Trade and Exchange in the Midwestern United States

Knapping quality of local versus exotic Upper Mercer chert (Ohio, USA) during the Holocene

“…Two central factors that likely affected the quality of Upper Mercer chert available in the northern Ohio region are group mobility and mode of acquisition. There are multiple models for the acquisition of raw materials (e.g., Brose, 1994; Meltzer, 1985; Renfrew & Bahn, 2016). During the Early Paleoindian (Clovis) period, the most prevalent mode of acquisition of Upper Mercer chert for groups inhabiting the region would have likely been via direct procurement (e.g.…”

“…Middle Archaic groups were also socially and technologically differentiated to the extent that in some instances, intergroup exchange can be identified, such as the presence of cherts from the Allegheny Plateau in the Great Lakes/Ohio Valley region (Prufer & Long, 1986). Although people were still highly seasonally mobile due to resource scheduling (Brose, 1994; Prufer et al, 2001), they might have remained in one area for longer periods of time. As a result of this more regionally sedentary pattern, northern Ohio groups would have relied on more locally available chert sources, rather than regularly returning to the Upper Mercer outcrop.…”

“…During this long era of slow cultural change and adaptation to regional ecology, other modes of raw material acquisition likely became prevalent, such as reciprocity, where groups exchange materials, often at the boundaries of their territories. Eventually down‐the‐line trade may have emerged (Brose, 1994; Renfrew & Bahn, 2016), which is an extension of reciprocity, but involves a more directional movement of a given raw material away from the source. In either exchange mechanism, reciprocity or down‐the‐line trade, the groups closest to the Upper Mercer outcrop, like those at the Welling site, would have had better knowledge of the extent of toolstone variability relative to northern Ohio people, and thus could have exerted some form of control over the access to the material, keeping the highest‐quality rock for themselves and trading lower‐quality varieties away.…”

“…), groups probably became even more sedentary than Late Archaic peoples, and this decrease in mobility was largely due to the development and reliance upon plant cultivation as a major food source. It is at this point in time, due to the precise scheduling of crop management, that groups became increasingly localized, and populations expanded to the point of seasonal resource catchment overlap (Brose, 1994). The standardized distributions in mortuary contexts of ochre‐covered caches featuring bifacially worked exotic cherts are evidence of down‐the‐line exchange (Brose, 1985).…”

“…In central and southern Ohio, maize became an important food staple. In the northern regions, subsistence economies were mixed, relying on agriculture but also focused on hunting and fishing (Brose, 1994). Villages continued to grow in size and there is evidence for increasing intergroup violence as well as emerging intragroup stratification (Lepper, 2005; Redmond, 1999).…”