Conflict, Population Movement, and Microscale Social Networks in Northern Iroquoian Archaeology

Abstract

We employ social network analysis of collar decoration on Iroquoian vessels to conduct a multiscalar analysis of signaling practices among ancestral Huron-Wendat communities on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Our analysis focuses on the microscale of the West Duffins Creek community relocation sequence as well as the mesoscale, incorporating several populations to the west. The data demonstrate that network ties were stronger among populations in adjacent drainages as opposed to within drainage-specific sequences, providing evidence for west-to-east population movement, especially as conflict between Wendat and Haudenosaunee populations escalated in the sixteenth century. These results suggest that although coalescence may have initially involved the incorporation of peoples from microscale (local) networks, populations originating among wider mesoscale (subregional) networks contributed to later coalescent communities. These findings challenge previous models of village relocation and settlement aggregation that oversimplified these processes.

The Heterogeneity of Social Network and Institutional Covariance in the American Southeast

“…For each period of time, a range of metrics is calculated to compare how these processes unfolded through time and to compare which properties of networks were subject to transformation (e.g., increasing or decreasing connectivity, average path lengths, modularity, etc.). For the Northern Iroquoia region of southern Ontario and New York state, archaeologists have built networks for slices of time to understand histories of conflict, population movements, coalescence, and transformations to sociopolitical relationships (Birch and Hart 2021;Hart et al 2017Hart et al , 2019. The archaeological network research in Southern Appalachia similarly takes as its focus the comparison of networks assigned to different time periods, evaluating how and why networks were transformed or remained stable in the face of sociopolitical change (Lulewicz 2019a).…”

A CENTENNIAL AMBIGUITY: THE CHALLENGE OF RESOLVING THE DATE OF THE JEAN-BAPTISTE LAINÉ (MANTLE), ONTARIO, SITE—AROUND AD 1500 OR AD 1600?—AND THE CASE FOR WOOD-CHARCOAL AS A TERMINUS POST QUEM

“…40 years, we may assume that not all this large age range is in fact equally likely. As discussed in previous work, we may consider the effect of applying an assumption reflecting this prior information (Manning et al 2020;Birch et al 2021). Incorporating this site duration limit assumption can take the form of a constraint applied to an Interval query applied to the overall site Phase.…”

“…14 C dates and Bayesian chronological modeling have prompted a substantive methods and theory critique of previously assumed models of chronology and, as importantly, socioeconomic practices in northeastern North America (Manning et al 2018a;Manning and Hart 2019;Birch et al 2021). The evidence indicates that the dates for some sites need radical revision (e.g., Draper, J-BL), whereas long assumed dates for other sites are confirmed (e.g., Warminster).…”

“…However, do we continue to regard the accepted inferred Draper-Spang-Mantle (J-BL) settlement sequence (Birch and Williamson 2013) as secure? Times and thinking continue to change and (hopefully) improve: the 14 Cled rethink of this period in northeastern North America, in particular, has led to critical re-assessment of a number of past assumptions and theoretical constructs (e.g., Birch 2020;Birch et al 2021;Manning et al , 2021. In particular, recent work based on both social network analysis and 14 C has now strongly questioned several past assumptions concerning inferred linear site sequences/order relationships, and in turn the nature and extent of population circulation and movement between villages in different sequences (e.g., Manning and Hart 2019;Birch and Lesage 2020;Hart 2020;Birch and Hart 2021;Manning et al 2021).…”

Complicating an early state: a social network analysis of agents in Wari art (c.AD 700–850)

“…The links between settlements tend to be imported artefacts or shared decorative elements, such as those on ceramics (e.g. Lulewicz 2019; Birch & Hart 2021). Previous applications of SNA to early states share this focus on settlements and mutual assemblages, improving our understanding of incipient economic, political and social relationships (e.g.…”