Watershed Conservation Plan - Destination Erie

phase represent the most common Late Archaic point series in the eastern Great Lakes region, comprising,
for example, ca. 25% of the diagnostic projectile points recovered during the 1978 survey of Erie and
Crawford Counties, Pennsylvania, by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Johnson et al. 1979:63). In
the upper Allegheny River drainage, sites with Brewerton points are numerous in all topographic settings,
although they are especially common vis-à-vis other types in upland settings (Johnson et al. 1979:63)—as,
for example, in rockshelters within the Allegheny National Forest (Lantz 1982:40).
The Terminal Archaic (ca. 3650–2950 B.P. [1700–1000 B.C.]) in the Northeast is sometimes delineated
as a separate Transitional phase characterized principally by a series of stemmed projectile points (e.g.,
Koens-Crispin, Lehigh Broad, Perkiomen Broadspear, Susquehanna Broad, Forest Notched, Ashtabula, and
Dry Brook types) noted by Johnson (1990) to be included within an entity variously referred to as the
Susquehanna Soapstone culture (Witthoft 1953), Susquehanna culture/tradition (Ritchie 1965), or
Susquehanna phase of the Broadspear tradition (Kinsey 1972). Diagnostic lithic types such as the
Susquehanna Broad point (Witthoft 1953) often occur in association with steatite (i.e., soapstone) vessels.
Although Koens-Crispin and Perkiomen points occur at Terminal Archaic sites in northwestern
Pennsylvania, Susquehanna Broad and Forest Notched points are often the most common point types for this
period in the drainages of this area. Especially common on the Eastern Lake section of northeastern Ohio and
northwestern Pennsylvania are Ashtabula points (Johnson et al. 1979:69). As witnessed throughout the
Middle Atlantic region, generally (Custer 1984; Geasey and Ballweber 1991; Stewart 1984a, 1984b, 1987,
1989), these Terminal Archaic points are frequently manufactured from nonlocal materials, including
rhyollite (probably from Adams County, Pennsylvania), jasper, and argillite. The presence of such exotic
materials at Transitional Archaic sites is usually interpreted as evidence of interregional exchange linked to
higher population density, more circumscribed territories, and greater social complexity at this time (Raber
et al. 1998:130). George (1991:85; 1998:27), however, argues that the appearance of broad points
manufactured from nonlocal materials may indicate an actual population movement into western
Pennsylvania from the lower Susquehanna River drainage.
3.1.3 Woodland Period
The Early Woodland period (ca. 1000 B.C.–A.D. 1) encompasses a time of significant cultural change
over much of the Northeast and Midwest, with the development of horticulture, semi-permanent and
permanent villages, often elaborate mortuary ceremonialism including the construction of mounds, ossuaries
and formal cemeteries, and more complex and far-reaching trade and exchange systems. By the Early
Woodland, the gradual, intensified procurement of local flora that had begun in the Archaic resulted in the
domestication of most of the members of the suite of plants often referred to as the Eastern Agricultural
Complex—that is, squash, marshelder, goosefoot, sunflower, erect knotweed, maygrass, and little barley
(Dancey 2005:112). This process seems to have begun in the Midwest and Midsouth, in areas drained by the
Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee Rivers (Gremillion 2002). In the Ohio Valley specifically, a
pattern of intensified gathering of plant species leading to their management and eventual domestication in
the context of gardens has been documented (Wymer and Abrams 2003:175). Although relatively few open
habitation sites in the middle and upper Ohio Valley dating to the Early Woodland have provided
paleoethnobotanical data, it seems that in this region native cultigens played only a minor role in subsistence
strategies, augmenting a largely foraging system until Middle Woodland times (Wymer and Abrams
2003:189).
The major technological advance during the Early Woodland was the development of ceramic vessels
for cooking and storage. Although isolated finds of Marcey Creek Plain pottery dating to the Terminal
Archaic are reported for Pennsylvania, and the oldest pottery recovered from Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Half
Moon Cord-marked, dates to ca. 1115 B.C. (Johnson 1982:154), this technology appears to become
widespread in the Commonwealth only after ca. 1000 B.C. These early ceramic vessels are quite similar in
design to the generally earlier steatite vessels, with straight sides, flat bottoms, and lug handles, and both may
have functioned primarily in ritual contexts as containers for stone boiling and food serving (Kent 1980:28;
Klein 1997:143–144). The earliest ceramic wares in adjacent northeastern Ohio include Leimbach Thick,
Leimbach Cordmarked, and Ohio Plain (Mustain et al. 2000:12).
The Early Woodland of the Middle and Upper Ohio Valley, including southern Ohio, northern
Kentucky, southeastern Indiana, western West Virginia, and southwestern Pennsylvania, is generally
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