Process and Meaning in Spatial Archaeology: Investigations into Pre-Columbian Iroquoian Space and Place

By Eric Jones

Process and Meaning in Spatial Archaeology examines Northern Iroquoian archaeology through various lenses at multiple spatial levels, including individual households, village constructions, relationships between villages in a local region, and relationships between various Iroquoian nations and their territorial homelands. The volume includes scholars and scholarship from both sides of the US-Canadian border, presenting a contextualized analysis of settlement and landscape for a broad range of past Northern Iroquoian societies.
 
The research in this volume represents a new wave of spatial research­—exploring beyond settlement patterning to the process and the meaning behind spatial arrangement of past communities and people—and describes new approaches being used for better understanding of past Northern Iroquoian societies. Addressing topics ranging from household task-scapes and gender relations to bioarchaeology and social network analysis, Process and Meaning in Spatial Archaeology demonstrates the vitality of current archaeological research into ancestral Northern Iroquoian societies and its growing contribution to wider debates in North American archaeology.
 
This cutting-edge research will be of interest to archaeologists globally, as well as academics and graduate students studying Northern Iroquoian societies and cultures, geography, and spatial analysis.
 
Contributors: Kathleen M. S. Allen, Jennifer A. Birch, William Engelbrecht, Crystal Forrest, John P. Hart, Sandra Katz, Robert H. Pihl, Aleksandra Pradzynski, Erin C. Rodriguez, Dean R. Snow, Ronald F. Williamson, Rob Wojtowicz
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Release date: Jan 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781607325109

Book preview

Archaeology

Process and Meaning

in Spatial Archaeology

Investigations into Pre-Columbian Iroquoian Space and Place

Edited by Eric E. Jones and John L. Creese

University Press of Colorado

Boulder

© 2016 by University Press of Colorado

Published by University Press of Colorado

5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C

Boulder, Colorado 80303

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of Association of American University Presses.

The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University.

∞ This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).

ISBN: 978-1-60732-509-3 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-60732-510-9 (ebook)

If the tables in this publication are not displaying properly in your ereader, please contact the publisher to request PDFs of the tables.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jones, Eric E., editor. | Creese, John L. (John Laurence), editor.

Title: Process and meaning in spatial archaeology : investigations into pre-Columbian Iroquoian space and place / editors, Eric E. Jones, Wake Forest University, John L. Creese, North Dakota State University.

Description: Boulder : University Press of Colorado, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016032562| ISBN 9781607325093 (cloth) | ISBN 9781607325109 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Iroquois Indians—Antiquities. | Social archaeology—Northeastern States. | Social archaeology—Canada, Eastern. | Northeastern States—Antiquities. | Canada, Eastern—Antiquities.

Classification: LCC E99.I7 P76 2016 | DDC 974.7004/9755—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016032562

Cover image credits, top to bottom: photo by John L. Creese; photo courtesy of Archaeological Services Inc. and Jennifer Birch; photo by Eric E. Jones; photo courtesy of Archaeological Services Inc. and Jennifer Birch.

Contents

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List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Maps

Preface

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION. Settlement, Space, and Northern Iroquoian Societies

Eric E. Jones and John L. Creese

CHAPTER 1. Dwelling, Daily Life, and Power at Parker Farm

Erin C. Rodriguez and Kathleen M.s. Allen

CHAPTER 2. Growing Pains: Explaining Long-Term Trends in Iroquoian Village Scale, Density, and Layout

John L. Creese

CHAPTER 3. Iroquoian Settlements in Central New York State in the Sixteenth Century: A Case Study of Intra- and Inter-Site Diversity

Kathleen M.s. Allen and Sandra Katz

CHAPTER 4. Multi-Scalar Perspectives on Iroquoian Ceramics: Aggregation and Interaction in Pre-Contact Ontario

Jennifer Birch, Robert B. Wojtowicz, Aleksandra Pradzynski, and Robert H. Pihl

CHAPTER 5. Refining Our Understanding of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Haudenosaunee Settlement Location Choices

