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

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The appearance of the thicker-walled pottery during the late Middle Woodland to early Late Woodland transition period suggests this might have been a period of initial experimentation with maize and its cooking. Subsequent to this, thinner-walled vessels begin to appear, and some of these resemble the Middle and Late Owasco types (Ritchie and MacNeish 1949). As Braun (1980:96, 1983:118-119) has argued, changes in ceramic manufacture during the Woodland period may reflect changes in dietary patterns, such as a shift to the greater use of starchy seeds, which are best cooked through long simmering or boiling in order to increase palatability and digestibility. Thinner, denser walls and finer temper would increase the vessel’s performance in these circumstances. The later Middle and Late Woodland vessels from Winney’s Rift were better suited to withstand thermal shock due to longer boiling than were the earlier Middle Woodland vessels, which were produced to withstand breakage from mechanical stress. In addition to the large component at Winney‘s Rift, the transitional Middle to Late Woodland vessels have been recovered from several sites in Saratoga County. The combination of both Middle Woodland and Late Woodland ceramic traits in the same component, and often on the same vessel, appears to be characteristic of the upper Hudson River area on this time level. Because of this, the stage division between the Middle and Late Woodland based on Ritchie and MacNeish’s (1949) ceramic typology does not resemble that reported elsewhere in New York State (Brumbach 1995:58). Thermoluminescence (TL) and radiocarbon dating place these vessels at A.D. 1200- 1300, and contemporaneous with early Late Woodland Owasco ceramics found elsewhere in New York (Brumbach 1995:58). A sherd from Winney’s Rift, dated by TL to A.D. 1310±75 (Alpha-2324), was constructed and decorated with a combination of attributes of the Middle Woodland type Jack’s Reef Corded Collar and the Late Woodland type Levanna Corded Collar (Ritchie and MacNeish 1949). Carbon samples from a feature and an associated living floor at the Mechanicville Road site in Saratoga County containing similar pottery, produced dates of A.D. 1220±70 (DICARB 1565) and A.D. 1300±40 (DICARB 1567), both uncorrected (Hartgen Archeological Associates, Inc., 1983:227). After ca. A.D. 1200-1300, there were additional changes in ceramic manufacture: Vessel walls become progressively thinner, presumably because the technology necessary to construct a larger vessel without greatly increasing the thickness of the wall was achieved. The appearance of these vessels seems to signal concurrent changes in the diet with an increased reliance on maize, eventually leading to the focus described in the early 1600s documents. The Late Woodland pottery of the upper Hudson River continues to undergo major changes in manufacturing technique, and by A.D. 1400, came to resemble both in style and technology the pottery produced at the Mohawk Iroquois villages to the west (Bender and Brumbach 1992; Brumbach 1975, 1995), and to a lesser degree, pottery recovered from Late Woodland Delaware sites of New Jersey and southern New York (Kraft 1986). These large Late Woodland vessels tend to be globular in shape with modeled collared rims and incised decorations. Walls are extremely thin and the paste is very compact with fine aplastics. Exterior surfaces are smoothed and often finished by polishing or burnishing. Coiling as a building technique appears to have been replaced by another hand-building method termed “drawing” (Rice 1987:124-125). That fish continued to be an important dietary staple in the upper Hudson Valley even after A.D. 700 is demonstrated by the recovery of hundreds of small fish vertebrae from flotation samples at Winney’s Rift. Additionally, Late Woodland features recorded at this site include a large hearth with charcoal-saturated soil, but few rocks. We interpret it as a feature that might have served for the smoke drying of fish. However, even as fishing remained an important economic activity, changes in harvesting technology apparently were taking place. Winney’s Rift produced a number of net sinkers, an artifact type almost absent from Schuylerville. The shift to a different location for fishing, combined with inferred changes in labor allocation (as we argue below), appears to have had consequences for the technology involved in fish harvesting. Perhaps this period saw a shift away from the use of fixed weirs and natural impediments alone to an increase in the use of more portable set nets. These data on the technology of fish harvesting, resource processing, and ceramic production thus indicate that significant but gradual changes were taking place in upper Hudson Valley subsistence systems. In addition, shifts in settlement geography from prime fishing locations (Schuylerville) to locations favorable to both fishing and gardening (Winney’s Rift), and later during the middle Late Woodland to locations in proximity to more arable garden lands on the islands and floodplains of the major rivers, support our arguments. The shifts in settlement locations along Fish Creek mirrors large-scale settlement shifts for this period identified in Bender and Curtin’s 236 Brumbach and Bender
