Two Stratified Sites on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin 9781949098198, 9781951519421

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
Part I. The Heins Creek Site
I. Location and Nonceramic Remains
II. Pottery from the Heins Creek Site
Part II. The Mero Site
III. Location and Field Procedure
IV. Physical Stratigraphy of the Mero Site
V. Artifacts of Chipped Flint
VI. Artifacts of Pecked and Ground Stone, Copper, and Bone
VII. The North Bay I Ceramic Assemblage
VIII. The North Bay II Ceramic Assemblage
IX. Additional North Bay Material and an Analysis of the North Bay Complex
X. Late Woodland at the Mero Site
XI. The Mero Site Oneota Components
XII. Summary and Conclusions
Appendix I
Appendix II
References
Plates

Citation preview

ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS, MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, NO. 26

TWO STRATIFIED SITES ON THE DOOR PENINSULA OF WISCONSIN

by RONALD J. MASON

ANN ARBOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 1966

© 1966 by the Regents of the University of Michigan The Museum of Anthropology All rights reserved ISBN (print): 978-1-949098-19-8 ISBN (ebook): 978-1-951519-42-1 Browse all of our books at sites.lsa.umich.edu/archaeology-books. Order our books from the University of Michigan Press at www.press.umich.edu. For permissions, questions, or manuscript queries, contact Museum publications by email at [email protected] or visit the Museum website at lsa.umich.edu/ummaa.

PREFACE

In 1960, during part of the months of June through September, my wife, Carol Irwin Mason, and I directed archaeological excavations at the exceptionally important Mero site in Door County, Wisconsin. The following summer, field work was undertaken at other sites on the Door Peninsula, including the long plundered but poorly known Heins Creek site. This research was conducted under the aegis of the Neville Public Museum of Green Bay on whose staff I was at that time a member. It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to the director of that institution, James L. Quinn, for his enthusiastic support of our work and his provision of prolonged release from other museum duties. All of this field work was made possible by the generosity of Peter G. S. Mero, the owner of the Mero site. What follows is a description and analysis of the cultural remains from the multicomponent and stratified Mero site augmented by the information obtained in limited excavations at the Heins Creek site, and interpreted in the context of Wisconsin and Upper Great Lakes archaeology. The Mero site, heretofore unknown to archaeologists and collectors alike, was discovered by myself and my wife while investigating another site, also on Mr. Mero's property. The latter site was brought to the attention of the museum by the late Robert H. Becker, former outdoors editor of The Chicago Tribune, and a dedicated naturalist widely read in American archaeology. The forming of a warm friendship with this remarkable gentleman was one of the principal personal rewards of this field work. Peter G. S. Mero, the site owner, demonstrated his more than academic interest in scientific problems by underwriting our ensuing field work and costs of publication. It is through his interest and unstinting generosity that the unusually rich record of the site we have named after him was made available for archaeological investigation. Of our personal esteem and affection he already knows. Among the archaeologists with whom I have discussed problems in the interpretation of the Mero site I must first acknowledge my gratitude to my wife and colleague, Carol Irwin Mason, who codirected the excavations with me and participated in much of the laboratory work. The magnitude of her influence would be difficult to delimit, but it has been both great and fruitful. As always I am also greatly indebted to George I. Quimby for several welcome visits, both in and away from the field, during which he examined

iii

iv

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

some of the excavated material and offered valuable comments based on his wide experience in the Upper Great Lakes. Worthwhile discussions of some of the material were also had with Moreau S. Maxwell and Robert L. Hall. Other archaeologists who have seen and registered opinions on much more limited samples of the Mero site artifacts are Tyler Bastian, Lewis R. Binford, Alan McPherron, Dan F. Morse, Gregory Perino, Olaf H. Prufer, and Chandler W. Rowe. I am indebted to them all. An appreciable debt is also owed to those many other archeologists whose publications on aspects of Wisconsin prehistory have provided valuable comparative data and ideas. Charles E. Cleland identified the faunal remains. The following monograph is essentially a considered revision of my doctoral dissertation at The University of Michigan. It is thus a double pleasure to acknowledge my debt to the members of my doctoral committee: James B. Griffin (chairman), Donald F. Eschman, Emerson F. Greenman, Arthur J. Jelinek, and James E. Fitting. Richard 0. Keslin read and criticized an earlier version. James B. Griffin especially deserves my thanks for his painstaking and always constructive criticism and for arranging publication of the manuscript. Finally, some of the ideas and interpretations of data which follow are at variance with certain of those expressed by some of the scholars mentioned above. Like theirs, they will be subject to future scrutiny. Since pertinent criticism among scholars is one of the chief guarantees of increasing correspondence between scientific statements and the truth they seek, I have not hesitated to take issue with current opinion where this seemed necessary. Such criticism, of course, is directed at issues and not individuals. Ronald J. Mason

CONTENTS Page 1

Introduction • • • • . . . . . . . • . . . . PART I. THE HEINS CREEK SITE Chapter

7

Location and Nonceramic Remains II

Pottery from the Heins Creek Site • • • • . • • . • • • • • • • • 14 PART II. THE MERO SITE

III

Location and Field Procedure. • • . • • • • . . . • • • • • • • . .

29

IV

Physical Stratigraphy of the Mero Site. • . . . . . . • . • • • •

36

V

Artifacts of Chipped Flint . • . . . . . . . • . • . • . . • • . • • • 53

VI

Artifacts of Pecked and Ground Stone, Copper, and Bone. • 67

VII

The North Bay I Ceramic Assemblage . • . . . . • • • • • • • •

75

VIII

The North Bay II Ceramic Assemblage. • . • • . . . . • • . . .

88

IX

Additional North Bay Material and an Analysis of the North Bay Complex • • . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • • • 101

X

Late Woodland at the Mero Site . • • . . • . . • . . • • . • . • . • 126

XI

The Mero Site Oneota Components • • • . . . . . . • . • . . • • • 159

XII

Summary and Conclusions • . . . . . . . . • • • . • • . . . • • . . 188

Appendix I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Appendix II . • . . • • . . • . . , . • . . . • • . . . • . • • . • . • . . • . . . • • . • 202 References. . . . ..•• , •••. , , • . . • . • .

. .•..••.••••• 209

Plates • . • . • • . • • • • • . . • • • . . • • • . • . • . . . . • • • • • • . • • • . . • 216

v

SITE

HEINS CREEK SITE

0

BAY

5 MILES

Figure 1. The upper Door Peninsula of Wisconsin.

INTRODUCTI ON The Door Peninsula is the most prominent coastal feature of eastern Wisconsin. Comprising all of Door County, northern Kewaunee, and northeastern Brown counties, this great ridge of dolomitic limestone divides Lake Michigan from the waters Broken up into several of its western arm, Green Bay. end, it looks westnorthern its at islands large and small across Green shoreline precipitous and indented an from ward Bay to mainland northeastern Wisconsin, and northward across islands and straits to the Garden Peninsula of Upper Michigan. The eastern or Lake Michigan coast, while even more irregular in outline, is lower and has fewer areas of marked relief. As the description suggests, the peninsula rises from the waters of Lake Michigan as part of the south-southw est north-northea st trending Niagara cuesta. Green Bay faces the escarpment while the back slope of the cuesta fronts the lake. The entire region is encompassed in the Wisconsin Eastern Ridges and Lowlands Province (Martin, 1916). Except for a narrow exposure of shale along parts of the western or Green Bay shore, the bedrock is entirely limestone or dolomite. This is liberally exposed in many places, especially along the present, as well as the older, now uplifted, coasts. More frequently it is mantled with glacial till. Many areas of once marked relief have been greatly reduced by the planing and filling of former glaciers, and many localities preserve the wave-cut benches and other topographical features created by a long sequence of high postglacial lake stages in the Green Bay and Lake Michigan basins. For the purposes of this study, the Door Peninsula may divided into a lower (or southern) and an conveniently be upper (or northern) half, with Sturgeon Bay and the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal as the geographical dividing line. The upper peninsula is about 10 miles wide at its southern end; near the tip it is only 3 miles across from Rowleys Bay on Lake Michigan to Ellison Bay on the other side. Excluding the offshore islands, it is approximatel y 38 miles long. The entire Door Peninsula from its base to the north shore of Rock Island is about 84 miles long. In this view, the upper peninsula is an elongated island whose shorelines are more dramatically interrupted by bays and inlets than is true farther south. Typically, rocky and wave-cut headlands fringed by shallowly

2

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

submerged rock shoals confront Lake Michigan. Nestled between these coastal prominences are large shallow bays, some of which reveal stretches of sandy shore. In still other sectors isolated sandy beaches directly front on the lake, and sand dunes have migrated inland considerable distances to bury bedrock or ground moraine. Such islands of sand, hemmed in by gravelly and clayey terrain or naked bedrock, are of paramount interest to the archaeologist, for they are frequently islands of human prehistory as well. This study reports the results of archaeological investigations at two such localities. But for a limited area of boreal forest near its tip, the Door Peninsula was covered at the time of European penetration by a northern type conifer-hardwood forest whose evolution from an early postglacial spruce-fir forest to one increasingly dominated by hardwoods has been summarized in a recent synthesis of Wisconsin vegetational history (Curtis 1959: 437-55). Wildlife still abounds in parts of the region, including deer, red fox, raccoon, skunk, porcupine, and many smaller mammals as well as many varieties of waterfowl and other birds. Other large animals present in the area, at least until the last couple of decades, and still occasionally reported in nearby regions, include the black bear, bobcat, lynx, timber wolf, coyote, gray fox, beaver, otter, and mink. Archaeological finds also indicate elk. The waters in and around the peninsula support shellfish and innumerable crayfish, and are rich in perch, bass, pickerel, great northern pike, and other species. The climate is generally pleasant in the summer although temperatures along Green Bay may occasionally reach into the nineties; nevertheless, the nights are invariably cool even in the hottest summers. The summers are short on the Door Peninsula, as in almost all of northern Wisconsin, and the winters long and cold. Deep snows are common. Aside from topographic contrasts, one of the most dramatic phenomena of the peninsula is the marked temperature gradient between the Lake Michigan and the Green Bay sides. This is a phenomenon of some importance in understanding prehistoric settlement dispositions on the peninsula, and one with a long history beginning sometime after the rise in lake level in the Lake Michigan basin following the Chippewa low-water stage (ca. 7,500 B.C.) when lake level was about 350 feet lower than at present.

