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

tury (A3 horizon) deserves further investigation and
may be related to gender-specific work groups
(Claassen 2001).
While it is known that village/hamlet inhabitants
periodically left the settlement to hunt for and/or
gather resources located at some distance from the
sedentary site, nonsedentary location inhabitants are
given little attention. The village/hamlet has been the
central focus of early Late Prehistoric studies, for it is
at village sites that the whole range of activities associated
with settled life, such as resource processing
and craft production, is expected. Associated with
these sedentary locations are substantial structures,
definite areas of refuse disposal, and long-term storage.
Nonsedentary, upland sites were an integral part
of village/hamlet inhabitants’ seasonal activities.
These sites may have been occupied by task groups of
one or more households associated with a village or
hamlet. While many types of campsites presumably
existed during the early Late Prehistoric, the Park
Creek II site served as a specific example for this
model. The two occupations at Park Creek II suggested
that the site was reoccupied during the early Late
Prehistoric, possibly by the same lineage over generations.
While at the camp, the inhabitants sharpened
bifacial tools and produced flakes for expedient use.
The evidence showed that they also hunted and collected
wild foods, such as berries and nuts, and may
have tended remote horticultural fields. Microwear
analysis provided additional evidence that site inhabitants
collected and processed plants and small animals.
Spatial analysis revealed that site activities were
patterned, focusing on the hearths. Although several
possibilities exist for the composition of the Park
Creek II inhabitants, artifact and floral data, combined
with the ethnohistoric record, may suggest that
the site was inhabited by groups organized and composed
of women (Claassen 1997).
SUMMARY
In this chapter I have noted that a local level of
analysis can aid our understanding of the various
roles played by the household and community.
Understanding the variability within and between
these social units will not only address this scale of
analysis, but can also broaden our understanding of
cultural change at the regional and inter-regional
scales. Data pertaining to the early Late Prehistoric
are limited in both quantity and quality and research
concerns are rarely focused at the local level of analysis
or consider social relations. Not all individuals
who comprised households were present in the village
or hamlet at all times. Individuals left for
resource procurement, trade, and alliance building.
Thus, village/hamlet sites cannot be understood in
isolation. Data obtained from sedentary settlements
must be combined with that obtained from nonsedentary
sites to understand settlement and subsistence
during this period.
In the past, temporary upland sites were believed
to contain limited data for creating and refining settlement/subsistence
models. Analysis of the Park
Creek II site has proven the opposite. Park Creek II
provided valuable data that, when combined with
similar studies in the future and compared to data
obtained from village/hamlet sites, will enhance our
picture of early Late Prehistoric settlement and subsistence.
The wealth of information that can be
obtained from previously neglected upland camps
has been demonstrated. Nonresidential sites should
not be studied as being separate from the village or
hamlet, but as extensions of the social relations that
define early Late Prehistoric organization. To truly
understand social relations at the household level, we
need to look beyond the village limits.
Acknowledgments
Much of the data presented in this chapter was
derived from Cultural Resource projects funded by
the New York State Museum, State Education
Department, as part of the statewide New York
Department of Transportation contract. I would like
to thank Dr. Nina M. Versaggi for the opportunity to
excavate and analyze the Park Creek II site and for
reading drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank
Dr. Charles R. Cobb and Tim D. Knapp for reading
early drafts. John McGregor supervised field work at
the site in the fall of 1998. I thank him for sharing his
knowledge of the site. I thank John Hart and Christina
Rieth for the opportunity to present this research at
the New York State Museum’s New York Natural
History Conference symposium Early Late Prehistoric
(A.D. 700-1300) Subsistence and Settlement Change in the
Northeast, and for their helpful comments on the draft.
I also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their
suggestions.
204 Miroff