"A Great Collection of Indian Relics"

‘A GREAT COLLECTION OF INDIAN RELICS’
FROM A DESTROYED
LATE ARCHAIC AND EARLY WOODLAND MORTUARY CENTRE IN EASTERN ONTARIO

Paper presented at the 21st Annual Meeting of the Canadian Archaeological Association, Fredericton

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS

In 1987 Guy Blomeley, a long time resident of the Kingston area and keen amateur archaeologist, donated his collection of artifacts to the Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation. Part of the collection consisted of a large group of finds which Guy had bought at an auction, from the former Wattam farm near Verona, Ontario. Guy’s portion of the original collection has been estimated to be about one third of the material offered for sale. The larger portion was bought by an unidentified person from the United States, and for now at least, is unavailable for study.

In 1981 Phill Wright of the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Communications did some preliminary recording and analysis of the materials while they were still in Guy’s possession. He also visited the Wattam farm, examined materials in the current owners collection and undertook some testing of the various areas from which finds had been reported. Phill kindly provided full access to his field notes, photographs and report drafts so that we could start to pull all the information together. Morag Kersel has now completed a full analysis and inventory of the artifacts so that suitable items can be considered for inclusion in displays at the Kingston Archaeological Centre.

As Hugh Daechsel explained in the previous paper this work is part of the Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation’s efforts to expand our collective knowledge of the areas around our home base. The York Site, as the old Wattam Farm site is now known, is one of the sites within this study. Actually, Phill Wright's test pit survey has demonstrated that there are really a number of sites in this vicinity, but for the purposes of this paper they will be considered as one entity. This attempt to reconstruct the site, on the basis of the limited information available, is truly a joint effort.

Like most of us, I get excited about nice artifacts, but I can’t take all the credit for the title for this paper. An October 1935 newspaper article in the Kingston Whig Standard entitled “Indian Skeletons Are Unearthed At Verona” was subtitled “Great Collection of Indian Relics Found By Thomas Wattam”. It describes how,

‘there have been unearthed scores of the most interesting Indan relics, including tomahawks, knives, arrow-points and other instruments of war used by the Indians.’

‘Many places on Mr. Wattams Farm have been plowed or spaded in quest of these late relics, and hundreds of human skeletons have been found, accompanied by many other interesting finds, including shells of various types and sizes, evidently worn for adornment or to denote the rank of the wearer.’

Reading this, it seems as though the human remains were considered something of a nuisance, impeding the real business of finding ‘neat stuff’. The only discussion or interest in the remains is an almost standard reference that,

‘By what can be learned from observation, it is quite evident that the aborigines of American Indians were much larger men than those of other tribes.’

In a recent conversation, Rod York, the sites owner explained how the skeletons were loaded on to a wagon, then reburied nearby. No human remains are present in the Blomeley collection thus do not form part of this analysis.

The newspaper references to human remains makes it clear that the York Site contained a major prehistoric cemetery and verbal reports suggest that a prominent burial mound once existed in the area. The mound is still visible on the west side of the farm, where a soil covered bedrock knoll projects into the marsh. Even after fifty years the mound still bears the traces of the excavations. Many of the artifacts which we have available for study are those such as pendants and gorgets, which have been commonly associated with burials and are assumed to have come from the mound.

It is equally clear that a substantial domestic occupation also occurred nearby, and that many of the artifacts came from this rather than from the burial areas. During Phill Wrights investigation of the site, five separate locations from which artifacts had been recovered, were recognised. These were the ‘looted mound’ also known as Wattam’s Mound; Area 1 - a long sand spit called ‘the Back Ridge'; Area 2 - the Fox ridge, a terrace and rock knoll; Area 3 - another rock outcrop in a level plain; and Area A - the ridge upon which the current farm buildings are situated. Phill’s testing of the Backridge, the Fox Ridge and around the Farm buildings provided evidence that sites still exist in these areas which would be worthy of further study. They also provided an indication that ceramic sherds of Middle and Late Woodland date were common in these areas, although they were not represented amongst the ‘goodies’ of the Blomely collection.

Lacking specific provenience information, we must assume, based on information derived from other sites, that some artifacts are more likely to have been mortuary inclusions and that others are more likely to have served a more prosaic function.

At a more general level, since we lack detailed information about the intra site location and distribution of the artifacts we are forced to deal with the assemblage simply as a collection of material from a known geographical location in Eastern Ontario. Any temporal conclusions we draw are therefore based on comparisons with more well dated sites from the surrounding areas. The value of this exercise is that it helps to fill in some gaps in our understanding of the archaeology of Eastern Ontario; an area which has received relatively little archaeological attention to date. Such studies are significant in that they provide a general framework within which to refine our picture of the areas prehistoric past.