Eric E. Jones

CHAPTER 6. Cross-Border Interaction in Iroquoian Bioarchaeological Investigations

Crystal Forrest

CHAPTER 7. Revisiting Onondaga Iroquois Prehistory through Social Network Analysis

John P. Hart and William E. Engelbrecht

CHAPTER 8. The Study of Northern Iroquoia: Before and After the International Boundary

Ronald F. Williamson and Dean Snow

List of Contributors

Index

Figures

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1.1 Diagram of Longhouse 1 compartment with areas of study designated

1.2 Density of lithic material by excavation unit

1.3 Density of ceramic material by excavation unit

1.4 Density of faunal material by excavation unit

2.1 Plot of settlement mean house area over time

2.2 Mean settlement roofed-area density by culture-historic stage

2.3 Scatterplot of settlement area versus settlement roofed area

2.4 Residuals of the roofed area versus settlement area regression plotted against settlement roofed area

2.5 Scatterplot of settlement longhouse angular variance versus roofed-area density

2.6 Scatterplot of settlement longhouse angular clustering index (Rao’s U) versus roofed-area density

2.7 Idealized access graph of an early Late Iroquoian village showing the sequentially nested heterarchical clustering of spaces

2.8 Axial line map of the Draper site (ca. AD 1450–1500) in its final phase

3.1 Parker Farm site plan with location of excavation units

3.2 Carman site plan

3.3 Comparison of cultural material between Parker Farm and Carman

3.4 Comparison of faunal material between Parker Farm and Carman

4.1 Examples of ceramic types employed in this analysis

4.2 Settlement patterns of Iroquoian village sites on the north shore of Lake Ontario

6.1 Growth outcomes for Iroquoian children from Ontario and New York, pre- and post-Contact

6.2 Iroquoian growth in New York and Ontario in the pre-Contact and post-Contact Periods

6.3 Iroquoian growth in Ontario versus New York

7.1 Tuck’s model of Onondaga village chronology

7.2 Collared rim from the Klock site, in traditional Mohawk territory

7.3 Network plot of historical Onondaga territory village sites

7.4 Network plot of 114 post–AD 1350 Iroquoian village sites

7.5 Ego network plots for t1 and t2 historical Onondaga territory sites

7.6 Ego network plot for the t3 Atwell site

Tables

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1.1 Densities (by frequency per m³ of sediment) of lithic and pottery material

1.2 Densities (by weight in grams per m³ of sediment) of faunal material

1.3 Mean densities (per m³) of excavated material by area

1.4 Proportion of usewear traces by study area

2.1 Study site and occupation phase sampling

2.2 Summary of village and house scale–related variables for early, middle, and early Late Iroquoian settlement samples

2.3 Summary of roofed-area density and longhouse orientation and spacing variables for early and middle Late Iroquoian settlement samples

3.1 Western Cayuga site information

3.2 Intra-site comparisons of mean densities of material per cubic meter from units inside and outside structures at Parker Farm and Carman

3.3 Inter-site comparisons of mean densities of material per cubic meter from units inside structures at Parker Farm and Carman

3.4 Inter-site comparisons of mean densities of material per cubic meter from units outside structures at Parker Farm and Carman

3.5 Inter-site comparisons of mean density of material per cubic meter from all site contexts

4.1 Ceramic types, West Duffins Creek sites

4.2 Ceramic types, Humber River sites

5.1 Landscape/environmental factors measured and examined using discriminant function analysis

5.2 Matrix of all eight discriminant function models with function values for each variable

5.3 Matrix of discriminant function analysis models for each Haudenosaunee nation

6.1 Iroquoian sites used in the study

7.1 Sites used in the social network analysis

7.2 BR similarity values and geographic distances for t1 villages in t1 Onondaga territory village ego networks

7.3 BR similarity values and geographic distances for t3 villages in t3 Onondaga territory village ego networks

7.4 Regressions of distance on BR values

7.5 BR similarity values and geographic distances for villages in Atwell’s ego network

8.1 Very simplified summary of factors affecting the accommodation of different disciplinary principles

Maps

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1.1 Map of Parker Farm site in relation to nearby Cayuga sites