INTRODUCT ION

3

During the summer months the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula is substantial ly cooler than the Green Bay side. This difference at times is as much as 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit between Baileys Harbor on Lake Michigan and Ephraim on Green Bay, a total overland distance of only 7 or 8 miles. The disparity is due to the influence of the very cold waters of the lake and the cooling onshore winds. Tn the winter months the reverse temperatur e effect is true, a fact undoubtedl y of considerab le importance to primitive people. Large as it is, Green Bay freezes over in the winter and is thus effectively insulated against heat loss to the air. Tn the coldest months of the winter the great bay has little ameliorative effect on the frigid winds, and the western shore of the peninsula shares much the same extremes of cold as northern interior Wisconsin. Lake Michigan, on the other hand, while frequently fringed with ice, only rarely freezes over. The enormous expanse of open water in this lake facilitates winter-lon g heat transfer to the winds. Winters are thus milder on the lake side of the Door Peninsula by many degrees, and the extreme cold of interior regions is only rarely experience d. On this fact alone, one would expect that the prehistoric inhabitants of the country spent their winters, as well as some part of their summers, on the Lake Michigan side. The archaeolog ical evidence from a preliminary site survey is compatible with this assumption . Travel under aboriginal conditions must have been difficult on and just back from the coast, particularl y in the upper peninsula, and it is likely that a lot of movement was by water with landfalls being made at the many coves and inlets, especially where sand afforded the convenienc es bedrock or gravel does not. Such travel was undertaken at the vagaries of lake and weather conditions, for the offshore waters are frequently and suddenly rough and the innumerab le rocky shoals dangerous in a storm. These conditions, coupled with geographic locations, might well suggest that the Door Peninsula was at many times a cultural cul-de...:sac , supporting only minimal and impoverish ed population s essentially marginal to cultural developme nts elsewhere. While there is no archaeological evidence of burgeoning population s, at least on the upper peninsula, there is likewise no evidence as yet in support of a rigid theory of backward marginalit y, a fact of considerable interest in correlating local and nonlocal sequences.

4

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

Previous to the work reported here, and except for the limited efforts of a few dedicated amateur naturalists many years ago (notably George R. Fox and J. P. Schumacher), the Door Peninsula has been largely neglected by archaeologists. Only the Point Sauble and Beaumier Farm sites (Freeman, 1956) and the Renier site (Mason and Irwin, 1960) -all at the southwestern foot of the peninsula in Brown county-have been at all scientifically investigated and reported. This is unfortunate, for the region is evidently of great importance in understanding the prehistory of northeastern Wisconsin and a large sector of the Upper Great Lakes. There is good evidence of human occupancy of the peninsula not long after the retreat of the last glacier. Recent work by my wife and myself under the sponsorship of the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay, a part of which this study reports, has revealed several multicomponent ceramic sites, some in a stratified context. Geochronological' aids to dating are available in many parts of the peninsula, and the region is clearly one of great potential for serious scientific work. Unfortunately, many sites have been vandalized or totally destroyed during the last half century. This is not only continuing, but accelerating. This report focuses on the description and analsis of the prehistoric remains excavated at two archaeological sites in northern Door County. The field work was conducted by field parties of the Neville Public Museum directed by my wife and myself during the summers of 1960 and 1961. Both sites are located on the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula and both yielded large collections of cultural material, frequently in undisturbed contexts. One of the sites has been long known to collectors and has suffered accordingly. The other, as far as could be determined, was unknown before our work there. The first site, located north of the mouth of Heins Creek on Lake Michigan, is situated among both stabilized and still migrating sand dunes. Although evidently a multicomponent station, and one long picked over and dug into by curio hunters, a completely undisturbed and single component occupational level was discovered intact and ''sealed'' in a small stabilized dune just above the storm beach. The tight association of specific artifact types thus provided is of enhanced value because of the finds made at the other site 10 miles to the north. The Mero site, which yielded unexpected quantities of sherds and other artifacts, is a stratified multicomponent

INTRODUCTION

5

station situated in a sandy bay-side meadow. Aside from the rich yield of artifacts, the most important feature of this locality was a stratigraphic sequence which served to order certain well-represented ceramic assemblages in proper temporal alignment. All told, six isolable prehistoric occupations were unearthed at this unusually informative site. Because of these factors, the Mero site has provided most of the data on which this study is based. The Heins Creek site augments some of the information derived from the richer site, but it is discussed first because its single component is of great help in interpreting the mixed late components at the Mero site. While representing an essentially pioneering effort in a largely unreported archaeological area, the information obtained at the Mero site, supported by that from Heins Creek, has provided a much needed key to the understanding of part of the long prehistory of the Door Peninsula. In the analysis of materials from the Heins Creek and Mero sites attention has been paid to all facets of cultural remains, but with particular emphasis on pottery. This is due both to the abundance of potsherds and the fortunate fact that pottery styles and treatments changed through time and space to a much greater degree than is true of other categories of artifacts. Consequently, this allows greater precision in the analysis of archaeological components, in the tracing of areal relationships on one plane or through time, and facilitates the production of generalizations otherwise difficult to make. An attempt has been made, wherever the data permitted, to integrate the various analytical categories of Heins Creek and Mero sherds with pottery types already established or proposed in other parts of Wisconsin. However, much of the pottery from the Mero and Heins Creek sites could not properly be accomodated in the restricted number of formally defined pottery types currently recognized in Wisconsin and neighboring regions of the Upper Great Lakes. Where the sherd samples were reasonably and sufficiently large to yield appropriate information, new pottery types were defined to handle this material. Small sherd samples of other typological categories were simply described without the creation of new named units. Some of these samples were from single, possibly aberrant vessels, or were insufficiently representative of different typological categories to warrant new names. Proposed new types have been given italicized names in

6

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

the binomial nomenclature currently in vogue. For example, the proposed new ceramic type Heins Creek corded-stamp ed is conceived as having equal classificatory rank with such named types already in the literature as Madison Cord-impressed or Point Sauble Collared. The new types are defined to include both sherds and whole vessels. In order to avoid possible confusion, the specific application is made clear in pertinent discussions, and type frequencies have been formulated in terms of sherd and vessel counts where possible. In certain cases a proposed type inclu~es two subtypes or varieties. Where the variety is known, a number has been inserted in the italicized type name after the first part of the binomial nomenclature . Thus, the undecorated pottery type North Bay Cord- marked is sometimes divided into North Bay I Cord-marked and North Bay II Cord-marked . The latter two are not different types, but are varieties or subtypes of the same pottery type. The formal differences between North Bay I Cord- marked and North Bay IT Cord-marked are usually slight. They refer to quantitative observable differences in temper and other paste attributes as well as relatively minute differences in cord marking, etc. In mixed samples these differences are sometimes so slight as to defy rigorous formal separation. Distributiona lly, however, the two exhibit mutually exclusive stratigraphic positions. Their separation as varieties of the same type is supported by clear chronological differences. That is, the varieties overlap in their characteristi cs, but their extremes are separable and conform to stratigraphy. These same comments apply equally to such other named types as are differentiated into varieties by the addition of a number. The following discussion is organized to reflect site and chronologica l order. After describing the Heins Creek Complex-the early Late Woodland component from the site of that name, the Middle Woodland components of the Mero site are described from earliest to latest: North Bay I, North Bay IIa, and North Bay lib. This is followed by descriptions and analyses of the Late Woodland and Mississippian components at the Mero site. Pertinent discussion and cultural-chro nological analysis follow the descriptive sections. The report is concluded with a chapter on summary and conclusions.

PART I THE HEINS CREEK SITE

I

LOCATION AND NONCERA MIC REMAINS The Heins Creek site is located in the SE. 1/4 of the SW. 1/4 and the SW. 1/4 of the SE. 1/4 of section 6, T. 29 N., Range 28 E., Town of Baileys Harbor, Door County, Wisconsin. It is situated in an exposed and wind-blown section of partly stabilized sand dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan. This property is owned by Mr. Arthur J. Wilson, to whose wife I am indebted for permission to work on the site. Because this site is recorded in early. records of Wisconsin archaeolog y as the Heins Creek site, after a former owner, that name is retained here. The site, "probably the largest on the Door County Peninsula" (Schumach er, 1918: 137), has been intensively surface collected and dug into by present and past generation s of relic hunters who have carted away great numbers of artifacts, mutilating a site whose potential significanc e has suffered accordingl y. Neverthele ss, its surface is still littered with flint chips, small potsherds, scraps of bone, and occasional stone tools dropped by migrating dunes. Evidently, the site had once been a very large and important one, parts of which had become covered and later partly exposed by shifting sands. Examinatio n of a small collection from the site housed in the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay indicated that the locality had been probably intermitten tly occupied over a considerab le span of time from Middle to Late Woodland times. It is believed that most of this material was picked up from the shifting surface of the site, probably as the residue of migrating dunes. Some of the sand dunes directly on the shore of Lake Michigan have become anchored in place by the roots of vegetation clinging to crests and flanks. In one of these dunes 7

8

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

the museum field party located an intact occupational level in a deeply buried former ground surface (Pl. I; Pl. II, Fig. 1). The construction and stabilization of a dune above this prehistoric living surface preserved a tight and undisturbed association of important cultural materials. The buried midden-bearing stratum was about 1-to-2feet thick and was underlain and overlaid by culturally sterile and pebble-free aeolian sand. These deposits were light tan in color. The occupational level contrasted markedly, ranging from dark gray to almost black (Pl. II, Fig. 1). Its altitude within the stabilized sand dune was about 4 feet above the level of the foot of the dune where the feature faces inland from the lake (that is, west-northwest). The very bottom of the midden zone was approximately 10.5 feet above the mean level of Lake Michigan ( 580 feet). Above the black stratum the dune rose to a crest at about 16.5 feet above lake level; the crest of the dune was thus 4.5 feet higher than the top of the occupation level. Two and one-half feet below the black stratum was a circa 6-inch layer of horizontally laid rocks, evidently deposited either during an unusually severe storm or while the lake stood at an abnormally high level, that is, at an altitude of at least 8 feet above the modern Lake Michigan level. The discovery of this heavy depositional unit at the Heins Creek site is doubly important because of similar deposits uncovered at other peninsular sites, including the stratified Mero site, where evidence was produced suggestive of a heretofore unsuspected high water stage during a part of the Woodland cultural sequence on the Door Peninsula. This evidence is set forth at greater length in the description of the Mero site and its stratigraphy. The great quantities of rocks as well as the cultural debris exposed over great areas of the Heins Creek site were apparently dropped there by the shifting dunes as they migrated inland. The stabilized sand dune with its preserved buried occupational level has been named Locality 1 (see Fig. 2). This particular dune, but one of many at the site, is approximately 90 feet in length and is oriented in a direction running northeast-southwest, or roughly parallel to the shoreline. The dune is 70 feet in greatest width. Its maximum height has already been given both in terms of lake level and the ground surface behind it. The formation and subsequent burial of the dark

9

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

stratum seems to exemplify some of the dune formation processes investigated at the southern end of the lake by Olson (1958a1 b, and c). In order to explore the buried occupational stratum and determine if other such layers might be present above or

e

LAKE 20

40

60

LEVEL 80

100

Figure 2. The Locality 1 sand dune at the Heins Creek site. The stippled area represents the explored cross section of the dune and faces west-northwes t (to the right). The scales are in feet with the horizontal scale foreshortened to half that of the vertical for graphic presentation. The following strata are represented in the figure: a, the cap of aeolian sand; b, the occupation layer; c, aeolian sand; d, the heavy gravel layer; and e, sand of probably mixed aeolian and lacustrine origin. The rocks on the surface of the ground to the right, as well as many artifacts, were dropped from levels preserved in the cross section as wind erosion sculptured the landward flank of this and the other dunes.