ENVIRONMENT

The York Site lies close to the headwaters of the Napanee River , which is one of a series of rivers which drain southwest from the Canadian Shield across the Napanee Limestone Plain and into the north shore of Lake Ontario. The headwaters area consists of a large marsh which extends from Camden Lake in the west to Pond Lily Lake in the east, and is drained by the Napanee River and it’s tributary, Hardwood Creek. The north side of the marsh lies along the southern edge of the Precambrian rocks of the Canadian Shield, while the southern edge lies firmly on the Ordovician lirnestones of the Napanee Plain. The marsh extends almost as far as Petworth, at which point the river acquires a more river-like appearance.

The York Site is situated at the tip of a sand plain which extends south into the marsh, close to the confluence of the Napanee River and Hardwood Creek.

This whole area was once covered by waters of post glacial Lake Iroquois. In more recent times the area which is now marsh and peat bog was probably covered by a single large lake. Three explanations for the disappearance of this lake have been postulated. At first it was suspected that this lake may have existed into the historical past, only to be drained when seismic activity in the Trois Riviere area during the seventeenth century affected the height of the bedrock sill at Petworth. The stability of the bedrocks in the area and the distance from the quakes epicentre make this hypothesis unlikely. The second suggestion is that erosion of the sill at the exit of the lake may have led to the rapid lowering of the lake and the subsequent development of the marsh. However, there is little evidence of former higher water levels anywhere along the marsh shores. The most plausible explanation for the extensive marsh land is that the shallow waters of the former lake have gradually been colonized by marsh plants, and that the whole area in the process of turning in to a peat bog.

At this stage of our investigations we cannot be sure whether the York Site was surrounded by water or marsh at the time of its principal occupation, although it’s current inaccessibility from either Hardwood Creek or Napanee River does suggest that the marsh has further colonized the area in the intervening years. One can assume that at the time the site was occupied, there was less marsh and more open water in the area. This combination of conditions was actively sought by Terminal Archaic and Early Woodland populations throughout the lower Great Lakes region (Spence and Fox 1986: 30). The location of the site, at the junction of two major physiographic regions with their divergent plant and animal communities, would have provided a rich mix of resources from which the inhabitants of the site could draw. Many of the artifacts in this current study are assumed to have come from the destroyed mound, although the multi-component / multi-function nature of the site is clearly reflected in the material.

ARTIFACT DISCUSSION

The earliest artifacts from the site suggest an occupancy beginning some time during the third millennium B.C. A Lamoka-like bevelled adze may relate to an early Laurentian occupation of the site and a pair of ground slate points (SLIDE), one of which has a serrated tang and clear lashing abrasions, a possible preform of the same material, and a number of Brewerton-like corner notched points are also assumed to relate to a late Middle Archaic occupation. By the last couple of thousand years prior to the Christian era, the sand peninsula was clearly in regular use. This assumption is based on the presence of a variety of narrow, broad and small points typical of Late and

Terminal Archaic occupations throughout southern Ontario and New York State. These exhibit various degrees of wear, damage and modification suggesting that they were more probably of domestic rather than mortuary use. A number of the ground stone gouges, axes and adzes in the collection and a variety of chert drills may also relate to this period. Some large, roughly flaked quartz and quartzite artifacts suggest a relationship with Shield Archaic populations. This should not be too surprising given the sites geographical setting on the Shield edge.

The earliest clear mortuary evidence from the site comes in the form of a rather attractive marine shell gorget

This is interpreted as a grave offering relating to a Glacial Kame burial of Terminal Archaic date perhaps dating to between 1200 and 900 B.C. The large central shell is a modified Atlantic Deep Sea Scallop. Some of the smaller examples are made from single smaller scallop shells, while others are manufactured from fragments of much larger shells which had been ground and modified to resemble whole shells. The large shell, and one of the smaller ones include some linear surface decoration. A single Atlantic grey Cowrie shell bead, from southeast Florida or the Gulf of Mexico was also included in the collection. From the text of the newspaper article it would appear that these are a fraction of the shell artifacts originally recovered from the site and it is likely that many Glacial Kame burials originally existed at this location.

