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

The features that Stothers used to characterize
Princess Point include:
1. a material culture assemblage notably different
from antecedent Middle Woodland in both manufacture
and style, including:
a. “Princess Point Ware” pottery manufactured
by the paddled vessel technique and decorated
with cord impressions, and
b. triangular projectile points similar to the
Levanna type;
2. presence of very limited quantities of maize, indicating
incipient horticulture; and
3. settlements located in riverine/lacustrine environments,
interpreted to be spring-summer seasonal
aggregation camps.
Between 1974 and 1993 there was no large-scale
research on Princess Point, although several
researchers and institutions contributed both new data
and interpretations. William A. Fox revised Stothers’
synthesis of Princess Point, narrowing the scope of
Princess Point both spatially and temporally (Fox 1984,
1990). He restricted the geographic distribution to what
Stothers termed the “Grand River focus” (Figure 5.2),
and revised the chronology for Princess Point to A.D.
700-900 (Fox 1990:182). Peter Timmins (1985) critically
reexamined the radiocarbon dates recovered from
Princess Point sites. This reevaluation emphasized the
paucity of assays and lack of support for Stothers’
three-phase chronology. In addition, Stothers himself
rejected the intrusive origins of Princess Point in favor
of an in situ model (Stothers and Pratt 1981). Cultural
resource management operations added important
new data from upland and lacustrine campsites (e.g.,
Lennox and Morrison 1990; Timmins 1992).
As it was interpreted as of 1993, then, the term
“Princess Point” referred to an archaeological construct
represented by sites concentrated along the eastern
north shore of Lake Erie and the western end of Lake
Ontario (Figure 5.2), and dating from ca. A.D. 700 to
900. In fact, due to limited research, Princess Point was
poorly understood from all perspectives, including the
nature of Princess Point itself, its chronology, its ancestors,
its contemporaries, and its descendants.
N
Porteous
0 10 km
Grand
Princess Point Sites
Lone
Pine
Young 1
Grand
Banks
CNR Bridge
Cayuga Bridge
Grand
Cayuga
Cluster
River
N
Cayuga
Cluster
River
Lake Erie
J. Skiba
Figure 5.2. Grand River Princess Point sites.
100 Smith and Crawford