below it, a stepped trench was cut into the west-northwe st face of the dune from its base to the top. Only the single black stratum was found, and the trench was expanded laterally to follow it out. This layer was found to be a gray to black, sandy to silty stratum filled with flecks of charcoal, burned and unburned animal and fish bones, flint chips, pottery, and

10

TWO STRATIFIE D SITES

stone and bone tools. Virtually all of the cultural material was found in the lower third of the occupation al level. As the center of the dune was approached the artifact yield tapered off. Field evidence, later corroborat ed by typological data, clearly indicated a single component sealed in by the sand. This extremely important circumstan ce provided objective means for the sorting of some mixed assemblag es at other sites, including the upper mixed levels at the Mero site some 10 air miles to the north. Chipped-st one Industry Thirty-six complete and broken stone tools and weapons were found at Locality 1 of the Heins Creek site in addition to a large collection of flint chippage (Pl. II, Fig. 2). Aside from unclassifia ble fragments, these chipped-st one artifacts divide into five descriptive (of which four are also functional) categories on criteria of size, shape, and edge wear: Twelve projectile points, three truncated ovate to trianguloid bifaces, one drill, five scrapers, and two knives. Thirteen unidentifiable fragments of biface implement s complete the sample. All appear to be manufactu red of material locally available in the limestone bedrock. The twelve projectile points are all triangular and range in form from relatively long and thin to almost equilateral . The majority are simple isosceles triangles. Edges, including the base, are straight to slightly convex. Length varies from 45 to 22 mm, breadth from 28 to 13 mm, and thickness from 6 to 3 mm. Four of the points are completely flaked over both faces; the other eight retain large unmodified surfaces of the flakes from which they were fashioned. The workmansh ip exhibited is fairly good to very poor, and it is obvious that some projectile points were rather carefully made while the majority were chipped without much regard for symmetry or well-finish ed edges. Three other chipped-fli nt artifacts may have been large projectile points (50 to 69 mm in length) or may have been used as knives. Only one has edges so battered as to suggest the latter function, but this same condition may merely reflect difficulty in working relatively thick edges. The single drill is fairly well made and is narrow. Its

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

11

expanded base suggests that it was made from a projectile point. The scrapers, on the other hand, are very crude and minimally worked, being simply pieces of flint or chert scrap chipped along one steep edge to form a beveled tool. One of the two "knives" is almost a uniface implement made on a broad and massive flake whose striking platform (and rind of the pebble core) is retained at one end. The other knife is simply a much thinner flake utilized without retouch along one edge. The miscellaneous fragments of chert tools suggest pointed ovate bifaces of uncertain or unknown function. They are about the same general size as the three possible large projectile points, but they are only minimally as thick. With the exception of the drill and a few of the projectile points, the stone industry from Locality 1 at the Heins Creek site suggests neither care nor skill in the fabrication of tools and weapons of chipped flint. Some of the projectile points, for example, are almost raw chips of flint. As a whole it is evident that only minimal attention was paid to the finishing of stone tools. In this largely utilitarian approach function was apparently served with little regard for aesthetics, a generalization not applicable to the sphere of pottery-making. Bone Industry Ten bone tools and one antler artifact--all broken-were recovered in intimate association with the pottery and stone implements at Locality 1 (Pl. II, Fig. 2). These included three very small awls or needles, a square-ended pin, three harpoons, an unidentifiable fragment with a broad point, a double-pointed artifact partially grooved at each end and lightly notched on one edge (perhaps an instrument employed in net weaving?), a long conical projectile point (antler) with what once was probably a socketed base and a drilled hole entering the socket from opposite sides and, finally, a bird bone awl which may not belong with this assemblage at all. This last artifact was found quite alone in sterile tan sand below the buried occupational stratum and just above the pebble layer near the base of the dune. Just how it came to occupy this lonely position is a mystery. What is of particular interest are the three fragments of unilaterally multibarbed bone harpoons. These are similar to

12

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

others reported to have been found at the Heins Creek site, and it is now possible to relate them to at least one definite stone and ceramic complex. Two of the specimens are from the hafted ends of harpoons; the third is a point or distal end of the harpoon represented by the largest of the other fragments, or is from a third harpoon. The tang of the smallest specimen has been perforated by drilling through from one side only; the larger tanged piece appears to have been shallowly notched near its base. All of the barbs are prominent. The smallest harpoon has oblique V-shaped notches defining the barbs. The other two have broad squared notches. The specimen represented by the larger proximal end was apparently intentionally broken. Immediately around the break are deep gashes in the bone which seem to be the result of hacking operations with a flint knife or similar implement; they are not the result of rodent gnawing. The unilaterally multibarbed harpoons, and presumably others just like them, are probably accountable for most, if not all, of the fish remains found in the buried midden layer. Faunal Remains A complete list of animal species represented in the archaeological deposits at the Heins Creek site, together with quantitative and comparative information, is given in Appendix I. As acknowledged in the Preface, the faunal identifications were made by Charles E. Cleland, then at the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. His approach to the analysis of such faunal remains has guided my own thinking. Mammals (deer, bear, beaver, muskrat, fisher, and mink), reptiles (turtle), birds (crow, passenger pigeon, two genera of ducks, and two species each of loon and grebe), and fish (sturgeon, northern pike, channel catfish, white sucker, smallmouthed bass, and walleye), and other bone scrap identifiable only as mammal, bird, or fish, comprise the sample of animal remains. So far as can be determined, all of these represent species still present or only very recently extinct on the Door Peninsula. They indicate an environment essentially like that known for the early historic period. As would be anticipated from the site's location, they also indicate a lakeshore ecology. Analysis of the animal bones indicates a relatively full

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

13

and wide exploitation of local animal resources with mammals, as suggested by Cleland's calculations of quantities of meat represented by the several categories of animal remains (see Appendix I), the most important source of meat. Nevertheless, it is clear that fish were very important in the subsistence (42 per cent of the identified individual animals are fish). It is noteworthy that all of the identified species of fish, save northern pike, prefer cold, clean water over a bedrock or other firm bottom and with little rooted vegetation. As initially intimated by the site's location, this posits Lake Michigan itself, rather than nearby streams or shallow inland lakes, as the major source of fish. The information provided by bird bones from the Heins Creek excavations is most important in that it offers clues to seasonal occupation. The pintail duck, passenger pigeon, and probably also the crow are essentially summer visitors to the Door Peninsula who migrate southward for the winter. The presence of the red-throated loon and Holboell's grebe, both relatively rare transients in Wisconsin and "common" only in October and November, provides further confirmation of the taking of migratory birds. The known habits of these birds suggest that the Heins Creek site was occupied during the summer and fall months. Hunting, fishing, and fowling were important subsistence activities. Although there was no evidence of the utilization of wild vegetable resources either through the recovery of their charred remains or of diagnostic artifacts, it is hard to believe that such foods were ignored. There is also no evidence of horticulture.

II POTTERY FROM THE HEINS CREEK SITE All of the pottery fragments recovered from the undisturbe d buried midden at Locality 1 of the Heins Creek site represent a single and relatively homogeneo us assemblag e that is here identified as the Heins Creek Ceramic Series. This series is composed of several proposed pottery types comprising a single ware defined by common paste and temper characteri stics. It is additionall y characteri zed by cord marking as the virtually universal surface finish and by cord-wrap ped stick impression s (including special variations such as "corded-st amped") as the preponder ant decorative technique. The ware characteri stics common to the entire series are described under the proposed body sherd type Heins Creek Cord-mark ed. Since it is evident from earlier collections made at the site that more than one component is (or was) present at the site, the following remarks pertain only to the material excavated at Locality 1 where a single unmixed component was discovered . Heins Creek Cord-mark ed All of the body sherds found at Locality 1, except for approxima tely two dozen small plain-surfa ced specimens , are cord-mark ed. The handful of plain sherds seem to be basal fragments and probably represent unusually well-smoo thed, originally cord-mark ed sherds. The type Heins Creek Cordmarked, therefore, includes all recovered body sherds, as well as a few rimsherds , lacking decoration and covered with the imprints of a cord-wrap ped paddle (Pl. III, Fig. 1). Excluding many badly exfoliated and, hence, unmeasura ble examples, the type is represente d by approxima tely a thousand sherds. These certainly include the body fragments of most of the Heins Creek pottery types erected on the basis of surviving rim fragments. The presence of some undecorate d cord-mark ed rimsherds demonstra tes the one-time manufactu re of simple undecorate d cord-mark ed vessels in addition to the more typical decorated ones. Because features other than decorative 14

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

15

techniques and elements are so uniform throughout the series it has been impossible to distinguish between undecorated body sherds of the several usually rim-decorated types and the completely undecorated vessels represented. This in itself serves to underscore the basic homogeneity of the ware. The type Heins Creek Cord- marked is thus a sherd as well as a vessel type and includes all undecorated (and always cordmarked) body sherds from Locality 1 at the Heins Creek site. Tempering and other ware characteristics of Heins Creek Cord- marked are the same as those for the entire ceramic series. The pottery was tempered by the liberal addition of small to relatively large angular fragments of crushed rock. These particles are variable in color, grading from black through a mottled gray to a white feldspar. While some anorthosite may be thus represented, most of the tempering material was probably derived from gabbro or a similar rock. There seems to be an even gradient from well to relatively heavily tempered sherds with just a few examples of such "excessive" tempering as is typical of some of the earlier pottery from the Mero site, to be described in Part II of this report. Sherd color varies from almost black to buff, both extremes sometimes appearing on the same surface of a single sherd. Many sherds show a distinct color difference between interior and exterior surfaces. The preservation of black carbon incrustations (which is by no means always responsible for this color difference) is a common feature. Interior surfaces are usually relatively smooth, and floating (that is, the virtual absence or relative rarity of temper particles in the surface clay) is common. Many interior and exterior surfaces are striated as a result of wiping just before firing. Surface hardness is generally in the range of about 2.5 to 3.5 on the scale of mineral hardness. Protrusion of tempering particles through sherd surfaces does occur, but it is usually not very marked. Many split or exfoliated sherds occur in the Heins Creek Ceramic Series; while common, this type of splitting is not a distinguishing characteristic of the pottery. Heins Creek Cordmarked sherds have a mean thickness and standard deviation of 6.9 plus or minus 1.3 mm. Although some sherds exhibit sloppy and superimposed cord-marking, most show the distinct and regular application of the cord-wrapped paddle. Approximately 33 per cent of these body sherds show some secondary smoothing; many bear traces