Another artifact which may relate to the Glacial Kame burial complex is this fine Cannel Coal constricted centre gorget. Although only one terminal is present, and one side is badly delaminated, some attractive incising is preserved Cannel Coal gorgets of this type are a rare occurance in Glacial Kame interments (Converse 1980, cited in Spence and Fox 1986). A contracting centre gorget of stone was recovered from the Meadowood Hunter Site, in adjacent Jefferson County, New York, suggesting that the form, at least, of this type of gorget was fairly durable and extended into Early Woodland times. This green slate two hole gorget may also relate to this phase of the sites use . Its form is similar to a decorated three hole example from the Hind Site in southwestern Ontario.

Glacial Kame burials are not unknown from the Kingston area. The well known Picton burials, excavated by Ritchie in 1952, lie about forty miles to the southwest of this site and the Collins Bay burial, also reported by Ritchie lies a mere twenty miles to the south. Shortly after Ritchie’s examination of the Collin’s Bay burial, Guy Blomeley salvaged an almost identical Glacial Kame burial nearby, in advance of railway construction. Like Ritchies, the burial Guy excavated contained an elongated shell gorget and a large unperforated shell object in the form of a bear canine. Early Woodland use of the area by Meadowood people is indicated by numerous finely thinned Onondaga chert cache blades or preforms side notched Meadowood bifaces and Steubenville Stemmed and Lanceolate Points . That at least part of these peoples use of the area was domestic in nature, is suggested by Meadowood bifaces which have been reworked. . In this case into end scrapers.

A bar type birdstone fragment provides a suggestion of Early Woodland mortuary activity since such birdstones are a common Meadowood grave inclusion.

Evidence of mortuary activity from the transitional period between the Early Woodland to Middle Woodland periods is hinted at by the inclusion of this fine ‘bar amulet’ , or expanding centre bar gorget. Such gorgets are generally thought to be a late Adena trait. In this regional context the artifact is best interpreted as indicating Middlesex complex mortuary activity at the York Site. Middlesex burials are recorded from a number of locations to the west of Kingston, at the See Mound near Gananoque, and on Wolfe Island. Although many classic Adena traits are missing from the artifact collections from these sites, and this has been used to suggest limited direct contact with Adena people, the presence of this artifact on a site well inland from the St. Lawrence River, helps to expand our sense of the geographical extent of that influence.

As I began to analyse the York Site artifacts I realised that my original assessment of the material provided only part of the story, and that a substantial Middle Woodland component could be recognised within the collection. This observation has been corroborated since I gained access to Phill Wright's notes and discovered the extent of the Middle Woodland ceramics he found during testing, particularly around the York Farm buildings.

That Middle Woodland burials were also present at the site is suggested by the presence of a beautifully ground banded slate gorget , similar in shape, degree of finish and raw material to banded Middle Woodland pendants from the Kipp Island phase, these three Onondaga chert prismatic blades, a variety of small gorgets and pendants, and the stem section of a flat based, ridged soapstone pipe. Only a few bone artifacts were included in the collection, but these too are of artifacts which have been associated with Kipp Island phase burials and domestic sites. Two perforated wolf or dog canine teeth, the tips of two unilaterally barbed harpoons, and an awl may also relate to this phase of site use. A guess date of somewhere between A.D. 1 and A.D. 400 is thus suggested.

Lastly, a few small and medium sized triangular points indicate that this marsh and lake edge site continued to provide favourable environmental conditions for a small Late Woodland occupation.

SUMMARY

This overview study of the artifacts from the York Site that the site was used for both domestic and mortuary purposes between the Late Middle Archaic period and the Late Woodland period. While people clearly resorted to a number of spots on the sand peninsula to take advantage of the mixture of resources provided by the marsh, lake, upland and plain, throughout this broad time period, burial activities seem restricted to the Terminal Archaic, Early Woodland and Middle Woodland periods.

In this assessment of the artifacts there are a lot of if’s, and’s, and maybe’s. The collection is but a fragment of what has been unearthed from the site, there is no specific provenience information and there are no absolute ways of dating the cultural materials. On the other hand, we have at our disposal a collection of artifacts from a single spot on the map. Through comparison with more well dated and closely studied sites the artifacts convey something at least about the people who used this area and help to broaden our understanding of the cultural influences which affected the native people of Eastern Ontario through time. We can put one more dot on the distribution map of Terminal Archaic Glacial Kame burials in Eastern Ontario, and perhaps extend our perspective of Adena influenced Middlesex sites away from the St. Lawrence River Valley to include this up country site. Artifacts which suggest a Kipp Island phase Point Peninsula burial also provide an insight into the durability of this area as a significant mortuary centre.

If, as I suspect, all the mortuary related artifacts came from the ‘Wattam’ s Mound’, they suggest that once the area had become known as a place of burial during the Terminal Archaic period, it retained it’s sanctity through succeeding generations.

Nick Adams 1989