(1990) survey of recorded sites in the upper Hudson Valley. We can only conclude that throughout the period under discussion, A.D. 700-1300, choices were being made about resources that substantially affected decision making in task allocation and settlement location. SOCIAL AND SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS, POST-A.D. 700 Based on currently available data from these sites, a model of subsistence change during the Middle to Late Woodland periods is beginning to emerge. Some of these processes will be briefly discussed here. Exploitation of seasonal fish runs would have permitted/required sedentism for as long as fresh or preserved fish were available. Decisions concerning fishing may have been greatly influenced by the timing of the fish runs. In the upper Hudson, the anadromous species begin to appear at the end of April and by a few weeks later in May, fish were abundant in many of the rivers. The planting of maize could have been accomplished without upsetting the already established schedule of seasonal settlement and movement. Suitable soil and weather conditions for planting maize will occur in May. Field preparation and planting would not necessarily conflict with fish harvesting but might conflict with fish drying and processing, since these are time-consuming activities (Schalk 1977). Initially, possible scheduling conflicts between fish and maize could be resolved by a sexual or generational division of labor. In order to minimize the labor of land clearing, desirable places for gardening would include the floodplains of the same tributaries that hosted the fish runs. Since maize must be cared for and protected from competing birds and mammals, it would be convenient to plant and care for the gardens while the population was otherwise at its spring-summer aggregation site. After June, the major fish runs were over but some fish, eels, late runners, and freshwater species continued to be present in the rivers until the onset of cold weather. Maize can be eaten “in the milk” in August and will ripen in early to mid-September. Thus, upper Hudson populations already adapted to riverine fishing would be well positioned to engage in casual planting. A shift from casual to village horticulture might have occurred when a growing conflict between maize planting and fish preserving came to be resolved in favor of maize. The critical choice is between dried fish for summer-fall consumption and dried maize for fall-winter consumption. While there may have been many reasons why maize was selected over fish, the timing of the fish runs might have played a role here too. Schalk (1977) has pointed out that the critical factors in fish utilization are not only the amount of fish but also the period of availability and a population’s ability to process the fish for storage within this time. Because the Hudson River’s anadromous fish are available in the spring and early summer, before the onset of hot summer weather, preservation of these species would be more difficult than, for example, the preservation of Pacific Coast salmon, which are available for harvest from late August until September, after the peak of hot weather (Schalk 1977), and were therefore more easily preserved for winter use. In contrast, maize preservation is far less labor-intensive (although preparation for consumption is more labor-intensive than for dried fish), and in addition, maize provides variety in the diet and a suitable weaning food for infants when prepared as a gruel (Crown and Wills 1995:249). A final shift in settlement location seems to have occurred during the Late Woodland. Locations that afforded access to larger or better garden areas, such as the island flats and floodplain of the Hudson River as described by Dunn (1994), appear to have been preferred for warm weather aggregation sites. The selection of these locations suggests that settlement geography was redefined in terms of horticultural potential rather than easy access to fishing stations alone. While the percentage of fish or maize in the diet, and how this percentage shifted during the Middle and Late Woodland, is still unresolved, the shift in settlement geography lends support to our hypothesis that the individuals involved had made conscious decisions about resource management and the allocation of labor. Decisions may have been made by women who chose to allot less of their labor to fish preservation and more to the preparation and tending of gardens. This decision might have been affected, in part, by women’s conscious decisions to allocate more labor to food resources that were stored more efficiently and in which they played the predominant role and controlled. By opting for maize and other domesticates, the amount of fish, as well as spatially unpredictable while-tailed deer and small game necessary to support the population during the cold weather months was reduced. This in turn could lead to a reduction in a community’s foraging mobility during the colder months, and to an increase in the period of warm weather aggregation and sedentism. Other factors Chapter 12 Woodland Period Settlement and Subsistence Change in the Upper Hudson River Valley 237
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Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Ch
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Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Ch
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TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures L
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LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Map of the cent
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9.3 Topographic map of Broome Tech.
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11.1 Upper Susquehanna Site Types (
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PREFACE The New York State Museum h
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Christina B.