2.1 Study area in southern Ontario showing the locations of sampled archaeological sites

3.1 Location of research area and four western Cayuga sites

4.1 Iroquoian village sites on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario

5.1 Location of Northern Iroquoian–speaking populations in northeastern North America, 1600 CE

5.2 Location of the 125 Haudenosaunee settlement sites used in this study

7.1 Locations of sites used in the social network analyses and general traditional territories

Preface

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This volume grew out of a session at the 2011 Society for American Archaeology meetings in Sacramento. The session was titled Bridging the US-Canadian Border: The Anthropological Archaeology of Northern Iroquoian Peoples, and the simple goal was to improve communication between American and Canadian archaeologists working on questions related to Northern Iroquoian societies. Although we are working on similar cultures and addressing similar questions, we communicate sporadically and collaborate even less. Archaeologists of Iroquoian societies are an interesting lot. We are often very familiar—almost obsessively so—with the body of knowledge of our culture area. I place this term in quotations here because the invisible line between the United States and Canada bisects the actual Northern Iroquoian culture area and, as a result, creates two ad hoc culture areas: Ontario Iroquoian and New York Iroquoian. However, we often fail to cross this false boundary—even though Haudenosaunee, Wendat, and other Iroquoian-speaking people, material culture, and ideas did and do all the time—to learn about the totality of Northern Iroquoian diversity and commonalities. As a result, our work has suffered in many ways from a lack of contextualization at greater scales. The hope of the participants was that this session would begin to remedy these problems. We think it has. Since the session, we have had many more discussions across the border, data sharing, a much better knowledge of the literature from Canadian archaeologists, and the beginning of a number of collaborative research projects. Thus, the session was successful in its very simple yet important goal.

As with most archaeological ventures, the completion of one goal spawns new questions and new goals. Session participants presented on a wide variety of topics—including household archaeology, settlement ecology, identity and personhood, Iroquoian-European interactions, paleopathology, spiritualism, settlement coalescence, and ethnogenesis—displaying the vibrancy of Northern Iroquoian archaeology. This was not necessarily surprising to those of us who have worked in the region for more than even a few years. However, an unexpected outcome of the session was the realization that many of the researchers were addressing questions of space and place in creative and informative ways. Research ventures touched on a number of other cultural topics, ranging from subsistence ecology to built space to gender and domestic practice.

While settlement studies have been a part of archaeology since the beginning, this area of research has truly evolved over the last thirty years with the introduction of computing technology, geographic information systems, and the integration of new methods and theoretical models from geography and other fields. This new wave of settlement research has focused not only on the patterning of past societies across the landscape but also on explanations behind those patterns and connections among settlement and society, ideology, and identity. New technology and associated methods are allowing us to test old hypotheses, and our explanations can be routinely supported by rigorous statistical analyses. Canadian and American archaeologists working with data from Iroquoian sites have long been interested in settlement questions and have been at the forefront of these methodological and theoretical developments since the early 1970s. We feel the works in this volume illustrate the continued strength of this tradition in Iroquoian archaeology while pointing to important new directions in the archaeological study of space and place.

Given the breadth and vibrancy of settlement research conducted on both sides of the Canada-US border, we concluded that a publication on this theme would be a valuable and timely project of interest not only to other Iroquoianists but also to researchers investigating questions relating landscape, space, and place to a multitude of other cultural phenomena. Several books and volumes have been dedicated to spatial archaeology, but many are focused on methods. The research projects in this volume use new and innovative spatial archaeology methods along with complex theoretical models to interpret and explain the results. This volume is the result of many months of hard work by many researchers to produce a compilation that not only contributes to the study of space and place in archaeological contexts but also highlights the innovative research that is ongoing in southern Ontario, Québec, and upstate New York using data from Northern Iroquoian archaeological sites.