16

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

of a special variety of secondary smoothing marked by many crisscrossing bands or zones of parallel striations-appare ntly the result of wiping with a wad of grass or similar material after the application of cord marking and before firing. The imprints resulting from the cord marking seem to indicate simple twisted cords of medium thickness. Eight small rimsherds representing seven different pots, two of which appear to have been very small, are classifiable as Heins Creek Cord-marked None of these sherds are decorated. On the exterior surfaces cord marking commences immediately below the lip and is vertical to it. Interior surfaces are plain. All of the rimsherds are straight to slightly everted in form and have lips which are rounded to almost pointed in five cases (in cross section these show a vessel wall which tapers gradually to a thin rounded lip) and are flat in three. In a few instances the lips have been so depressed or finished as to push a little excess clay over the top of the rim. These undecorated cord-marked rimsherds record the presence of a few simple and undecorated vessels in a ceramic complex otherwise typified by the application of several varieties of cord-wrapped stick decorations over cord marking. Heins Creek Corded-stamped This is the major decorated pottery type in the excavated component at the Heins Creek site, both in terms of numbers of sherds and numbers of vessels as indicated by rimsherds (Pl. IV). Represented by fifty-seven rims (apparently from twenty-six different vessels) and sixty-one decorated body sherds (from at least four vessels), this type includes the fragments of completely cord-marked vessels decorated with imprints of a corded stamp on the upper rim and lip areas and, occasionally, on the body proper as well. Tempering, paste, and surface finishing characteristics are identical to those already given for the type Heins Creek Cord-marked, which category certainly includes many of the undecorated body sherds originally belonging to vessels with rims classifiable as Heins Creek Corded-stamped. The sole decorative technique, from which the proposed type derives its name, involved the application of a closely cord-wound paddle edge or stick (almost certainly the latter) in

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

17

such a manner as to leave short dentate-like stamped imprints in the clay. These imprints are 6.0 to 16.0 mm long, 1.5 to 6.0 mm wide, and slightly less than 0.5 to 3.0 mm deep. The contours of the depressions indicate a cylindrical implement around which cording had been wrapped in a tight spiral. Many of the imprints are deeper at one end than at the other; some others (a minority) are deepest in the middle, suggesting that the stamping instrument was slightly bent before being impressed on the clay. This distinctive variety of cord-wrapped stick impressing is reminiscent of dentate stamping, especially in its arrangement on the body sherds. To distinguish this diagnostic treatment from what is usually implied by "cord- wrapped stick impressing" the term "corded-stamped" is suggested. It is to be understood, nevertheless, that the implement employed in both instances was probably the same. The difference in both application and final result, however, appear to be significant and of chronological import on the Door Peninsula at least. All of the rimsherds are decorated in one of several ways by the use of a cord-wrapped stick. These impressions on the rimsherds are typically confined to the upper exterior and/ or interior rim immediately contiguous to the lip and/ or to the lip proper. The imprints are usually vertical but may be moderately oblique on the exterior and interior rims and usually impinge on the lip area. The lip itself may be left plain or may be transversely or longitudinally impressed with the corded stamp. Only in the case of longitudinal impressions on the lip are the imprints indistinguishable from what is ordinarily meant by "cord-wrapped stick impressed." Frequently, the corded stamp is applied directly into the juncture of lip and rim from both sides of the vessel wall to meet in the center of the lip, or is so staggered as to create a sometimes markedly sinuous lip. If there is other decoration on the rimsherds it is confined to a single row of vertically impressed, parallelcorded stamp imprints encircling the vessel on the rim-neck or neck-shoulder area on either the exterior or interior surfaces. In one instance this occurs on both surfaces. The only other decoration, again by means of a corded stamp, is confined to the exteriqr surfaces of body sherds classified as Heins Creek Corded-stamped because of the presence of that attribute (Pl. IV, Fig. 2). Certainly many of the undecorated body sherds identified as Heins Creek Cord-marked represent

18

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

the body fragments of vessels here represented by many of the Heins Creek Corded- stamped rimsherds. It is thus clear that many earthenware pots were made with unmodified cordmarked bodies in combination with corded-stamped rims and lips. At least four vessels, however, had corded-stamped decorated bodies as well as similarly decorated rims. As judged by the surviving decorated body sherds, these vessels were decorated on the body proper with corded-stamped imprints arranged in single contrasting rows-that is, any row of parallel imprints is at a different angle with respect to adjacent or contiguous rows. Those few potsherds which are sufficiently large to retain something of the original design suggest a continuous vessel-encircling set of chevrons suspended from a row of parallel vertical imprints running around the upper shoulder or neck. The individual corded-stamped imprints making up the chevron motif are likewise parallel to each other and are never arranged end to end. All of the Heins Creek Corded-stamped rimsherds, together with what can be learned from an examination of body sherd contours, represent obviously shouldered, somewhat constrictednecked, slightly flaring-mouthed vessels. The curve from shoulder through neck to rim is gentle and is coupled with fairly wide neck and rim areas. One vessel, known from twelve rimsherds, is slightly recurved at the juncture of neck and rim so that the rim is tending back to the vertical. The lips are almost always truncated and flat. The rimsherds of Heins Creek Cord- marked, while fewer in number and generally smaller in size, do not seem as clearly outflaring and do suggest some vessels with vertical rims and little to no shouldering. The sample is so inadequate, however, that this difference may be somewhat more apparent than real. Rimsherds of these two types do contrast markedly, nevertheless, in these respects: Heins Creek Cord-marked rims tend to be thinner than Heins Creek Corded-stamped rims. The latter also have characteristically thicker and much more pronouncedly flattened lips; these rimsherds clearly tend to be truncated rather than gradually tapered to the lip. Heins Creek Cord-wrapped Stick The most completely reconstructable earthenware pot from

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

19

the buried occupational stratum at Locality 1 at the Heins Creek site is included in this category. This one vessel accounts for thirty-eight of the total of fifty-nine potsherds (some of which are fairly large} representing the type. The remaining twenty-one sherds are fragments of five to seven other vessels. The type, then, is known from a total of fifteen rimsherds and forty-four body sherds (Pl. III, Fig. 2). As already intimated, many of the Heins Creek Cord- marked body sherds undoubtedly represent the undecorated sections of this and other decorated types as well as simple undecorated cord-marked vessels. In tempering, paste, etc., all of these categories are identical. Heins Creek Cord-wrappe d stick is named after the shared trait of bands of continuous horizontal cord-wrapped stick impressions encircling the necks of the original vessels now survived by fragments only. Where the complete neck is preserved there are six of these bands, all parallel to each other and completely encircling the cord-marked vessel. These bands begin just below the rim: they are 3.0 to 5.5 mm in width and are separated from each other by undecorated zones 2.0 to 7.0 mm wide. The continuous effect of each row or band of cord-wrapped stick impressions was evidently achieved by impressing the responsible implement horizontally around the neck so that the resulting impressions are arranged end-toend. The type is unique in this treatment within the Heins Creek Ceramic Series. On one of the vessels this band of impressions is bordered top and bottom by short vertical imprints of the end of a cord-wrapped stick similar to the manner previously described as "corded-stam ped." Decoration on the rim proper, when present, consists solely of short vertical to somewhat oblique corded-stamp ed imprints. These usually impinge onto the lip itself. Two of the vessels represented by rimsherds have this treatment; two others lack it and have unmodified rims. On the interior rim there may be no decoration or a single row of verticalcorded imprints beginning at the juncture of lip and rim. One rimsherd additionally has a second row of perpendicula r imprints just below the first. The lip itself may be left plain or may be transversely to obliquely impressed with the same implement. A single sherd from the neck region of a vessel has a pair of parallel cord-wrapped stick elements arranged in a nested "V." This has been turned 45 degrees between two

20

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

pairs of parallel horizontal cord-wrapped stick impressions running around the original pot. This is unique in the sample. VVhat can be ascertained of vessel shape suggests largeshouldered pots with slightly constricted necks and moderately flaring rims. Lips are flat; in fact, one had been so pushed down as to pressure thicken the upper rim section. These pots were all decorated on the neck by horizontal cord-wrapped stick impressions sometimes bordered by short vertical imprints of the same tool. VVhile the upper rim may or may not be impressed by vertical imprints, there is always an undecorated band separating the upper rim area from the decorated neck. Decoration, except on the interior surface, is always applied over a well-cord-m arked surface. Point Sauble Collared All of the collared pottery from the Heins Creek site excavations at Locality 1, with the possible exception of a punctated variety soon to be described, is clearly classifiable as Point Sauble Collared, a homogeneous type proposed by David A. Baerreis and Joan E. Freeman (1958) on the basis of specimens excavated at the multicompon ent Point Sauble site just north of Green Bay in northeastern Brown County (Freeman, 1956). The correspondin g Heins Creek sherds are identical to specimens from that site (Pl. V, Fig. 1). Tempering and paste attributes are compatible with the other Heins Creek site pottery. The Point Sauble Collared type at the Heins Creek site is composed of eleven rimsherds and eight correspondin g body sherds representing four medium-to small-sized pots, all of which have incipient to small collars on the upper rim and are decorated with twisted cord impressions. As a group, these sherds are noticeably smaller than any of the other categories of sherds from Locality 1. These same sherds tend to be thinner, which probably accounts for the difference. Collaring seems to have been effected not by the addition of a strip of clay, but by the folding over of clay from the upper rim and lip. The resulting feature is either a definite but small collar or is merely an incipient one. They are readily distinguishab le from the more pronounced and massive collars seen on some other varieties found elsewhere in

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

21

eastern Wisconsin of what formerly was called "Lake Michigan pottery." On three of the rimsherds (representing two vessels) the collars consist merely of excess clay pushed across the lip and folded over the exterior upper rim. The other eight rimsherds (from two other vessels) have much more pronounced collars. In these examples the uppermost part of the original rim appears to have been actually folded out and back on itself. These same two vessels are also distinguished by a much more elaborate embellishment effected by the more liberal application of a twisted cord. The imprints are those of a twisted fibrous cord arranged in parallel horizontal rows below the collar and in similar horizontal or oblique rows on the upper part of the collar and bordered on the bottom of the collar by oblique imprints at an angle to those above and below. The rounded to almost pointed lips are transversely impressed, and the interior rim obliquely impressed by the same means. Additionally, one of these represented pots has very deep, round punctations arranged in a single row around the rim immediately below the collar (Pl. V, Fig. 1, a, lower right). The punctations are so deep they have produced well-defined nodes or bosses on the interior surface. A rimsherd representing one of the two less distinctly collared vessels also possesses this interesting feature, but it occurs on the neck rather than the rim and is well separated from the incipient collar. The same potsherd has parallel oblique twisted-cord imprints on the exterior below the collar; it also has vertical imprints on the collar and diagonal ones on the interior rim. The lip is almost pointed in cross section. The remaining pot (two sherds from the rim) is by far the simplest. Short vertical impressions occur on the collar and interior rim and horizontal impressions of the same twisted cord decorate the exterior rimneck region. The lip is narrow, flat, and is not decorated. Within the available sample this is definitely an aberrant variety. Almost nothing may be said regarding body decoration or vessel shape. The small surviving Point Sauble Collared body sherds merely record the presence of twisted-cord impressions -very possibly confined to the neck and rim areas. All of the original vessels were smaller than most Heins Creek pots; they seem to have been shouldered and to have had straight to slightly excurvate rims rising above a gently constricted neck.