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domesticates and the occupation of
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and Rieth highlight the important c
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Dunnell, R. C. (1971). Systematics
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Anthropology, University of Massach
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CHAPTER 2 CENTRAL OHIO VALLEY DURIN
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L a k e E r i e PENNSYLVANIA INDIAN
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L a k e E r i e INDIANA R i v e r G
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Olentangy River and other minor tri
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Figure 2.6. Comparison of Late Wood
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support the notion of resource stre
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F4 F7 F5 F6 F3 F2 F9 F10 F12 F13 F1
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B B M F42 F43 F41 F44 S5 S4 S1 F30
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Table 2.3. continued Temporal Age A
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Table 2.3. continued Temporal Age A
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L a k e E r i e INDIANA o i O h Sal
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Figure 2.13. Map of the Late Prehis
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Figure 2.15. Map of households with
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Figure 2.17. Sample of Late Prehist
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Barkes, B. M. (1982). An Analysis o
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Fort Ancient Tradition, edited by J
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CHAPTER 3 “ . . . to reconstruct
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IT TAKES A VILLAGE Figure 3.2. Arti
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social organizations is drawn prima
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elements of the village, the spaces
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Diametric, concentric, and circumfe
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egion, including Reckner (Augustine
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Chapter 3 Modeling Village Communit
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Figure 3.9. Architectural and nonar
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Figure 3.11. Measuring distances in
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Table 3.2. Descriptive Statistics f
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DISCUSSION Table 3.3. Descriptive S
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Figure 3.14. Box-and-whisker plot o
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Augustine, E. A. (1938d). Important
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Among Some Amazon Tribes. Privately
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on Black Mesa, Arizona. The Univers
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CHAPTER 4 THE EARLY LATE WOODLAND I
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Figure 4.3. Gibraltar Cordmarked ce
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Figure 4.5. Ceramics of the Gibralt
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points and notched Chesser or Lowe
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dated to A.D. 890 (1025) 1230 (DIC-
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Table 4.3. Available Stable Carbon
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where fishing and farming may have
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Figure 4.10. Ceramic of the Sandusk
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singular Mixter Stamped vessels typ
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urial with the dead, broadcasted a
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during the early Late Woodland time
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Valley. North American Archaeologis
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CHAPTER 5 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN TH
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interest in exchange of service or
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CURRENT INVESTIGATIONS In view of t
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710 Area C 700 B-75084 TO-4556 TO-4
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Table 5.1. Summary of Artifacts fro
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e Bull's Point C o o t e s P a r a
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classification system has been appl
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(Crawford et al. 1997a). The same i
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in Ontario was Middle Woodland-deri
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207-212. Smithsonian Institution, W
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CHAPTER 6 EARLY LATE WOODLAND IN SO
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Figure 6.2. Lower Grand River Valle
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Table 6.1. Radiocarbon Dates from t
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segment of the terrace that effecti
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Figure 6.7. Meyer site terrace, vie
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Figure 6.10. Forster site reconstru
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Figure 6.12. Middle Thames River 20
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Figure 6.13. Site situation: a comp
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Dieterman, F. (2001). Princess Poin
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CHAPTER 7 EARLY LATE PREHISTORIC SE
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ticultural hamlets, small and large
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that Clemson Island was greatly inf
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local deposits. Alternately, Stimme
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Table 7.1. Radiocarbon Dates from S
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Pennsylvania continued to practice
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level) overlaps with the West Branc
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Under a population metaphysic, the
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Hatch, J. W., and Koontz, K. L. (19
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CHAPTER 8 NEW DATES FOR OWASCO POTS
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Table 8.1. Key Components of the Th
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Figure 8.1. Location of the Kipp Is
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Table 8.4. Carpenter Brook Phase Ho
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Table 8.5. Physical Characteristics
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Table 8.6. AMS Dates and Calibrated
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REFERENCES CITED Ammerman, A. J., a
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CHAPTER 9 PITS, PLANTS, AND PLACE:
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Thomas/Luckey Broome Tech N 0 0 50
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confluence with the Susquehanna Riv
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Figure 9.3. Topographic map of Broo
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Table 9.2. Feature Types at Thomas/
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Figure 9.4. Histogram of feature de
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Table 9.4. Plant Remains from Thoma
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Figure 9.7. Sample composition of n
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Figure 9.9. Seed composition (exclu
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Page 201 and 202: of posts may mark remnants of tempo
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Page 205 and 206: History Press, Garden City, New Yor
Page 207 and 208: CHAPTER 10 UPLAND LAND USE PATTERNS
Page 209 and 210: LOCAL LEVEL ANALYSIS Local level an
Page 211 and 212: N104 E101 Unit 19A Unit 7A Unit 12A
Page 213 and 214: Table 10.2. Park Creek II Feature A
Page 215 and 216: Fea. 2 Fea. 5 0 1 2 N Figure 10.4.
