Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change: A.D. 700 –1300

urial with the dead, broadcasted a polity’s relative
economic and political status among a community of
competing “peer polities,” gaining them prestige as an
economically successful group. Alliances were secured
with neighboring groups through marriage and trade
partnerships (likely sealed with marriages) to extend a
group’s sphere of influence, bring in more exotica, and
ensure their political influence into succeeding generations
(Braun 1986; Renfrew 1986).
In many cases, the aggregated ceremonies were also
arenas for the promotion of salient social inequality
among subordinate followers and commodity brokers
or “big men” (Hayden 1995b). During the rituals, commodity
brokers served as focal points for the collection
and redistribution of resources. They used the rituals to
peddle their influence through gift giving, and gained
personal prestige by redistributing exotic resources to
the polity either through the offering of sumptuary
foods to feasting ceremonies or the offering of exotic
artifacts to the dead during communal burial ceremonies.
In exchange for such generosity, the subordinate
population committed labor to the production of
surplus goods, which the big men used to secure farreaching
trade partnerships to perpetuate their status.
FEASTING WITH THE DEAD
IN THE SOUTHWESTERN LAKE ERIE
LITTORAL REGION
Given the evidence from the southwestern Lake Erie
littoral region, we argue that a model of competitive
feasting explains the early Late Woodland archaeological
record rather well. The occurrence of bundled or
secondary mass burials has been linked by many to
communal or corporate identities among dispersed
populations (Hertz 1960; Jirikowic 1990; Metcalf and
Huntington 1991; Saxe 1970). In the WBT, the persistence
of extensive and seasonally reoccupied ceremonial
centers, or “mortuary districts” (O’Shea 1988) (such
as Riviere au Vase, Libben, Sandusky Bay, Maumee
Bay, and others) suggests to us communal aggregations
of dispersed mobile populations at several points
around the shores of western Lake Erie and Lake St.
Clair (Murphy and Ferris 1990; Stothers and Bechtel
2000). The locations of these centers along small
streams in major river estuaries suggests the importance
of fish harvesting to sustain aggregated communities
of several families. These seasonal aggregations
were a focus for social activities as well as surplus
resource production (Jackson 1991; Polanyi 1957, 1963;
Sahlins 1972; Saitta and Keene 1990; Sheehan 1985). We
suggest that the limited recovery of carbonized maize
at these locales, coupled with its relative paucity at
interior sites of the same time period, represents its
consumption during renewal rituals involving feasting
and burial of the dead.
The association of exotic artifacts with burial activity
has been suggested by Hayden (1997) to represent a
stable subsistence economy rather than a manifestation
of increased risk buffering (cf. Binford 1968; Brose 1990;
Lovis 1986; Winters 1968). In the absence of substantial
subsistence risk, commodities, he argues, become more
valued than subsistence resources, such that they
replace food in contractual trade obligations (cf. also
Wright 1967, 1968). The role of contractual reciprocity
in maintaining the flow of resources is evident from
very early times in the Great Lakes region, extending
well back into the Archaic and perhaps Paleoindian
periods (Brose 1979, 1990; cf. Abel et al. in press;
Stothers and Abel 1991, 1993, n.d.; Stothers et al. in
press). The incorporation of exotic artifacts as burial
accouterments on Gibraltar phase sites suggests to us
a flourishing harvesting economy, likely based on
riparian resources, that afforded surpluses used in
competitive feasting among peer polities. Surpluses
in subsistence production afforded local populations
opportunities to devote labor and resources to the
acquisition of exotic goods that were used as votive
grave offerings.
The same model is also believed to characterize the
contemporaneous ST, then residing in northcentral
Ohio. Communal aggregations of Middle Woodland
Esch phase (A.D. 1-500) populations can be seen at the
type site, located on the Huron River in northcentral
Ohio, where burial ritual and exotic exchange is manifested
in two burial mounds (Stothers et al. 1979).
Burials from these mounds were in bundle form, and
accompanied by artifacts of exotic source materials and
origin. Radiocarbon dates and artifacts attest to their
continued use during the succeeding Green Creek
phase (A.D. 500-1000), when perhaps intrusive burials
were placed into previously established mounds (as is
the case with numerous Gibraltar phase mounds). The
mounds were unfortunately excavated by amateur
archaeologists long before any professional involvement
was present in the region (Stothers et al. 1979).
Other burial mound complexes are known from historic
sources along the Sandusky River, but these were
destroyed prior to the twentieth century (Everett 1882;
Meek 1909). The Raccoon Farm site, located on the
Huron River in northcentral Ohio, consists of 13 burial
mounds that are believed to be associated with the Esch
phase. This site, however, awaits further investigation.
Chapter 4 The Early Late Woodland in the Southwestern Lake Erie Littoral Region 91