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

Bundle, cremated, and flexed burials of Green Creek
phase association have also been excavated at the
Taylor site, which is now the focus of an intensive subsurface
investigation.
It is our belief that maize was likely to have been
introduced into the Great Lakes region during the late
Middle Woodland time period as a sumptuary food
resource used primarily in feasting associated with
warm weather aggregations. Unfortunately, it is these
very contexts that have suffered the most from lake
inundation over the last century, being turned from
coastal prairies to marshes (Stothers and Abel 2001).
This suggests that rather than being absent from southwestern
Ontario during the Gibraltar phase (Smith and
Watts, this volume), maize is likely to be recovered
from the sites on the sand points of Lake Erie and Lake
St. Clair, and the estuaries of the St. Clair, Sydenham,
and Thames River Valleys, contexts that have also suffered
from lake shore erosion.
The pattern of spring aggregation around the Lake
Erie and Lake St. Clair rim and fall/winter dispersal to
the interior remained generally consistent through the
early Late Woodland time period. By ca. A.D. 750, however,
the far-reaching trade and exchange networks
had declined. While processualists have equated the
decline of interregional trade with decreased subsistence
risk, this has not been demonstrated (Hayden
1992). Political economy advocates, on the other hand,
have argued convincingly that the decline of interregional
trade is associated with increased subsistence
risk, and cultural reorientation to a subsistence-based
economy (Bender 1978, 1985, 1990; Hayden 1990,
1995a; Muller 1997). By A.D. 1000, the large communal
estuary cemeteries were in decline, and the focus of
warm weather settlement shifted to the riverine floodplains
upriver from the estuaries. In the Maumee
Valley, this transition is evident at the island cataracts,
where fishing and farming may have been combined.
Eiden phase settlements also appear to have shifted to
open hamlets along the lower Sandusky and Huron
River Valleys. This to us suggests the growing importance
of maize production, which is evident in stable
carbon isotope values of the period. Following Bender
(1978), we suggest that increased food production
required longer aggregation periods to fulfill the labor
requirements of breaking fields, planting, tending, and
harvesting, and that these long periods of aggregation
placed significant stress on local subsistence production
within economies dependant upon settlement
mobility to dispersed resources. The acquisition of surplus
commodities became more restricted as more
labor was devoted to maize production, leading to a
decline in long-distance exchange by A.D. 750. The
exchange of items based on local resources, in addition
to feasting, continued through the development of villages
around A.D. 1200. The decline of exotic artifacts in
graves after A.D. 750 may represent a transition to “solidarity”
feasting, rather than “competitive” feasting
CONCLUSIONS
While we to date have no concrete evidence, we
believe, based on regional data, that maize was utilized
in the southwestern Lake Erie region by A.D. 400-500.
It was not the immediate staple that everyone for so
long assumed, but played a very minor role in what
were essentially riparian-based harvesting economies
until around A.D. 1200. The reasons for horticultural
intensification have been in the past explained by reference
to environmental degradation and demographic
stress as sources of increased demand for subsistence
production. On the contrary, we believe WBT and ST
populations incorporated maize into their diets first as
a sumptuary food item served exclusively during
feasts. The feasts were one component of a complex of
social renewal rituals that promoted cooperation and
provided arenas to reproduce existing social hierarchies
among peer polities. Nowhere is this more evident
than at the several large social interaction sites
associated with the Riviere au Vase and Younge phases.
It appears evident that people gathered at these
sites repeatedly to bury the dead and renew social
relations and obligations with the exchange of gifts,
competitive feasting, and probably marriage between
polity groups. Conspicuous consumption was practiced
in feasting and the burial of exotic items with the
dead. The rituals likely took place during the spring,
when dispersed groups aggregated to take part in
harvests of anadromous fish.
We believe the intensification of maize production
was likely influenced by peer polity interactions, rather
than any crisis-induced need. We suggest that to successfully
compete in peer polity interactions, community
groups jockeyed to secure resources, foremost
among them, external alliances. External alliances
ensured the steady flow of exotic resources that were
used in peer polity interactions. Peer polities sought to
extend their influence well beyond their own corporate
bounds, to bring in commodities convertible into influence
and prestige. They manipulated trading alliances
to restrict access by competing polities, and through
that maximized their opportunities for social reproduction.
The existence of a supralocal trade network
92 Stothers and Abel