Acknowledgments

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The editors would like to thank all of the contributors to this volume. We cannot imagine a collaboration among more than a dozen archaeologists going more smoothly than this one did. Thank you for your professionalism and hard work. We would also like to thank all of the participants in the original SAA session whose ideas helped inspire this volume, including Kurt Jordan, Perri Gerard-Little, Neal Ferris, Christopher Watts, Beth Ryan, Michael Rogers, Kevin Hurley, Kathryn Barca, and Greg Braun. Enormous thanks to Jessica d’Arbonne, Darrin Pratt, and the rest of the University Press of Colorado staff for their interest in our session that made this all possible and for their direction, encouragement, and expertise. Three anonymous reviewers helped to significantly improve each chapter and the overall approach of the volume with insightful comments and substantive suggestions. Jean-Luc Pilon and Stacey Girling-Christie graciously provided access to collections used in chapter 5. Staff and student workers in the Wake Forest Department of Anthropology helped greatly with the organization and mailing of hard copies during the review process. Finally, the lead editor needs to specifically thank Sharon DeWitte and Dean Snow for their help and support throughout this process.

Process and Meaning

in Spatial Archaeology

Introduction

Settlement, Space, and Northern Iroquoian Societies

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Eric E. Jones and John L. Creese

As a volume on spatial archaeology, a topic becoming increasingly diverse and complex, it is important to situate our focus and define our goals at the outset. We use the term spatial archaeology here to broadly encompass any archaeological research into the geographic patterning of past human behavior at any scale and explanations for those patterns. Given this definition, the roots of spatial archaeology are as deep as the field itself. Some of the earliest modern archaeological research in the Americas, conducted by such notables as Cyrus Thomas, A. V. Kidder, and Gordon Willey, investigated settlement patterns and placement of monuments and other non-domestic structures. Early studies often included discussions of geographic and environmental setting and environmental explanations for observed patterns. These considerations, in fact, remain an important part of contemporary spatial archaeology. More recently—in the last thirty to forty years—archaeologists have turned their attention to the cultural experiences and meanings associated with space and settings (i.e., landscape) and to how these meanings are related to ecological, economic, social, political, and ideological dimensions of culture (Ashmore 2002; Smith 2003). This shift toward a more culturally aware study of space has been promoted by archaeologists working from both scientific/adaptationalist and interpretive/ideational paradigms, fitting well into Hegmon’s (2003) processual-plus model of archaeological theory.

During the late 1970s, Hodder and Orton (1976) and Clarke (1977) produced seminal works on the methods for analyzing spatial data in archaeological research. These works set the standard for producing statistically supported findings on the geographic patterning of humans on past landscapes. Spatial archaeology was greatly expanded by the incorporation of geographic information systems (GIS) into the field (e.g., Aldenderfer 1981; Conolly and Lake 2006; Kvamme 1991; Wheatley and Gillings 2002), and along with this technological development came the addition of thinking about what spatial patterning meant within proper cultural contexts. Binford (1978, 1980, 1982) conducted some of the earliest work in this new spatial archaeology during his ethnoarchaeological research into Nunamiut settlement and conceptions of space and place. More interpretive approaches came shortly thereafter and were led by Tilley’s (1994) landscape phenomenology.

As in the wider field of archaeology, some of these boundaries between scientific and interpretive studies have become blurred in spatial archaeology. Contemporary research involves a wide variety of topics, including ecological relationships (Allen 1996; Bevan and Conolly 2002; Fletcher 2008; Hasenstab 1996a, 1996b; Hunt 1992; Jones 2010c; Jones and Ellis 2015; Jones et al. 2012; Jones and Wood 2012; MacDonald 2002), social patterning (Llobera 1996), political organization (Carballo and Pluckhahn 2007; Field 2004; Sakaguchi, Morin, and Dickie 2010), landscape construction and perception (Llobera 2001; Smith 2003), and monumentality (Buikstra and Charles 1999; Swanson 2003; Tilley and Bennett 2001). The diversity of questions and approaches featured in this volume illustrates the continuing trend toward theoretical and methodological pluralism in spatial archaeology.

