Currado, Julia M C

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LATE ARCHAIC - 2500-1000 B.CREFERENCESExploring the Range of Projectile Point Types on the Late Woodland Middle Ontario Iroquoian Dorchester Village Site  Julia Currado, Western UniversityEARLY AND MIDDLE ARCHAIC - 7500-2500 B.CNettling (7500-8000 B.C) • Found in small numbers at least as far north as latitude 44 degrees in Southwestern Ontario and are most common in the Northwestern Erie drainage basin.   • Seems to be one of the earliest Archaic styles to reach Ontario.  • Nettling points are well made, corner-notched and often serrated.   Brewerton Corner Notched (2500-3500 B.C) • Found throughout much of eastern North America, although reported under a variety of more-or-less synonymous type names.  • Brewerton points are broad bladed and there is also a side-notched variety that could be a resharpened version of the corner notched style. Raddatz (6000-3000 B.C) • Well made and finely serrated.  • Not a commonly identified  type in Ontario.Genesee (1900-1400 B.C) • In southwestern Ontario, most Genesees are  found in the Carolinian biotic province.  • Genesee points are very large and, with their  “Christmas-tree” shape, are one of the most  distinctive styles found in the region. Innes (1000-2000 B.C) • Aside from those 40 points and point fragments from the type site a few kilometres west of Brantford Ontario, other examples are reported from the Grand River drainage, westward in South-western Ontario, and the Butterfield site in Day County Michigan (Wobst, 1968). Ace of Spades (2050-1050 B.C)                Hind (1150-850 B.C) Meadowood (1000-500 B.C) • Occur throughout south-western Ontario, from Bruce County in the north to Essex County in the west and into New York State to the east.   • The best known and most easily recognized biface form of the Early Woodland period in south-western Ontario. • Very thin well made types that are almost always made of the local Onondaga chert from the east end of Lake Erie.MIDDLE WOODLAND- 400B.C - 500A.DSaugeen (500 B.C-500 A.D) • In south-western Ontario, they are common in the Lake Huron drainage (especially the Saugeen, Maitland and Ausable rivers) and are found south to the central Lake Erie shoreline.  • A crudely flaked side-notched form; often difficult to distinguish from Middle Archaic forms like Brewerton. Snyders (200 B.C-50 A.D) • Occasionally found over much of south-western Ontario; however, frequencies appear to increase near Lakes Erie and St. Clair. • Usually well made broad bladed form with distinctive large corner notches.RESEARCH QUESTION/TOPICLATE WOODLAND - 500-1650 A.D• Jack’s Reef (400-600 A.D) • Levanna (700-1350 A.D) • Glen Meyer (750-1300 A.D) • Dewaele  (850-1250 A.D) • Middleport Notched (1250-1400 A.D) • Middleport Triangular (1250-1400 A.D) • Nanticoke Notched (1400-1550 A.D) • Nanticoke Triangular (1400-1600 A.D) • Daniels Triangular (1550-1650 A.D)WHY WERE ARCHAIC PROJECTILE POINTS FOUND ON THIS MIDDLE IROQUOIAN SITE? • Represent occupations by earlier groups? • Found by the Middle Iroquoians and incorporated into their toolkits? • Collected through trade? • As with many things in our modern world, material objects in the past went in an out of style over the years. Archaeologists have documented these stylistic trends by developing typologies showing how the styles of artifacts changed over time in the archaeological record. An extensive projectile point typology has been published for the Great Lakes region. • Although the majority of projectile points at the Dorchester site are Late Woodland types dating between 900 and 1650 A.D., several pre-Iroquoian points were also found on the site that predate the occupation of the Dorchester site by many centuries. For example, the nettling point found in the surface/back dirt dates to over 9000 years prior to the site’s occupation date.  • It is not unusual for older projectile point types to be found in a younger cultural context as prehistoric people often collected older points from the surface and brought them back to their sites (Waters et al., 2018).DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS• Middleport corner notched, Middleport side notched, Middleport triangular, Nanticoke triangular, Nanticoke notched and Dewele reflect the highest % of all identified types in the collection.  • This was to be expected as all of these types fall within the Late Woodland period (500–1650 A.D) and the site is dated to 1300-1400AD. • Yet, there is a wide distribution of pre-Iroquoian point types found in both houses and individual outside features. • One explanation for the presence of these points may be that pre-Iroquoian peoples lived where the Dorchester site was located long before the site was occupied by Iroquoian people, although this explanation is highly unlikely. •  Another explanation for these early projectile points is that occupants of the Dorchester site collected them and brought them back to the site.  • The Iroquoians were farmers and would likely have found these artifacts while working in their fields and gardens, or possibly through trade.  • Support for the latter interpretation is exemplified by the fact that many of the pre-Iroquoian points that were found in house features and outside features were found in close proximity to other pre-Iroquoian points and to late woodland points. House 5                               Snyders (F191) Saugeen (F221)   Innes point (F171)  • This could indicate that they were collected from off site and kept together.  • In conclusion, since most of these pre-Iroquoian points were found in Middle Iroquoian pit features, which are undisturbed archaeological deposits, they must have been deposited there by the Middle Iroquoian people – there are too many cases for this to represent accidental inclusion of artifacts that were on the site from previous occupations.  • Further studies on the distribution of these early projectile points at other Iroquoian sites in southern Ontario could help to confirm this.  • Additionally, looking for evidence of reworking could indicate that points were collected and used by the sites occupants.EARLY WOODLAND - 1000-400 B.C• Ace-of-Spades points seem to be a variant of the Innes type and were also found on the Innes site.• Thought to be a transitional form leading to the Meadowood points of the Early Woodland.Provenience of Pre-Iroquoian Projectile PointsNanticoke TriangularMiddleport Side NotchedMiddleport Corner NotchedNanticoke NotchedThese Late Woodland points are mostly small triangular notched and un-notched forms – they are clearly points meant to tip arrows – part of bow and arrow technology.Outside Feature    Meadowood (F81) Brewerton (F55)                  Nanticoke Triangular (F55)   Glen Meyer (F69) Southwestern Ontario projectile points. Ontario Archaeological Society: London Chapter. (n.d.). http://oaslondonchapter.ca/southwestern-ontario-projectile-points/. Waters, M. R., Keene, J. L., Forman, S. L., Prewitt, E. R., Carlson, D. L., & Wiederhold, J. E. (2018). Pre-Clovis projectile points at The Debra L. friedkin site, TEXAS—IMPLICATIONS for the Late pleistocene peopling of the Americas. Science Advances, 4(10). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat4505 

Exploring the Range of Projectile Point Types on the Late Woodland Middle Ontario Iroquoian Dorchester Village Site

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Exploring the Range of Projectile Point Types on the Late Woodland Middle Ontario Iroquoian Dorchester Village Site

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