22

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

Madison Cord-impressed Madison Cord-impressed has been defined by Baerreis (1953: 12-15) and augmented by Keslin (1958: 218-21, 249-53) and Wittry (1959: 200-207). This category includes twenty-one cord-marked and decorated sherds (five rimsherds and sixteen body sherds) representing at least nine different vessels. Not all of the body sherds can be definitely called Madison Cord-impressed, but they are described with the material provisionally so identified (Pl. V, Fig. 2, a). There is considerable variability in this material, but all of the sherds are united in exhibiting decoration in the form of single or multiple linear imprints of a twisted fibrous cord similar to that seen on Point Sauble Collared. Some specimens were additionally "punctated" with what seems to have been the doubled end or tight loop of a twisted cord, probably the same cord or twine used in effecting the linear impressions. Where present, these "punctations" usually border zones or bands of the linear elements. The body sherds are too fragmentary to offer much information beyond recording the presence of twisted-cord imprints on an always cord-marked surface. A few specimens, however, suggest the arrangement of such impressions in single and nested chevrons. Some of the impressions record what appears to have been a single twisted cord. In most cases, however, this cord had been doubled back on itself or combined with a second twisted cord, and the whole twisted to make a larger and more complex impression. Finally, in a few other cases, the doubled cord appears to have been doubled back on itself once more (or was combined with another double cord) and the whole again twisted to effect an even bigger and still more complex impression on the clay. The ends or tight loops of such cords were also sometimes pushed into the clay to form what is best described as "knotted punctations." All of the rimsherds have flattened lips; three of these (probably from a single vessel) are quite massive at the lip. Many exceed the range of thickness cited by Baerreis, Keslin, and Wittry from central and western Wisconsin. Lip embellishment occurs on all five rimsherds and consists of a simple crisscross of twisted-cord impressions running along the lip, oblique impressions (almost punctations) of the same nature, or a row of small punctations.

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

23

Exterior decoration consists of short twisted-cord imprints arranged perpendicularly or diagonally around the upper rim, or this area may be left undecorated entirely. On four of the five rimsherds there is an undecorated zone on the rim. These are then embellished on the neck or neck-shoulder region either with oblique parallel twisted cord imprints or with continuous horizontal parallel imprints bordered at the top at least with "punctations" of the sort described above. The specimen without a plain rim zone is decorated with alternating single rows of such "punctations" and triple horizontal impressions of a single twisted cord. On the interior rim decoration consists of short vertical or longer oblique twisted-cord impressions or a double row of circular punctates--these clearly indicate a pointed stick or similar instrument. Little can be said regarding vessel shape. Apparently, large vessels are represented, ones with straight to slightly flaring rims. Necks are barely constricted. The development of shoulders, while present, cannot be described. Two other small rimsherds are unique in combining some of the attributes defining this twisted cord-impressed group and the two named types that embrace cord-wrapped stick impressions. They serve to link these categories. Both sherds have horizontal twisted-cord impressions running around the rim or the neck and have short cord-wrapped stick impressions at the juncture of lip and rim on both the interior and the exterior vessel surfaces. Undefined Minority Types The remainder of the potsherds from Locality 1 Heins Creek site fall into four formal categories not ciently represented to justify the use of type names. exception of one such category, all share the temper characteristics of the Heins Creek Ceramic Series.

at the suffiWith the and paste

Puncta-ced Pottery

Probably four or, at most, five vessels, represented by nine rimsherds and twenty-three body sherds are included in this category (Pl. V, Fig. 2, b). They are all characterized by

24

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

punctation as the exclusive or dominant decorative technique. This technique is expressed in amazingly heterogeneous forms considering the small number of potsherds: rectangular, simple conical or ovoid, tiny horseshoe-shaped, and bifurcated to Christmas tree-shaped punctations. These indicate the use of a variety of punctating implements ranging from simple-pointed to square-ended sticks and what might have been broken ends of bird bones, to the end of a cord-wrapped stick-all applied from different angles and with varying degrees of force. In marked contrast to the overwhelming majority of Heins Creek potsherds, many of the punctated specimens are not completely cord-marked. In fact, many sherds exhibit plain smooth surface areas separated from cord-marked ones by lines of punctations. Aside from this observation, little can be said about designs. The sherds exhibit single or multiple parallel or intersecting lines of punctations whose locations or orientations on the bodies of the original vessels cannot be determined. The rimsherds (eight from a single vessel and one from another) have flat lips and are slightly outflaring. Again, shouldered pots are most likely represented, ones with straight to slightly excurvate rims. The eight rimsherds from a single vessel are completely cord-malleated exteriorly and are decorated just below the lip with what appears to be a single horizontal row of cord-wrapped stick imprints. Oblique to this row and applied on the neck are widely spaced columns of ovoid punctations. Both the lip and interior rim appear to have been impressed with a cord-wrapped stick; subsequent smoothing, however, has almost completely obliterated these impressions. The other rimsherd is vertically impressed on the interior rim and longitudinally impressed on the lip with a cordwrapped stick. Obliquely oriented punctations on the exterior rim are the only other decoration and they seem to have been made with one end of the same implement in the manner observed on some of the body sherds.

Incised Pottery Two vessels are probably represented by the sample of only three rimsherds and four body sherds decorated by extremely careless incising over a smooth to smoothed-over cordmarked surface. Some of the incising was apparently done with

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

25

a double pointed instrument. The technique ranges from something that could almost be described as shallow scratches (this same effect might have been achieved simply by wiping the prefired vessel walls with a handful of twigs-although it does seem to grade into true incising-to deep and regular incising. Most of the incising is crisscrossed and begins on the rim and extends an unknown distance down the body of the original vessels. A unique body sherd has a row of triangular punctations bordered by incised lines over cord marking. The rimsherds are embellished with cord-wrapped stick imprints arranged transversely on the well-rounded lip and vertically on the interior rim. The latter impressions are sometimes obscured by secondary smoothing, a characteristic of the interior surfaces of these sherds and one marked by very fine parallel striations in the clay. One of the rimsherds had been drilled from the exterior after firing either for repair or suspension. The original vessels had smoothly flaring mouths and constricted necks: the degree of shoulder development cannot be determined on the basis of the small sample of sherds. Basal shape is likewise unknown. There are some resemblances with Dane Incised, a type discussed in the section on the Mero site.

Fabric-impressed Pottery Five body sherds, undoubtedly from the same vessel, possess a unique surface finish for Locality 1 at the Heins Creek site. This surface finish is unlike any cord marking with which the writer is familiar and strongly suggests the impression of a coarse matlike fabric. All five sherds are dark gray in color and retain heavy patches of carbon incrustation. They are undecorated.

Miscellaneous Unique Sherds Twelve small sherds only cannot be included in any of the named types or descriptive categories of Heins Creek pottery because of totally unique traits. Seven of these sherds do not even share the tempering and paste attributes of the ceramic

26

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

series and seem to be completely out of place. Because of this they warrant a brief description. Five sherds, including one rim, are fragments of a small and exceedingly crude bowl which has a plain surface and lacks decoration. The surviving vessel walls are thick and irregular; the paste is badly contorted and lacks visible tempering. It suggests the work of a small child. Two other rimsherds also lack visible signs of tempering and, even though they are crude, they are much better made. One of these has punctations arranged in triangles around the neck. Both of these little sherds could also represent the handicraft of children or an indulgent but hurried mother or an older, presumably female, sibling. Conversion of Sherd to Vessel Counts In the foregoing descriptions the frequencies of pottery types have been presented as raw sherd counts. Because of the high incidence of undecorated cord-marked body sherds from many different kinds of vessels, and because of considerations explored in Chapter IX, it is evident that such a count is potentially misleading in picturing the ceramic composition of the Heins Creek or any other archaeological complex. For this reason the following table (Table I) converts the raw sherd count into a count of the estimated numbers of different types of vessels thought to be represented. In this table the main emphasis has been upon rims and decorated body sherds, it being assumed that the undecorated cord-marked body sherds represent fragments of all or most of the vessels survived by the diagnostic pieces.

Heins Creek Radiocarbon Dates Two different samples of burned organic material were obtained from the dark culture-bearing stratum at Locality 1 at the Heins Creek site and were submitted to Isotopes, Inc., of Westwood, New Jersey, for radiocarbon assay.

THE HEINS CREEK SITE

27

TABLE I Absolute and Relative Frequencies of Heins Creek Complex Pottery (By (1] using a simple sherd count and [2] matching sherds and estimating numbers of vessels by type.) Counting All Sherds No.

Per Cent

Counting Vessels No.

Per Cent

Heins Creek Cord -marked . . . . .

1008

79.0

7

11.4

Heins Creek Corded-stamped . . .

118

9.2

26

42.6

Heins Creek Cord -wrapped stick • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

59

4.6

7

11.4

Point Sauble Collared . . . . . . • .

19

1.5

4

6.5

Madison Cord-impressed . . . . . .

21

1.6

9

14.7

. .. . . .. . . .. . .

51

4.0

8

13.1

Unclassified

~

Sample I-649

This sample was charred wood fragments collected from the dark stratum and, accordingly, believed to be in probable association with the Heins Creek cultural complex. The radiocarbon age of 200 B.P. plus or minus 75 years (A.D. 1750) proved to be much too recent to date the prehistoric material. In view of the near absence of artifacts in the upper two-thirds of the dark midden-bearing stratum, it is likely that the charred wood represents a much later intrusion, possibly from a burned out tree root, and may provide a maximum age for the deposition and stabilization of the overlying dune cap.

Sample I-678

The second sample consisted of material with indisputable

28

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

Heins Creek Complex affiliation: heavy incrustations of burned food adhering to the interior surfaces of sherds of Heins Creek Cord- marked, Heins Creek Corded- stamped, and Heins Creek Cord-wrapped stick vessels. This material yielded a radiocarbon age of 1,230 B.P. plus or minus 150 years (A.D. 720). Because of the excellent nature of the sample associations, the typology of the artifacts, and the complete absence of historic material, this date is considered reliable.