Northern Iroquoian Societies

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In this section we provide a brief primer on the features of Northern Iroquoian societies related to landscape and space for readers more familiar with spatial archaeology than with Northern Iroquoian culture. Each chapter will provide more details about specific periods, regions, sites, and sociocultural groups. Iroquoian is a general term for the language family shared by Northeast and Mid-Atlantic indigenous populations in eastern North America. This language family is divided into two regional sub-groups: Northern Iroquoian (Haudenosaunee [Iroquois], Wendat-Tionnantaté [Huron-Petun], St. Lawrence Iroquois, Neutral, Erie, Susquahannock, and Tuscarora) and Southern Iroquoian (Cherokee) (Mithun 1984). Northern Iroquoian origins in the Northeast are debated (Crawford and Smith 1996; Hart and Brumbach 2009; Malhi, Schultz, and Smith 2001; Snow 1995b, 1996), but after approximately AD 800 material culture patterns appear that are similar to those of Northern Iroquoian cultures at contact. Each of the research ventures in this volume focus on the years AD 800–1600.

Northern Iroquoians practiced swidden agriculture, growing primarily maize, beans, and squash; and they hunted and gathered a variety of wild animal and plant species. Fishing is frequently mentioned in historical accounts but fish remains are less common at archaeological sites, likely as a result of preservation conditions (Engelbrecht 2003:15–16). Gathered plants were an important supplement to the diet, particularly fruits and berries (Monckton 1992). Deer were the primary hunted animal, but elk, bear, beaver, and several species of birds are commonly found in archaeological contexts (Engelbrecht 2003:10–15). The division of labor tended to have men hunting and clearing land and women gathering and tending and harvesting agricultural land.

After AD 800, Northern Iroquoian societies displayed certain distinguishable cultural characteristics compared with other, non-Iroquoian societies in the region. They were matrilineal and matrilocal with corresponding multi-family longhouses for dwellings. These houses were divided into compartments for individuals and nuclear families. Longhouses tended to house members of the same lineage, but there are exceptions (Richards 1967; Snow 2011). From AD 800 to 1700, average village size increased substantially from the low hundreds to around a thousand individuals. The largest Haudenosaunee and Wendat villages reached upward of 3,000 individuals (Jones 2010a, 2010b; Snow 1995b; Warrick 2008) during the seventeenth century. High variability in settlement size existed at this time, as some villages and hamlets continued to house only a few hundred individuals. Northern Iroquoian settlements tended to be compactly built and arranged with longhouses spaced close to one another. They often, but not always, were surrounded by a wooden palisade built for defense (Engelbrecht 2009).

Evidence of violence and conflict occurred from AD 800 on, increasing significantly after AD 1400 (Birch 2012; Williamson 2007). Skeletal trauma, destruction of villages, and substantially built palisades all indicate that warfare occurred regularly during this time. Early historical accounts confirm that low-level warfare was a regular occurrence among Northern Iroquoian societies after the arrival of Europeans as well (Engelbrecht 2003; Snow 1994; Trigger 1988). Causes of warfare have been debated. Fighting over hunting territories, revenge, the need to replenish spiritual losses from death, and population augmentation are cited as likely causes (Richter 1992; Trigger 1988). It is likely that all of these factors were in play, creating a complex sociopolitical landscape in which warfare was a common activity.