Page 217 and 218: encounterlike hunting/butchering st
Page 219 and 220: END NOTES 1. A village is defined a
Page 221 and 222: Perrelli, D. J. (1994). Gender, Mob
Page 223 and 224: CHAPTER 11 EARLY LATE PREHISTORIC S
Page 225 and 226: Table 11.1. Upper Susquehanna Site
Page 227 and 228: Table 11.2. Summary of Late Middle
Page 229 and 230: Table 11.3. Settlement Features of
Page 231 and 232: approximately 1,000 sq. ft, there i
Page 233 and 234: Table 11.5. Summary of Seed Identif
Page 235 and 236: importance of hunting and hunting-r
Page 237 and 238: portion of the Susquehanna Valley,
Page 239 and 240: Herrick, J. W., and Snow, D. R. (19
Page 241 and 242: CHAPTER 12 WOODLAND PERIOD SETTLEME
Page 243 and 244: oundaries were given. According to
Page 245 and 246: Table 12.1: Selected Radiocarbon an
Page 247 and 248: shads and herrings of the family Cl
Page 249: consists of large concentrations of
Page 253 and 254: York State 92:1-8. Busby, M. (1966)
Page 255 and 256: CHAPTER 13 PALEOETHNOBOTANICAL INDI
Page 257 and 258: Figure 13.1. Forest regions of the
Page 259 and 260: Table 13.1. Distribution of Nut Tre
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Page 263 and 264: Figure 13.4. Nutshell density (gray
Page 265 and 266: Figure 13.5. Seed density and maize
Page 267 and 268: Table 13.3. Seed Indicators-Maine S
Page 269 and 270: Table 13.4. Broome Tech Site: Selec
Page 271 and 272: 6, and it occurred in 58 percent of
Page 273 and 274: Table 13.6. Continued Site Uncalibr
Page 275 and 276: Acknowledgments I thank John Hart f
Page 277 and 278: y K. J. Gremillion, pp. 161-178. Th
Page 279 and 280: CHAPTER 14 FROM HUNTER-GATHERER CAM
Page 281 and 282: Figure 14.1. Distribution of select
Page 283 and 284: available to Ceci were simply too l
Page 285 and 286: the AMS date of A.D. 1185 (A.D. 127
Page 287 and 288: Table 14.1. Continued Site Lab C14
Page 289 and 290: within single settlements remains e
Page 291 and 292: noncoastal residential sites certai
Page 293 and 294: Figure 14.3. Two stratigraphic prof
Page 295 and 296: to the Maritime Provinces on the Gu
Page 297 and 298: other related questions yet, and so
Page 299 and 300: Northeast Historical Archaeology 21
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Thomas, P. A. (1976). Contrastive s
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CHAPTER 15 “towns they have none
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Table 15.1. Key to Figure 15.1: Arc
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Maize will normally not preserve fo
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artifacts. Cowie (2000) suggests th
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creativity to resolve, but is also
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Ph.D. dissertation, Department of A
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CHAPTER 16 OUT OF THE BLUE AND INTO
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Figure 16.2. Map of the Bliss Islan
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shell-bearing sites located on the
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site. Middle Maritime Woodland occu
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(e.g., Black 1992:190) limit and co
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Table 16.3. Faunal Remains Associat
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and often poor vertebrate faunal pr
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the Maine/Maritimes area have argue
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SE: warm season (Rojo 1987:221); sp
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Ethnohistory 36:257-284. Bourque, B
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CHAPTER 17 ABORIGINAL LAND AND RESO
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Table 17.1. Chronological and Ceram
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Among the food plants listed above,
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species, the American eel (Anguilla
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the Early Woodland period. Tools ma
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Copper Resources Throughout the Lat
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midden deposits were located along
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a model with two distinct populatio
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Table 17.2. Summary of Landscape an
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File Report 93-1, Fredericton. Alle
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Anthropology, Temple University, Ph
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stone age found at Maquapit Lake. N
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CHAPTER 18 MAIZE AND VILLAGES: A Su
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use of the term “small village”
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1325 [1425] 1460) (Boyd et al. 1998
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several centuries after its first a
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from excavations at village sites h
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133-156. New York State Museum Bull
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longhouses. American Antiquity 55:4
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CONTRIBUTORS Timothy J. Abel. Carth
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Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change: A.D. 700 –1300

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