PART II THE MERO SITE

III LOCATION AND FIELD PROCEDURE

The Mero site is situated on the south shore of a low promontory on the east or Lake Michigan side oL the upper Door Peninsula. Sometimes locally known as "Marshall's Point," this promontory is a prominent coastal feature that juts out into Lake Michigan and isolates Rowleys Bay on the north from North Bay on the south. It is approximately 1 to 1 1/4 miles wide and 1 1/2 miles long. Most of the country on and near this peninsula is wild and heavily forested. The site faces southwest across North Bay, a large shallow indentation on the coast; the site is approximately a quarter of a mile from its rocky mouth and is on the sandy shore of a nameless little cove of the bay (Pl. VI). It is thus well protected from the frequently stormy waters of Lake Michigan. The locality, owned by Mr. Peter G. S. Mero, is in the NE. 1/4 of the NE. 1/4 of section 26, T. 31 N., Range 28 E., Town of Liberty Grove, Door County, Wisconsin. On the promontory itself (the Mero property) the major soil type is derived from till and is classifiable as Miami gravelly sandy loam. There is one extensive area of Coloma fine sand, and there are some peat deposits in the woods toward the base of the peninsula. The only other sandy areas are the Mero site itself and a stretch of beach sand on the northeast shore of the peninsula at its base. Throughout the promontory there are extensive outcroppings of the Niagara dolomitic limestone bedrock, some of which appear to have been wave cut. Almost everywhere the bedrock is within a foot or two of the surface. The almost semicircular Mero site, however, is a much deeper sandy meadow facing North 29

30

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

Bay and hemmed in by low broken limestone ledges peering out from beneath a thin and forest covered gravelly soil. Except for some formerly cultivated fields now reverting to meadow and forest, the entire promontory supports a thin to heavy forest of white pine, white cedar, balsam, black spruce, and areas of mixed hardwoods and conifers. The shore-clinging site itself is surrounded on the remaining three sides by a good stand of white cedar and black spruce. Deer and many smaller mammals are plentiful in this environment. The site, though now long abandoned of permanent human occupancy, had been at one time or another during the last half of the last century and the first part of the present, involved in a local lumbering industry, had been the location of a commercial fishing camp and, later, supported a farm and homestead. Several substantial buildings, as well as sheds, once stood on parts of the site. A large store (apparently for the provisioning of passing sailing vessels), at least one big barn, a dock, and other smaller ·structures-including a blacksmith's shop discovered in the course of excavation-seem to have been frame structures erected on stone footings. In situ evidence has established that some of these buildings were destroyed by fire. The construction of these buildings over a period of many years, as well as their associated activities, have also left their record in the ground. ·As closely as could be determined, the locality was unoccupied in historic times until near the middle of the nineteenth century (Roland, 1917: 436, and local sources). It has been largely deserted for the last several decades. Mrs. Samuel Toft, a daughter of the previous owner, William Marshall, for whom the "point" is sometimes still called, remembers Indians, living in cabins in the woods back of the site, having been hired by her father. To her knowledge, and apparently everyone else's, no one ever realized that prehistoric Indians had once lived where we found their traces. The Mero site occupies an opening on the shore of North Bay on a rocky peninsula otherwise largely covered by forest. This low meadow, covered with wild grasses and an occasional tree or bush, bordered on one flank by the lake and on the others by rocky outcroppings partly concealed by dense woods, is the visible surface of an island of sand and gravel underlain and surrounded by the limestone bedrock. It was undoubtedly the presence of sand in this conveniently situated cove that

THE MERO SITE

31

must first have attracted the prehistoric inhabitants traveling along the coast. An overland approach would have been much more difficult. Because of the frequent outcropping of bedrock it was evident that many parts of the meadow had only a thin soil. This was also confirmed in certain other areas lacking such outcroppings. The evidence from a reading of surface features, augmented by probing and test pitting, indicated that the soil rested upon a very uneven and fissured bedrock topography. In places bedrock could be reached, if not already exposed, only a few inches beneath the surface of the ground, while near-by areas revealed a soil cover three, four, or five feet deep where the bedrock abruptly dipped. This condition greatly influenced the pattern of excavation. Initially, wherever the vegetational cover was atypically thin, the surface was examined for traces of former Indian habitation. Another convenient method of exploration was to examine the small piles of sand and gravel thrown out at the numerous burrows of ground squirrels, looking for telltale chips of flint or pieces of aboriginal pottery. The sandy beach along the shore was also studied for clues, but with little tangible reward except that it soon became clear that only limited erosion had been taking place in recent years. The site was not laid out in a grid system. Instead, test pitting and full scale excavation was undertaken wherever subsoil conditions were auspicious and without regard for strict longitudinal or latitudinal orientation. In short, both the orientation and extent of excavation was solely determined by what was encountered in the ground and not by the necessity of following a previously imposed grid pattern. The test pits and excavation units were later located and mapped by usual surveying techniques using a transit and conveniently central reference point marked by a stake. This was tied into bench marks chiseled into prominent bedrock outcroppings on the shore. Elevations were taken as needed from this same point and were tied into lake level. Test pitting provided a rough map of subsurface conditions and this was used in determining where to locate excavation units. Test pits were dug by shovel down to bedrock or heavy gravel. As these holes were dug, the soil was thrown onto screening tables and the recovered cultural material bagged and marked. The exposed soil column or profile was studied

32

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

at each test pit and, where necessary, was photographed and/ or recorded on a mimeographed soil profile sheet. These exploratory pits varied in size, depending on subsurface conditions, from a minimum of about 2 by 2 feet to a maximum of about 3 by 4 feet: most measured approximately 3 by 3 feet while depth was controlled by the distance to bedrock or basal gravels, normally between one and four feet. A total of forty-two test pits were sunk. This extensive testing revealed that only certain portions of the site had rich and relatively deep cultural deposits requiring extensive exploration. More importantly, the testing brought to light three areas where there were clearly stratified deposits of alternately culturebearing and sterile soil layers. The discovery of such clear stratification was of paramount importance. Full scale (that is, complete) and cautious excavation was directed at exploiting these promising sectors of the site. Any unit of excavation larger than a test pit was referred to simply as an "excavation unit" and was lettered serially as dug, that is, A, B, C, etc., (Fig. 3). The size of any single excavation unit was determined both by what the ground revealed and by the desirability of obtaining continuous soil profiles in any given part of the site. The largest single unit in any series of adjoining units was 10 by 15 feet, the smallest 2.5 by 5 feet. Most individual units measured 5 by 5 or 5 by 10 feet. Depth was a function of distance to basal gravels and/ or bedrock. Any excavation unit was contiguous with some other units, the total number of such adjoining units varying from one area to another. After the first series of contiguous excavation units (A through F) had been completed and operations were shifted to another part of the site, succeeding blocks of contiguous units were further identified by a number suffixed to the letters of the constituent units. Thus, the first series of adjoining excavation units was A through F, the second series was A1 through C1, the third series was A2 through F2, and so on through A6 through 16, the seventh and last series. In a few areas it was desirable to subdivide a particular excavation unit after it had been started into two, three, or four smaller parts in order to maintain a rigorous control in the unraveling of a stratigraphic problem. In such cases another number was appended to that of the parent unit as each

THE MERO SITE

33

subdivision was explored in turn. Thus F6-1, F6-2, F6-3, and F6-4 are the designations of the subdivision of excavation unit F6. The work represented by the excavation units was usually necessarily slow. The shovel was replaced by the trowel and brush in many areas as demanded by the conditions encountered in the ground, and pains were taken in the reading, recording, and exploitation of soil profiles. Most of the site was found to be in a greatly disturbed condition due to the activities of former occupants of the property in the last and present centuries. Areas evidently once plowed were discovered as well as old drainage ditches, buried as well as exposed footings of old farm buildings, and large garbage pits belonging to the days of commercial fishing in the last century. Over most of the site where the soil was sufficiently deep for excavating, broken bottles and china, iron nails, pieces of coal, scraps of farm equipment, etc., were found scattered from top to bottom mixed with aboriginal debris. In places where such disturbance seemed minimal (in excavation units A5, A6, Bl, B4, B5, and C5) the usually single culture-bearing level (the upper, dark part of the soil profile) was experimentally removed in arbitrary levels in the hopes of finding typological stratigraphy in a seemingly common fill. These hopes were sometimes fulfilled, as analysis of the recovered material later revealed. Additionally, a large collection of aboriginal material was thus made whose value was enormously increased when first one, then two, and finally three small but wellpreserved stratified areas were discovered on the site. This physical and typological stratification provided a firm basis for the chronological ordering of much of the material from this important multicomponent site. The three areas of physical stratification at the Mero site were discovered in parts of excavation series A2- F2, A3-D3, and A6-I6, but they were not coterminous with the full areal limits of those units. Stratified Area I was the most extensive and was confined to all or most of excavation units B6 and D6 through I6. Although there was some disturbance, the stratification was trustworthy in most parts of B6, D6, and E6, and in almost all of F6, H6, and I6. Hereafter, all references to Stratified Area I apply only to the undisturbed areas just cited. Stratified Area II embraced one part of excavation unit C2 (that is, C2-1) and all of units D2, E2, and F2. Stratified Area III was virtually coterminous

34

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

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48

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

The complete absence of a beach feature in Stratified Areas II and III (these are as close to the present shore as Area I) strongly suggests that the modern shoreline is more deeply indented than when the site was first occupied by Indians. Since the prevailing winds directly strike the shore closest to Areas II and III and the shore opposite Area I is protected by a "point" of limestone outcroppings in the path of prevailing wind and waves, it is very possible that erosion has destroyed a part of the original shoreline in that area (Fig. 3). In that case Areas II and III would have been something of a shallow backwater at this time and thus received only the finer particles that could be transported by more quiet water, water that had already dropped its heaviest materials closer to the then existing shore. Although such a history cannot be proved, it is most compatible with present conditions as well as the stratigraphy of the areas involved. The discontinuous, pencil-thin gravel layers (pea gravel) in stratum g of Stratified Area II and III provide the only in situ evidence which might be interpreted as indicating the discontinuity. These layers may be the result of wind action, following the drop in lake level, blowing away finer particles and dropping the pebbles to a uniform level before the next and last period of site inundation. This would be analagous, though on a far smaller scale, to the "boulder pavements" phenomenon seen at the Heins Creek site. The lacustrine sands covering these layers would equate with the buried beach in Area I where, it will be remembered, the beach became increasingly less pebbly and more sandy the farther east it was traced. It is believed the suggested mechanism for the formation of the pebbly layers best accords with the data but, unfortunately, it probably predates the apparent discontinuity. The trouble with relating these fine pebble layers in Areas II and III with the period of emergence and first human habitation is that the same type of deposit occurs over wide areas of the site, including Area I where it is generally thicker and occupies an intermediate position in the lacustrine sands below stratum d. It therefore seems more likely that all of these similar deposits are to be temporally equated and that they date from a period too early to be of bearing in the above context. Their suggested origin would indicate that the lacustrine deposits below the earli.est indications of human occupancy represent a somewhat more complicated history of sedimentation than that outlined earlier.

THE MERO SITE

49

In cross-tieing the upper members of Stratified Areas II and III with the postbeach history of Area I we are faced with another discontinuity. There is only one plausible place where this will fit. Strata c, d, e, and f in Areas II and III, because they reflect only aeolian and human activities, overlie lacustrine deposits, and are overlain by a stratum (b) equating with one in Area I (b ) , can only be related to Area I by placing the discontinuity at the contact of strata .b and c in that sector. The two occupations during this period preceding the deposition of the equivalent b strata were apparently largely confined to Areas II and III. The buried beach in Area I may originally have been somewhat more sandy and silty than its survivor; wind, acting on this surface, could well have been the source of the sand deposited as sterile layers in the former sections of the site. The foregoing interpretation of the stratified soil profiles in Areas I, II, and III, including the proposed correlation of the two probable discontinuities, is the only one which adequately fits the preserved sequence of natural and cultural events. In summary, then, the stratigraphy of the Mero site yields the following sequence, from earliest to latest, of culture-bearing strata: stratum d in Stratified Area I, followed successively by strata /, d, and b in Areas II and III. Stratum b in all areas is correlative. The stratigraphy thus presents a sequence of four physically distinguishable periods of human occupation. While typological considerations indicate the mixture of at least two different cultural components in the upper occupational zone, this has no bearing on the interpretation of the stratigraphy. On the basis of the structure and location of the site we may briefly summarize the natural history preparatory to an examination of the archaeology. Following the retreat of the last glacier the Mero site was alternately submerged and exposed by the rising and falling of postglacial lake stages in the basin of Lake Michigan. Submerged beneath three major high water stages--Algonquin, Nipissing, Algoma-the bedrock was eroded and was alternately covered by and washed clean of gravel and sand. By the end of the Lake Algoma stage, or a post-Algoma high-water stage that has not been recognized by geologists, the locality was exposed. Sometime shortly thereafter, as judged by the immediate superimposition of midden on lacustrine sand, the site was first visited by man.