Archaeology of Northern Iroquoia

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European, Euro-American, and Euro-Canadian interest in Iroquoian cultures extends back to the first contact between the groups. In southern Ontario, southern Québec, and upstate New York, archaeological research essentially abuts against written documentation of Iroquoian peoples (Engelbrecht 2003; Snow 1994; Trigger 1986, 1988; Warrick 2008). In many cases, archaeological sites have been known since they were occupied in the 1700s, never having been lost to history. A comprehensive history of Northern Iroquoian archaeological investigation is beyond the scope of this chapter. However, for those interested, the aforementioned works by Engelbrecht, Snow, Trigger, and Warrick are the primary sources for learning about the archaeology and culture history of the Haudenosaunee and Wendat. We turn our focus specifically to the history of Northern Iroquoian spatial archaeology.

Spatial studies have long been a strength of archaeological research into Northern Iroquoian societies. The earliest written accounts discuss Iroquoian villages in detail, including their settings and the reasons behind their placement and arrangement (Thwaites 1896–1901; Wrong 1939). As a result, studies of regional Iroquoian settlement often address questions of settlement patterns and the reasons behind them (Allen 1996; Finlayson 1998; Hasenstab 1996a; Hunt 1992; Jones 2010c; Jones and Wood 2012; MacDonald 2002; Pearce 1984; Tuck 1971; Williamson 1985). This area of research has more generally been termed settlement ecology (Stone 1996). Foundational research in the mid-twentieth century (Heidenreich 1978; Ritchie 1965) explored Iroquoian settlement patterns in New York State, including possible factors that influenced settlement location choices by individuals and communities.

The adoption of GIS into archaeological research in the 1980s increased our ability to move beyond proposed explanations by testing them statistically. Documenting the spatial relationship between settlement sites and various landscape features and conducting spatial analyses became more feasible; given prior interests, Iroquoianists quickly adopted this new technology. Several researchers were at the forefront of the integration of settlement theory and GIS-based spatial analyses to explore high-level theory about settlement. In particular, research undertaken by Allen (1996) and Hasenstab (1996a, 1996b; Hasenstab and Johnson 2001) set the standard for exploring past human settlement location choice using GIS. Their research projects independently explored the impact of various environmental and climatic patterns on the settlement patterns of late prehistoric Iroquoian societies, establishing a new direction for Iroquoian settlement ecology studies. More recently, Jones (2006, 2010c) and MacDonald (2002) have continued this research and expanded the theory and methods to include social, political, economic, and ideological factors in addition to standard subsistence factors.

Investigations of site-specific settlement patterns and local landscapes go back to Squier and Davis and their mapping of the Seneca Adams site in the mid-1800s. In 1907, Parker (1907) first reported Iroquoian postmolds but did not attempt to excavate any structures. In Canada, major excavations of Iroquoian villages in Ontario by Wintemberg (e.g., Wintemberg 1936) did not reveal clear house plans. These early observations of middens, earthworks, and palisades failed to translate into a cohesive approach to Iroquoian intra-site settlement archaeology until the late twentieth century.

Having established the antiquity of Iroquoian development in the Northeast using culture-historic methods, archaeologists of the 1950s and 1960s on both sides of the Canada-US border became interested in settlement layouts for the first time. Early strides in Ontario were made by the avocational archaeologist Wilfred Jury, whose extensive excavation of the late-sixteenth-century Wendat Forget site might have marked a watershed in Iroquoian settlement excavation and analysis had it been published. Jury excavated the longhouses at Forget in a series of narrow parallel trenches, allowing him to meticulously record each post and pit in both plan and profile (Finlayson 2001). At about the same time, in New York State Ritchie initiated a major study of Woodland settlement patterns that included the excavation and publication of settlement plans from a number of ancestral Haudenosaunee sites such as Roundtop and Garoga (Ritchie and Funk 1973).

These early efforts have been criticized for their limited exposures and tendency to chase walls, leaving major areas of site plans unexposed or unreported (Trigger 1985). Moreover, settlement patterns were used primarily as evidence to augment culture-historic and taxonomic debates and as such figured little in Wright’s