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

CHAPTER 4
THE EARLY LATE WOODLAND
IN THE SOUTHWESTERN LAKE ERIE LITTORAL REGION
David M. Stothers and Timothy J. Abel
INTRODUCTION
This chapter is an overview of the current early Late
Woodland (ca. A.D. 500-1300) database in the southwestern
Lake Erie littoral region, essentially the area
lying in northwestern Ohio and southeastern
Michigan. Our aim is to review data previously published
elsewhere, present data previously unpublished
or unsynthesized, and provide an interpretation of the
early Late Woodland time period. This interpretation is
influenced by our readings on the roles that politics,
power, and resource distribution have had in history
(Wolf 1997). Many will doubt the applicability of such
concepts to nonstratified societies as the early Late
Woodland societies in the Northeast were, but such
forces have existed for much of human history (Cobb
1993) and no doubt influenced prehistoric societies —
much more so, we believe, than many would
acknowledge. The difficulty is not in the concepts but
in our modern views of them, which are shaped by
the society in which we live.
CHRONOLOGY, TAXONOMY,
AND CULTURE
At the A.D. 500 time level, the southwestern Lake
Erie region was occupied by two contiguous archaeological
cultures (Figure 4.1). The westernmost culture,
occupying the coastal marshes surrounding the western
Lake Erie shoreline, is called the Western Basin
Tradition (WBT), consisting of the Gibraltar (A.D. 500-
750), Riviere au Vase (A.D. 750-1000), Younge (A.D.
1000-1200), and Springwells (A.D. 1200-1350) phases.
The cultural manifestation now attributed to the WBT
Gibraltar phase was formerly subsumed into a poorly
defined, noncontinuous and problematic “Wayne
Tradition” (cf. Stothers 1999). Stothers (1994, 1995) has
argued that the Wayne Tradition, and its attendant
“Wayne Mortuary Complex” (Halsey 1999), are integral
aspects of the WBT, which show continuity into
the Riviere au Vase and Younge phases, and that use of
the term in the southwestern Lake Erie region is taxonomically
unsound. The terminology used here is
derived from the cultural chronology forwarded by
Stothers (1999).
Present data suggest that this manifestation originated
in southernmost peninsular Ontario and contiguous
areas of Michigan (Murphy and Ferris 1990; Stothers
and Bechtel 2000). The WBT appears to have been oriented
to the stream estuaries and sand points of northwestern
Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, and by A.D. 700,
this manifestation had spread around the western end
of Lake Erie and across the Erie Islands to occupy the
coastal marshes of the southwestern Lake Erie shore. In
the Sandusky Bay region, they appear to have
encroached upon the other cultural manifestation of
the region, the Sandusky Tradition (ST), which appears
to have originated in northcentral Ohio from a Middle
Woodland Esch phase base. The ST consists of the
Green Creek (A.D. 500-1000), Eiden (A.D. 1000-1250),
Wolf (A.D. 1250-1450), Fort Meigs (A.D. 1450-1550),
and Indian Hills (A.D. 1550-1650) phases, of which
only the first three are discussed here. By A.D. 1200, the
ST had shifted to inland semipermanent settlements
along major lake-draining streams, and territorially
expanded westward around the western end of Lake
Erie into southeastern Michigan and southwestern
Ontario, eventually replacing the WBT. By A.D. 1300,
the WBT had been pushed into the upper reaches of the
Maumee River in Indiana, the upper lower peninsula
of Michigan, and the upper Sydenham River in Ontario
(Figure 4.2) (Stothers 1995, 1999; Stothers and Bechtel
2000; Stothers and Schneider in press).
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 4 The Early Late Woodland in the Southwestern Lake Erie Littoral Region 73