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

CHAPTER 5
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE ARCHAEOLOGY
OF THE PRINCESS POINT COMPLEX IN SOUTHERN ONTARIO 1
David G. Smith and Gary W. Crawford
INTRODUCTION
The origins of food production, especially plant cultivation,
have received widespread and intensive consideration
in recent years (see Cowan and Watson
1992a; Gebauer and Price 1992; Price and Gebauer
1995; Smith 1992, 1995). They signal, if not underly, significant
economic, social, and other cultural changes.
Intensive research over the past two decades has done
much to clarify the origins and nature of the earliest
plant cultivation and domestication in the North
American Eastern Woodlands. This area is not homogeneous,
but includes several cultural and ecological
zones with diverse historical trajectories. In the southern
Midwest, indigenous domestication of plants preceded
the subsequent intensification associated with
the success of corn in the late second millennium B.P.
Through the interpretive work of Gayle Fritz, Kristen
Gremillion, Bruce Smith, Patty Jo Watson, and others,
this region is no longer viewed as an area of secondary
origins through diffusion. Rather, it is a region of
indigenous domestication (Fritz 1990; Smith 1987,
1992; Watson 1985, 1989). Horticultural origins in the
Lower Great Lakes, central and southern New York
and Pennsylvania as well as New England are,
however, considered to be the result of “secondary
origins;” that is, diffusion or migration or both (Cowan
and Watson 1992b). The Lower Great Lakes region, in
particular, lacks a cogent synthesis of agricultural origins
based on rigorously collected and dated materials.
To remedy this neglect, we have focused our research
on the Princess Point Complex in southcentral Ontario
(Figure 5.1) since 1993, and in this paper we report the
contributions this program has made so far.
After conducting a review of agricultural origins,
Gebauer and Price (1992:3) note that there is no single,
accepted, general theory for the origins of agriculture.
Thus, we are turning in recent years to elucidating local
processes to expand our database on the problem of
agricultural origins. Southern Ontario is one region in
the world that is surprisingly lacking in substantial
information on the problem. Considering that horticulture
became an important, if not predominant component
of subsistence after A.D. 1000, this lack certainly
hinders our understanding of Late Woodland Native
economies in this region.
In 1993, we initiated a research program to address a
series of issues pertaining to the shift to crop production
in the Lower Great Lakes. Princess Point is generally
viewed as the context in which the transition from
strictly hunting and gathering to a mixed horticulturalhunter-gatherer
way of life took place in southern
Ontario. Princess Point is one of a number of archaeological
cultures in the Lower Great Lakes region dating
to between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago, and is possibly
ancestral to later Iroquoian societies in this region
(Crawford and Smith 1996; Crawford et al. 1997a; Fox
1990; Noble 1975; Smith and Crawford 1995; Stothers
1977; Trigger 1985; Wright 1984). Princess Point was
originally defined as a “complex” (Stothers 1977), but
for reasons discussed below, we believe that the term
“complex” no longer applies, although, for lack of a
better alternative, we continue to use the term
“Princess Point Complex.” Our research has removed
any doubt that corn is associated with Princess Point
contexts (Crawford et al. 1997a), and has provided the
first detailed interdisciplinary examination of floodplains
and agricultural origins in the Northeast
(Crawford et al. 1997b; Walker et al. 1997). This paper
summarizes past research on Princess Point, details the
work that we have conducted over the past three years,
1 Originally published in Canadian Journal of Archaeology 21:9-32.
Reprinted with the permission of the editor.
Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change: A.D. 700–1300 by John P. Hart and Christina B. Rieth. New York State Museum
© 2002 by the University of the State of New York, The State Education Department, Albany, New York. All rights reserved.
Chapter 5 Recent Developments in the Archaeology of the Princess Point Complex in Southern Ontario 97