Edgecliff Huronian Reynales Jasper Vanport Total 5 Mile North 96.3% 2.2% 0.3% 0.6% 0.6% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% 5 Mile South 90.7% 4.7% 0.0% 2.0% 2.3% 0.3% 0.0% 100.0% Bockmier 1 87.3% 7.3% 1.6% 1.8% 1.9% 0.0% 0.2% 100.1% Bockmier Terrace 94.1% 4.0% 1.0% 0.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.5% 100.1% Bockmier 3* 100.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% Bockmier 4* 85.7% 0.0% 0.0% 14.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% Weidman 92.1% 3.7% 1.3% 1.8% 0.4% 0.7% 0.0% 100.0% Doris 97.2% 1.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 1.4% 100.0% Dorcas 95.7% 3.4% 0.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% 4 Mile 92.0% 3.0% 2.0% 3.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% Karl 94.8% 2.1% 1.0% 0.8% 0.6% 0.2% 0.4% 99.9% Altenburg 1* 100.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0%
273 Altenburg 2 95.3% 0.0% 0.0% 4.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0%
Lemon 1 89.2% 5.4% 5.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% Lemon 2* 100.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% Lemon 3 87.0% 1.9% 5.6% 5.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.1% McCaffery 1 89.6% 5.7% 2.1% 0.5% 1.6% 0.0% 0.5% 100.0% McCaffery 2 99.0% 1.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% McCaffery 3 97.8% 2.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% McCaffery 4* 90.5% 9.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% Canticle Farms 2* 92.3% 3.8% 3.8% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 99.9% Threadgill* 95.5% 4.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% * Denotes fewer than 40 identified samples. 273