50

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

These earliest people camped principally on the sandy elevation rising up from and following the bay shore. At some time after the first human occupation the water level rose again and the site was awash. The midden of the earliest inhabitants, who had either left earlier or were forced to vacate the locality because of rising water, was now subjected to inundation and wave action. This interval of abnormally high water persisted long enough to cut into the upper portions of the midden, waterroll the artifacts it exposed, and incorporate them into the gravel beach it deposited atop the remaining midden. Finally, water level dropped for the last time and the subsequent depositional history of the site was one marked by wind deposition and human activity. These various events served to seal off four different levels, each containing a different assemblage of artifacts, thus providing an unusually firm basis for chronological analysis of the archaeological materials. The Origin of the Buried Beach The surpnsmg discovery of a buried gravel beach superimposed over cultural material in Stratified Area I at the Mero site raises some interesting problems in interpretation. The elevation of that feature and the incorporation of heavily water-rolled potsherds clearly record the one-time deposition of lake sediments at the Mero site at an altitude of at least 5.5 to 6 feet above the modern mean lake level of 580 feet. It will also be remembered that there was unequivocal evidence of high-water deposition of heavy gravels at the Heins Creek site some ten miles to the south. This deposit was found well below the archaeological component (Late Woodland), but still at an altitude of approximately 8 feet above the lake. At the only other excavated site on the Lake Michigan coast of the Door Peninsula (a little over 10 miles north of the Mero site, and opposite Washington Island) my wife and I discovered a similar buried gravel deposit overlying archaeological material with pottery similar to that from beneath the beach at the Mero site. Here too, other pottery (Late Woodland and Mississippian) overlay the gravel. The elevation of the top of the buried gravel was 10.5 feet above lake level. It seems a reasonable hypothesis that all three manifestations record the same period of unusually high water activity. The most

THE MERO SITE

51

obvious explanation of these features is that lake level, at least along a minimum stretch of 20 miles on the Door Peninsula coast, rose at least 9. 5 to 10 feet above the modern level of 580 feet above mean sea level. How is this to be accounted for? The last major high-water stage in the Lake Michigan basin recognized by geologists is Lake Algoma. This body of water stood about 15 feet higher than the modern lake and lasted from about 1700 to perhaps 1200 B.C. (Hough 1963: 105 and Fig. 7). Lake Algoma represents a "halt" in the fall from the higher water plane of the preceeding Nipissing Great Lakes (ca. 605 feet above sea level) or a rise from an immediately post-Nipissing low lake stage. Furthermore, the details of the transition from Algoma to Lake Michigan are poorly known. Because there is little in the pottery or other artifacts from beneath the buried beach at the Mero site (the other station has not yet been analyzed) to suggest such great antiquity, the Algoma lake stage is presumably too early to be the agent of this deposition. Besides, the well-preserved nature of the subbeach midden is incompatiable with a thesis of submergence beneath a long-lived major lake stage. It likewise seems doubtful that the pronounced gravel deposits at the three Door Peninsula sites merely record a particularly bad storm at modern lake level. The gravels at the northernmost site are almost 11 feet above the surface of Lake Michigan and are atop and back of a steep shore. The Mero site occupies the shore of a small protected cove on North Bay and is not subject to the high waves of the lake. Even during a storm on Lake Michigan, and we witnessed many of them in the course of field work, it is doubtful if waves breaking on the shore of the cove from North Bay ever exceeded, if they ever reached, 2 feet in height. Additionally, there are no similar deposits for the long time span represented by Late Woodland and Mississippian artifacts at these and other sites. Submergence beneath a major lake stage such as Algoma or deposition during a storm with lake level at or near the elevation known in historic times are both theses unacceptable in the light of available information. The only other plausible explanation is that the lacustrine deposits were thrown up on shore during an unusually severe seiche resulting from a storm situation combining both highly abnormal barometric pressures and probably gale-force offshore winds. Such more or less localized episodes of abnormally high water and accompanying wave activity are known

52

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

for the Great Lakes and such is a possibility in this case. This would presuppose that previous wave action had already eroded parts of the shoreline and its included cultural material and that when the seiche developed it threw some of this (including the water-rolled sherds) back on shore where it became mixed with still intact, exposed midden. Such a catastrophic phenomenon, if it occurred at all, was so abnormal as to never have been repeated in the long subsequent history of the Door Peninsula shore sites. At least until much more is known about the nature and duration of the transition from the Algoma to the Lake Michigan levels it is tentatively suggested that the described gravel deposits date from a period in that transition before lake level had fully fallen to the modern plane. Perhaps this deposition occurred during a cyclical "high" similar to those known for the modern lake, but during a period when mean lake surface elevation was intermediate between the Algoma and Lake Michigan levels. As will be seen in the analysis of the early components of the Mero site, this suggestion is compatible with the independent archaeological chronology.

v ARTIFACTS OF CHIPPED FLINT As with other primitive peoples, the prehistoric inhabitants of the Mero site exploited a wide variety of natural resources in the fashioning of tools, utensils, and weapons. With the exception of some bone tools, all of the items made of perishable material have long since disappeared so that the artifacts recovered from the Mero site allow only the partial reconstruction of the skeletons of what were once vital and functioning cultural systems. One of the most important surviving classes of artifacts comprises stone tools and weapons and the industrial by-products of their manufacture. On the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin, as elsewhere, such artifacts usually occur on all archaeological sites and frequently in quantities sufficient for comparative studies. Thus, at the Mero site, the products and industrial litter of primitive stone-working are the most numerous cultural remains unearthed, rivaled only by the great quantities of broken aboriginal pottery and the deposits of animal bones which may also, for certain purposes, be considered cultural remains. Except for all but rather general statements, much of this stone industry is not as important as its abundance would imply. This is because most of it is represented by the byproducts, rather than the finished results, of stone-working activities and, unfortunately, because such "artifacts" retain much less of diagnostic value than finished tools and weapons and, hence, have not received as much attention from archaeologists. Many tens of thousands of pieces of chipped stone were found during the excavation of the Mero site; of this, all but an infinitesimal fraction consisted of chert derived from local gravels and nearby chert-bearing limestone. The overwhelming majority of this litter consisted of subsequently unmodified, amorphously shaped wedges and slivers of chert incidental to the tool-making process. Also present in large quantities were irregular blocks and other pieces of chert from which one or more flakes had been struck with varying degrees of skill and success. In the production of flakes from which projectile points and other artifacts were made, flakes were removed 53

54

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

from almost any convenient striking platform a piece of chert might offer. Cores were almost entirely amorphous slabs and pebbles minimally prepared and haphazardly exploited, and such pieces of material from which one or several flakes had been detached were the second most numerous class of stone artifact found. Very rarely, well-prepared cores were also discovered. Four such cores were recovered from which small parallel-sided flakes had been drawn in blade fashion, indication that at least some of the few "blades" from the site were not simply accidents such as might occur in almost any non blade flake industry. One of these interesting specimens is an exhausted polyhedral core more similar to the microblade cores of the Old Village occupation at the Cahokia site, Illinois, than to the classic Hopewell blade cores (Mason and Perino, 1961). This core came from an unstratified section of the site adjacent to Stratified Area II where a single thick culture-bearing stratum was excavated in two arbitrary levels. The specimen came from the lower level and may be contemporaneous with the earliest levels of Stratified Area II. The other blade cores were found in disturbed contexts. All of these cores were made from small pebbles and are reminiscent of Poverty Point examples. Chert was evidently in easy supply and, except for the extremely rare example of a well-prepared core, great amounts of raw material was broken up in the production of a few suitable flakes for use in tool-making. This debris and a great many of the finished artifacts suggest that most of the former inhabitants of the Mero site were not very efficient in flint-working. While this suggestion is further supported by the finding of many only partly finished bifaces (apparently rejected as not suitable for finishing), it should be pointed out that the locally available chert is of poor quality. The best cherts were probably obtained by picking over the glacial gravels and by breaking up large quantities of native chert in order to find the occasional piece of decent quality. Some well-made stone artifacts were found nevertheless, and it is clear from their association in stratified contexts with poorly fashioned stone implements that there was at all times considerable range in the skill and care exercised by individuals in the same groups. As judged by the limited stratified sample, however, the general level of proficiency was somewhat higher in the earlier occupations of the site.

THE MERO SITE

55

Exclusive of "cores," the Mero site yielded 427 whole and broken flaked-stone implements-a small number in view of the quantity of chippage found-and only nineteen pecked, ground, and polished stone tools. The chipped stone industry represented by these artifacts may be divided for description into nine categories: projectile points (140 examples), "blanks" (82), scrapers (28), knives (4), drills (8), quadrangular implements (15), spokeshave (1), "hand axe" (1), and unclassifiable fragments of flaked stone implements (148). The latter category includes tip, basal, edge, and midsections of both uniface and biface tools, in every case too incomplete or undiagnostic to allow functional classification. Many of the fragments seem to be from roughly to finely finished blanks, rejects, and ovate bifaces of unknown use. Probably also present are pieces of projectile points, knives, scrapers, etc. The great majority came from nonstratified areas and could not be assigned to a particular component. Unfortunately, projectile points were the only chippedstone artifacts sufficiently diagnostic or dintinctive in their formal properties and sufficiently well represented in stratified contexts to permit the identification and assignment of particular varieties to particular cultural complexes. All of the other categories of flaked-stone tools were so poorly represented in stratified contexts that it is impossible, except for certain individual specimens, to link them to any specific occupation. It is thus impossible to say much of significance about changes in type of scraper, knife, drill, etc., through time. Accordingly, all of this material is pooled in the nine "functional" categories for purely descriptive purposes. Such stratigraphic information as there is available is duly noted where pertinent. Projectile Points A total of 140 projectile points, represented by both whole and fragmentary examples, was found in the course of excavating the Mero site. Of this total, 118 are sufficiently whole or are so represented by diagnostic pieces as to make it possible to ascertain all or something as to shape and size. Seventy-eight of these are triangular; the remaining forty are stemmed and notched. With the exception of a solitary quartzite triangular point, all are manufactured of chert, presumably obtained from chert-bearing bedrock outcrops and local gravel deposits.

