Refined Radiocarbon Chronologies for Northern Iroquoian Site Sequences: Implications for Coalescence, Conflict, and the Reception of European Goods

Abstract

This article presents results to date of the Dating Iroquoia project. Our objective is to develop high-precision radiocarbon chronologies for northeastern North American archaeology. Here, we employ Bayesian chronological modeling of 184 AMS radiocarbon dates derived from 42 Northern Iroquoian village sites in five regional sequences in order to construct new date estimates. The resulting revised chronology demands a rethinking of key assumptions about cultural process in the region regarding the directionality and timing of processes of coalescence and conflict and the introduction of European trade goods. The results suggest that internal conflict may have preceded confederacy formation among the Haudenosaunee but not the Wendat, as has been previously assumed. External conflict, previously thought to have begun in the early seventeenth century, began more than a century earlier. New data also indicate that the timing and distribution of European materials were more variable between communities than acknowledged by the logic underlying traditional trade-good chronologies. This enhanced chronological resolution permits the development and application of archaeological theories that center the lived experiences and relational histories of Iroquoian communities, as opposed to the generalized thinking that has dominated past explanatory frameworks.

Isotopic Evidence for Garden Hunting and Resource Depression in the Late Woodland of Northeastern North America

“…Smaller mammalian herbivores ( Figure 6)-rabbits and hares (n = 22, mean = −23.4 ± 2.3‰), groundhogs (n = 53, mean = −24.8 ± 1.4‰), and porcupines (n = 4, mean = −20.5 ± 0.6‰)-that consume more foliage at ground level had lower δ 13 C, with a Coeval codes: 1 = site contemporaneous, 2 = premodern intrusive, 3 = modern intrusive. UGAMS-39598 from Birch et al (2021). For calibration, see Supplementary Text 4.…”

“…AMS dates from 11 small-mammal samples (10 from this study and one from a comparable site; Birch et al 2021) from Late Woodland sites are presented in Table 2. Five specimens date contemporaneously with site occupation, whereas the remaining six specimens date to time frames after site occupation and represent modern ( n = 3) and premodern ( n = 3) intrusions.…”

“…Collagen QC indicators suggest excellent preservation, with 97% of samples (348 of 360) producing acceptable C:N Atomic , %C, and %N values. Including data from the literature ( n = 295; Birch et al 2021; Booth 2014; Hammersley 2016; Katzenberg 1989; Morris 2015; Morris et al 2016), we have a total of 643 samples—155 Early OIT and 488 later OIT (for full results, see Supplemental Table 6). Table 3 provides the means and ranges for all sample groups.…”

“…Our analysis examines a large sample of isotopic compositions from Late Woodland archaeological faunal remains from sites in southern Ontario, Canada (Supplemental Table 1). This includes 360 newly analyzed samples from 19 sites (see Supplemental Text 2) and incorporates isotopic compositions from 295 samples from another 23 sites available in the literature (Birch et al 2021; Booth 2014; Hammersley 2016; Katzenberg 1989; Morris 2015; Morris et al 2016). Wherever possible, samples were selected based on minimum number of individual counts per archaeological context in order to minimize the possibility of analyzing multiple bones from the same individual animal.…”

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

“…Sequences of village sites have typically been defined by the geographic proximity of settlements in specific drainages (e.g., Birch and Williamson 2013;Warrick 2008) and regional ceramic type and attribute seriations (e.g., Niemczycki 1984;Ramsden 1977;Tuck 1971), as well as the type and frequency of European trade goods for sites assumed to postdate 1500 (Bradley 1987;Kenyon and Kenyon 1983). Since at least the 1970s (e.g., Ramsden 1977;Ritchie and Funk 1973;Tuck 1971), it has been assumed that village sites within specific stream basins represent the sequential movements of a single community and, in some cases, coalescences of multiple communities (Birch 2012;Birch and Williamson 2013). This assumption has been strongly relied on in southern Ontario, where a series of subparallel, north-south-trending streams drain into the north shore of Lake Ontario.…”