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

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

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Lake Huron<br />

N<br />

Parker<br />

0 25 miles<br />

0 25 kilometers<br />

Wolf/Verchave<br />

Libby-Miller<br />

O N T A R I O<br />

Lake<br />

St. Clair<br />

Weiser<br />

Liahn I<br />

Caron<br />

King<br />

Grape<br />

Lucier<br />

L a k e E r i e<br />

MICHIGAN<br />

OHIO<br />

Indian Hills<br />

Wright<br />

Fort Meigs<br />

Williams Petersen<br />

Dodge<br />

Crown<br />

Bear Fort<br />

Blue Banks<br />

Pearson<br />

Whittlesey<br />

Baker T,<br />

Esch<br />

Green Creek<br />

Cemetery<br />

Ridge<br />

Anderson<br />

Jenkins<br />

Mixter<br />

Spettel, Betchman<br />

Eiden<br />

J. Skiba<br />

Figure 4.6. Site locations of the Sandusky Tradition mentioned in the text.<br />

tion, and skull plaque removal. This practice appears<br />

directly analogous to the historically documented<br />

Feast of the Dead rituals among the Huron, in which<br />

skeletons were rearticulated and hung from scaffolds<br />

prior to burial in an ossuary pit (cf. Greenman 1937;<br />

Redmond 1982; Stothers and Bechtel 2000; Stothers et<br />

al. 1994; Wilkinson and Bender 1991).<br />

The Riviere au Vase phase settlement pattern is characterized<br />

by a continuation of intensified lake edge<br />

habitat exploitation (Bechtel and Stothers 1993;<br />

Murphy and Ferris 1990). Large mortuary districts,<br />

consisting of expansive cemetery areas and overlapping<br />

habitations, are located predominantly on fossil<br />

beach strands associated with secondary tributaries of<br />

the major western Lake Erie drainages. These areas<br />

were once covered by tall prairie grasslands (Veatch<br />

1959; Gordon 1966, 1969), but are today referred to as<br />

sand points. Inundation and shoreline action has<br />

reworked most of these areas into lacustrine coastal<br />

marshes, unfortunately destroying a significant part of<br />

the Riviere au Vase phase archaeological record<br />

(Stothers and Abel 2001). Faunal remains at these sites<br />

are unsurprisingly dominated by fish and aquatic<br />

mammal remains (Keenlyside 1978; Schneider 2000).<br />

The warm weather occupations are complemented by<br />

fall nutting and over wintering camps located in the<br />

interior. The Riviere au Vase settlement/subsistence<br />

program can thus be best summarized as a continuation<br />

of mixed harvesting strategies, despite the presence<br />

and sometimes intensive consumption of maize,<br />

as evidenced by archaeologically recovered maize and<br />

stable carbon isotope ratios (see below).<br />

In stark contrast to Gibraltar phase ceramics, the ST<br />

Green Creek phase (A.D. 500-1000) is characterized by<br />

small, collarless, globular, inverted to vertical rimmed<br />

vessels with no interior decoration. Cord-malleation is<br />

restricted to the body, while the rim is embellished<br />

with vertical cording. There has been no documentation<br />

of cord-on-cord decoration on Green Creek series<br />

ceramics. Toward the end of the Green Creek phase,<br />

checkered, stamped motifs become common on<br />

smooth vertical rims, an obvious preview to Eiden<br />

phase Mixter Ware (Abel 1999). Green Creek phase<br />

ceramics often occur along with triangular Levanna<br />

78 Stothers and Abel

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