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Pennsylvania Archaeologist 40(1-2):1-8 Cultural Inferences from Faunal Remains Bert Salwen |
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The midden contents of three Northeastern coastal site's are
analyzed. It is shown that the shell middens on the strandline were
seasonal or periodical special-purpose stations for collecting and
processing shellfish, which, considered alone, would yield a
distorted picture of the total subsistence mode. At Fort Shantok,
an early Mohegan site in eastern Connecticut, the changing
subsistence patterns are traced from the Protohistoric period
through the various historic stages into the Colonial period, when
the pattern shifts to a dependence on the domesticated animals of
the Europeans. |
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Pennsylvania Archaeologist 40(1-2):9-34 The Archery Range Site Ossuary Edward J. Kaeser |
| An absence of reported burial discoveries has prevented an
understanding of the mortuary traits of coastal New York Indian
cultures. The site described here, the second mass burial discovered
in southern New York, indicates a mortuary practice hitherto not
associated with the LateWoodland East River aspect. The mass burial
mode is suggested as a more or less consistent trait of the Bowmans
Brook people prior to and at the time of their replacement of the
Windsor aspect in the area. It appears the practice was abandoned,
either as a result of acculturation or of sudden outside influence,
and that simple flexed-postureor individual disarticulated
bone-bundle burial became the standard practice, with little or no
evidence to imply associated ritualism. On the basis of material
culture analysis, the site is considered a component of coastal New
York's early Clasons Point focus, typically sustained by an economy
of hunting, fishing, gathering, and the collection of shellfis.
Similarities of burial and ceremonial manifestations ranging from
Virginia to the Canadian border are noted. The ossuary concept of
itself helps to explain why so few burials have been discovered in
the area, although it is not in itself positive proof of the
prevalence of the practice. The discovery does emphasize the value
and need of careful work even on what are considered essentially
looted sites. THERE is a significant paucity |
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Pennsylvania Archaeologist 40(1-2):35-42 A Study of Argillite Points in Eastern Pennsylvania William A. Turnbaugh |
| Collection surveys are a more or less standard approach to the
archaeology of any given area. This study departs from that
procedure; it focuses instead on a specific lithic material,
argillite in this instance, and surveys a wider area with the
single-minded purpose of finding possible common denominators for
artifacts made from it. The study seems to yield indications that
the argillite point, in spite of its wide areal distribution, is
limited to a narrow range typologically, and by inference to a
narrow temporal range as well. Peculiarities of its occurrence
together with its typological conformity suggest hypothetically a
unique cultural complex belonging to the Middle Woodland period. |
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Pennsylvania Archaeologist 40(1-2):43-52 A Cache of Utilized Jasper Flake Tools Ira F. Smith III |
| A cache of nearly 250 jasper flake tools was recently discovered
on an island in the lower Susquehanna River. The peculiar
circumstances surrounding the cache are described. Properties of the
material are defined and its provenience is determined. Over 95
percent of the specimens exhibit edge modification from functional
wear. Techniques employed in their manufacture are discussed, and
their function as tools is analyzed. In the light of all
indications, the cache is seen as belonging to a degenerate or
nonevolved bladelet industry of the Middle Woodland period. |
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1970 Pennsylvania Archaeologist 40(3-4):1-20 Two and a Half Centuries of Conflict: The Iroquois and the Laurentian Wars Allan Forbes, Jr. |
| Scholars generally , . especially in this century, have regarded
the League of the Iroquois as a defeated people on the defensive
during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Some writers have
gone so far as to maintain that they were the Iroquoian groups
encountered· by Cartier in 1535, and that they were driven out of
the St. Lawrence Valley by hunting Algonkians who were equipped with
European fire arms. This view is seen as resulting from the
misinterpretation of early sources by Hunt and Innis, whose
influence in turn misled most contemporary writers. This· paper,
relying on those same early ethnographic and ethnohistoric
sources-Champlain, Sagard, the Jesuits presents a different
interpretation of early Iroquois history which places them in a
position of political and military supremacy from 1580 to 1640, the
years during which they were supposed to be on the defensive. It
attempts to account for the widespread misinterpretation of the
Iroquois position and suggests that the struggle for the St.
Lawrence, which Cartier reported in 1535, should be regarded as the
ethnohistoric phase of a military continuum-the Laurentian
Wars-which lasted for two and a half centuries, ending with the
defeat of the French at Quebec and Montreal in the mid-18th century.
The Iroquois are seen as the decisive factor in the long struggle
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1970 Pennsylvania Archaeologist 40(3-4):21-66 |
| The Drew Site excavation described here, a salvage operation in
a very literal sense, barely managed, and sometimes did not, to keep
one jump ahead of a road building crew and vandals. Procedures were
devised to minimize these difficulties, and the resulting data
indicate the site was a village of the Late Prehistoric period, with
a rather minor presence of Archiac, Adena, and Hopewell traits.The
village seems not to have been stockaded, and the function of three
ditches on the northwest edge of the site is not known. It was not
possible to determine house patterns positively , but indications
are that they were large and ranged from circular to rectangular.A
large and complex pottery sample was recovered. The complexities,
which are considered diagnostic of a certain phase of Monongahela
Culture, are defined in detail. Analysis of the sample, as well as
of other artifactual traits, and comparisons with other related
sites indicate that the Drew Site was a relatively early village of
the Monongahela Complex. |
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