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

Figure 6.10. Forster site reconstructed Princess Point
vessel with the following characteristics: collarless,
outflaring rim, semiconical base; body is cordimpressed
and decorated with cord-wrapped stick
(right oblique lines) over cord-wrapped stick-horizontal
lines, over left-oblique strings of cord-wrapped
stick-punctuates ending at the vessel body’s inflection
point. The vessel is 24 cm in height.
archaeologists (Stan Wortner) lives within its boundaries.
Mr. Wortner had recorded the locations of several
early Late Woodland sites in the block and, just as
important, is able to advise on areas where he has
investigated but found no early Late Woodland sites.
Our efforts in the 2000 field season focused on survey
and controlled surface collection in the section of
the Thames drainage basin within our survey block.
Survey consists of walking weathered fields at 5 m
intervals where crop cover permits. Areas surveyed
include floodplains and terraces on the Thames River
itself, but also fields along tributaries within roughly 2
km of the Thames channel. The field crew recorded 35
early Late Woodland sites that had not been previously
reported. The crew was able to “ground-truth” site
situation for the 37 sites listed in Table 6.2. They were
not able to establish site size for all of these because of
crop cover.
The early Late Woodland sites in the Thames
drainage basin are found on a number of different
topographic situations, including the Thames River
floodplain (point bars) and riverine terraces, tributaries
and tributary terraces (see Figure 6.12). In contrast to
Princess Point settings in the Lower Grand River
Valley, where over 95 percent of the sites are focused
directly on the river, the sites in the Thames drainage
are more dispersed (Figure 6.13). The first two types of
location (floodplain and river terraces) are similar to
Princess Point; however, 65 percent of the sites are
located on tributaries and tributary terraces, for which
there are few Princess Point equivalents (Figure 6.13).
In terms of site size, over 81 percent are under 0.5 ha
in size. The sites associated directly with the Thames
channel are all less than 1 ha (Table 6.3). This is a
departure from the Princess Point pattern in the
Grand Valley, where sites on the floodplain tend to be
large (5 ha+).
Our research block includes none of the stream estuaries
and sand points on the Lake Erie shoreline that
Stothers and Abel (this volume) argue are the diagnostic
settlement locations for their Gibraltar and Riviere
au Vase phase sites in southeastern Michigan and
northwestern Ohio. Fifteen of the 35 (43 percent) early
Late Woodland sites in southwestern Ontario known
prior to 2000 are situated in roughly equivalent locations.
Adding our new data this proportion lowers to
15 of 72 (21 percent). While much work remains, the
spatial distribution of the early Late Woodland sites in
the Thames River Valley is quite different from that
inferred for the same time period in Ohio and
Michigan.
OTHER RESEARCH
Three doctoral dissertations explore the stone
assemblage of the Grand River Princess Point (Shen
2001), landscape archaeology of the Middle through
early Late Woodland in the area (Dieterman 2001), and
Princess Point palaeoethnobotany (Saunders 2001).
Shen’s work was directed to characterizing the pattern
of Princess Point lithic production, and to exploring the
transformation of lithic production during the Princess
Point period (Shen 2001). In particular, Shen was interested
in core reduction strategy and stone tool use patterning.
His research documents a shift from a specialized
to a generalized production strategy. Among the
many other issues investigated are the reasons behind
a unique core reduction sequence in the Grand Banks
lithic industry, a strategy Shen terms “transformed”
core reduction Shen (2001:70), an economizing technique
somewhat unexpected in a region rich in raw
material for stone tool production. Shen prefers a
“time-stress” explanation as a consequence of the shift
Chapter 6 Early Late Woodland in Southern Ontario: An Update (1996–2000) 127