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

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Christina B. Rieth
WHEN VIEWED WITHIN A REGIONAL CONTEXT, the early
Late Prehistoric period (A.D. 700-1300) represents one
of the most dynamic periods in Northeast prehistory.
This period has been viewed as the time in which prehistoric
populations adopted tropical domesticates
(maize, beans, and squash), made the transition from a
mobile to a semisedentary lifestyle, and carried out
important changes in material culture including the
replacement of thick-walled stamped ceramics with
thinner-walled cordmarked containers, and a general
simplification of lithic technology (Ritchie and Funk
1973:372 as cited in Oskam 1999:69; Ritchie 1994;
Ritchie 1994; Wright 1966). While these changes do
apply to some early Late Prehistoric populations,
recent research suggests that the above summarized
characterization is oversimplified and does not accurately
depict the range of behaviors practiced by the
prehistoric populations of the Northeast.
It is with this idea in mind that the current volume is
presented. Eleven of the chapters in the volume were
initially presented as papers in a symposium entitled
“Early Late Prehistoric (A.D. 700-1300) Settlement and
Subsistence Change in the Northeast” at the New York
Natural History Conference held at the New York State
Museum in April 2000; the remaining chapters represent
solicited contributions from scholars who could
not attend the conference. The intent of the symposium
was to provide a forum in which scholars from different
theoretical and methodological backgrounds could
gather to discuss the diversity of settlement and subsistence
patterns in the region and present research
directed toward understanding how such patterns are
reflected in the distribution of artifacts and archaeological
features. The resulting chapters cover a wide range
of environments and report on societies that exhibit a
diverse array of settlement and subsistence attributes
as measured through resources exploited, settlement
locations, and socioeconomic organization. Despite the
different theoretical and methodological frameworks
in which the individual chapter authors have pursued
their work, this volume is united not only by a common
temporal and thematic focus, but also by the
authors’ decisions to seriously question existing settlement
and subsistence models in light of new data and
theories in order to understand one of the most important
periods in Northeast prehistory.
GEOGRAPHIC AND TEMPORAL
SCOPE OF VOLUME
The Northeast, as defined here, includes the area
extending from the eastern Great Lakes south to the
central Ohio River Valley and northeast to the
Canadian Maritimes. The chapters in this volume draw
from a variety of regions and encompass both upland
and lowland locations across the Allegheny Plateau
and Appalachian Highlands region of New Brunswick,
New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
southern Ontario. Traditionally viewed as part of the
Eastern Woodlands, few volumes focus solely on the
settlement and subsistence characteristics of the
Northeast (but see Hart 1999e; Levine et al. 2000).
Instead, the Northeast and the surrounding regions are
often treated as a single-culture area with similar traits
and limited internal variation (Trigger 1978). However,
as Trigger (1978) points out, the cultures of the Eastern
Woodlands are marked by substantial differences in
their dependence on agriculture, population density,
settlement characteristics, and degree of sociopolitical
stratification. Before we can fully understand the differences
between these Eastern Woodland populations,
we must first understand the range of behaviors that
characterize local and subregional populations. This
volume does just this by providing a comprehensive
discussion of Northeast settlement and subsistence
patterning.
While the early Late Prehistoric period dates
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 1 Introduction 1