56

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

Triangular Projectile Points

This class of chipped-stone artifacts (Pl. IX, Fig. 2, bottom) includes three purely descriptive categories based on the over-all extent of flaking observed: 45 per cent of all the triangular projectile points are merely flakes minimally retouched along the edges, 11 per cent have been more or less completely chipped over one face while the other has been chipped only along the edges, and 44 per cent are completely or almost completely chipped over both faces. Attempts at correlating these categories with other attributes failed to produce positive results. It is therefore assumed that a single, albeit variable, type is present in the sample. Accordingly, they have been pooled in the following description. In length the triangular points average 24 mm and have a range of 15 to 40 mm. The average width is 16 mm within a range of 10 to 40 mm (the trimmed flakes tend to be a little narrower than the others), while mean thickness is 5 mm in a range of 2 to 7.5 mm. The triangular points weighed between 1 to 7 grams, with a mean of 1.4 grams (the minimally worked points tended to be a bit lighter than the rest). The lateral edges are straight or slightly convex and are serrated in 12 per cent of the cases. Basal edges are straight in 60 per cent of the points, the remainder being almost evenly divided between concave, convex, and irregular (untrimmed). Workmanship varies from very good to usually haphazard. The distribution of the triangular projectile points at the Mero site is described in connection with the stemmed and notched specimens.

Stemmed and Notched Projectile Points

Forty generally broad-bladed chert projectile points from the Mero site-both whole and incomplete specimens-m ay be described as stemmed or notched, although in many incomplete cases it is impossible to tell which (Pl. IX; Figs. 1 and 2, top). Aside from the numerous fragments of such points and a few unique specimens, two main possible types are present: corner-remo ved expanded-ste mmed points (10 whole or identifiable examples), and side-notched points (6 examples). The first category is represented by one specimen from the buried

THE MERO SITE

57

beach, two from beneath the buried beach, and one from the disturbed section-all in Stratified Area I, as well as six points from the nonstratified sections of the site. A probable additional example is represented by a broken stem from the buried beach in Stratified Area I. Two specimens in this first group have untrimmed bases with part of the original striking platform preserved. The second major category-the sidenotched specimens-is represented by one point from below the buried beach in Stratified Area I, one from in the beach, and four others from nonstratified sectors of the site. In addition to these projectile points there is a cornerremoved contracting-stemmed point from in the buried beach (this specimen is well water-rolled); a broad- bladed barbed point with a poorly reworked broken stem from the disturbed part of Area I; a crude and broadly side-notched point from in the beach; a crude simple-stemmed point (broken) from a nonstratified context; and other broad-bladed projectile points with missing stems from in and below the buried beach and from the disturbed section of Area I, from the intermediate occupational level (stratum d) of Area II, as well as some more fragmentary examples from other parts of the site. Some of the stemmed and notched points are wholly or partly covered with a thin veneer of patina, and some from in and below the beach are spotted with a thin limey incrustation. Workmanship on these weapon tips ranges from good to mediocre. Because the sample is limited and there is an over-all similarity among the points and, further, because stratification indicates that they were all made by the same or closely related groups, all of the stemmed and notched points have been pooled for metrical description. These artifacts show a length range of 33 to 61 mm and a mean length of 47 mm. In width they range from 17 to 36 mm, with a 25 mm average. Their thickness shows a mean of 9 mm within a total range of 7 to 13 mm. They weigh between 4 and 27 grams, and average 8.4 grams. Lateral edges are straight to convex, while basal edges are usually straight or, in a few cases, convex. Although there is evidence of some pressure retouching along blade edges, it appears that the North Bay points were shaped and finished primarily by percussion technique. In many instances the primary percussion flakes hinged out sharply near the middle of the blade and there was little or

58

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

no ensuing attempt at thinning these scar delimited prominences. Most of the primary flake scars are broad and deep and flare outward from the negative bulb except where impinged upon by another such scar. Shallow as well as deep hinge fractures are common. High "floating" scars (a vestige of flaking from an edge subsequently removed by secondary or tertiary flaking) testify that in some cases the projectile points are the product of considerable reduction from original blank size. Such scars are usually rippled and are minus negative bulbs. Pressure retouch was usually confined to removing only the large nipples between percussion scars along blade and stem edges. Half of the North Bay points are bilaterally asymmetrical and are plano-convex in longitudinal cross section. Generally, those points which are most carefully made and are bilaterally symmetrical have a more lenticular longitudinal cross section with the thickest point less than half way between base and midpoint. Notching and stemming was usually achieved by a few well-directed percussion blows with minimal trimming. Aside from one possible Raddatz Side-notched point Pl. IX: Fig. 1, center), many of the North Bay projectile points are similar to the types Durst-stemmed and Mononastemmed (see descriptions in Wittry 1959: 178-80). Possible cultural and chronological implications are discussed in Chapter IX. As might be expected, the stemmed and notched projectile points exhibited a distribution different from that of the triangular points. Twelve of the seventy-eight triangular points from the Mero site were discovered in place in stratified contexts. Six were found in Stratified Area I where they were confined to the upper occupational zone above the buried beach i.e., in stratum b; four came from Stratified Area II where they were again restricted to the upper level (stratum b,), and two were recovered from the corresponding stratum in Stratified Area III. Triangular projectile points, therefore, clearly belong to the latest cultural components at the Mero site and were almost certainly the exclusive stone projectile point type by that time. It is the most reasonable hypothesis that the many other triangular points from the nonstratified sectors of the site are of the same age. Those specimens from stratified contexts comprise five more or less fully worked bifaces, one uniface, and six retouched or trimmed-flake points.

THE MERO SITE

59

As pointed out earlier, the triangular points may be divided into three groups: those that are completely chipped over both faces (bifaces), those completely chipped over one face only ( unifaces), and those so minimally chipped as to be merely retouched flakes. It was hoped that these categories would show significant differences in areal distribution as might suggest differential time-depth or cultural differences within the period of triangular projectile point manufacture. No significant results were obtained. The maximum contrast in this regard occurred in excavation units A2 through F2 (in and around Stratified Area II) where 67 per cent of the triangular points were in the trimmed-flake category and the remaining 33 per cent were bifaces. Since the sample from this area comprised only nine triangular points these results are hardly enlighting. Aside from this extreme instance, the two main categories of triangular projectile points were about equally represented (along with the unifaces) in all areas of the Mero site. Bearing in mind the complete lack of any stratigraphic means of separating the different categories of triangular points, these data are compatible with a thesis of common origin. Evidently, triangular projectile points were the only type of chipped-stone point made by the Late Woodland and Mississippian peoples who occupied the Mero site. A total of twenty-seven stemmed and notched projectile points or diagnostic fragments thereof, out of a total collection of forty from the site, were recovered in situ in the stratified sections of the Mero site (Pl. IX, Fig. 1). Twentyfour of these were found in Stratified Area I where they exhibited the following distribution: ten from the buried beach (stratum c), eleven from below the beach in the lower occupational level (stratum d), and three from a disturbed section where the beach and lower occupational level had been dug into in modern times. No stemmed or notched whole or fragmentary points came from the upper midden (stratum b). Stratified Area II yielded two fragments that were probably, and one that was certainly, parts of stemmed or notched projectile points. These came from the intermediate occupational level (stratum d). This clear physical stratigraphy strongly suggests that the stemmed and notched points were confined to the earliest components at the Mero site. In view of the mutually exclusive stratigraphic contexts of the triangular and the stemmed and notched points, it seems likely that the latter

60

TWO STRATIFIED SITES

type specimens from the nonstratified areas also belong to these complexes. The areal or horizontal distribution of stemmed and notched projectile points on one hand, and triangular points on the other, give information of some value in indicating the main centers of heaviest occupation during the general time periods represented. For example, 67 per cent of all stemmed and notched points came from the neighboring excavation units A6 through 16 (Stratified Area I) and A5 through C5. The remainder were found in all other areas of the site combined, with 38 per cent of the remainder coming from in and around Stratified Area II. Sixty-seven per cent of the triangular projectile points, on the other hand, came from the neighboring excavation units A through F, A3 through D3, A4 and B4, and A2 through F2. These data take on added relevance when similar information on pottery is considered. It seems certain that the centers of heaviest occupation at the Mero site shifted through time. One other distributional clue of possible chronological value is the presence of marked thermal damage (fire-spalling) on six stemmed and notched points from the nonstratified parts of the site (one such type point from a stratified context also has this feature) while this occurs on only one triangular point. In view of the difference in numbers of these types it may be argued that this reflects the presence in or on the ground of stemmed and notched points when the triangular point-using later and much heavier occupations were present and were building fires on the site. Blanks Eighty-two whole and broken stone implements may be described for convenience as "blanks" (Pl. X, Fig. 1). Including what are almost certainly true blanks, that is, unfinished forms blocked out and intended for later finishing, this category also includes a large number of artifacts of totally unknown of questionable function. Some of these may have been used as knives and scrapers, but they are so generally similar to what seem to be unfinished tools that they have been placed with them in this provisional class. The artifacts divide into three groups depending on the

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quality or extent of primary chipping and the relative degree of edge trimming. These are roughly finished bifaces ( 20 examples), finely finished bifaces that may include some finished implements ( 22), and an intermediate group made up of specimens more carefully flaked than the first group yet not as well finished as the latter category (40). In terms of length, width, and thickness, the three groups show the following ranges: 49-80 mm, 26-62 mm, 11-29 mm (rough category); 32-78 mm, 17-57 m, 9-24 mm (intermediate category); and 33-71 mm, 21-38 mm, 6-10 mm (fine category). The blanks usually have convex edges and tend to be ovate, although there are some with straighter edges and with a more triangular outline. Two of these in the "fine" category look like triangular projectile points except for certain special features. One of these has a steeply beveled "basal" edge and may actually be a triangular bifacial endscraper. If such an identification is correct, the pointed end may originally have been intended for driving into a handle. The other specimen has a more convex basal edge and is either an unusual variety of triangular point or, as seems more likely, a knife or finished blank. Both of these artifacts were discovered incorporated in the buried beach in Stratified Area I. This last specimen is smaller and more triangular in outline than the well-finished leaf-shaped biface (also from the buried beach) that may be a blank for a corner-notched Hopewell type projectile point, an interpretation compatible with the relative lack of basal edge trimming. This and some similar specimens are quite thin and are carefully flaked with retouched edges. Drills Eight chert drills were found at the Mero site (Pl. VIII, Fig. 2, middle). Two of these appear to be reworked triangular projectile points, two more are broken and lack basal sections, and the remaining four are flake drills worked only at the distal or drilling end. These are worked only to the extent necessary to produce a functional tool. One of the latter was probably a multipurpose implement, with edge wear suggesting employment in drilling, scraping, and graving operations. The drills are 24 to 37 mm long. Only one was found

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in a stratified context: from the buried beach (stratum c) in Stratified Area I. This is a modified flake drill, the unworked end of which retains the striking platform, part of the pebble ( ?) rind, and facets of the original flake itself. The implement could hardly have been hafted because of the awkward shape and thickness of the unmodified proximal end, and it seems likely that its use was restricted to the perforation of relatively soft materials. Scrapers Three distinct classes of scrapers are represented in the sample of twenty-eight such chipped-stone tools from the Mero site (Pl. VIII, Fig. 2, top). In addition to these, it is very likely that many of the unmodified chips so multitudinous in the Mero site middens had at one time or another seen casual use as scrapers or knives without any preparatory modification to adapt them as formal tools. Undoubtedly, proximity to the potential user and possession of a serviceable edge determined such "one shot" use when prepared tools were not conveniently at hand. Additionally, some of the chipped-stone tools seemingly designed for cutting, etc., may also have been used as scrapers. The implements here identified as scrapers are intentionally flaked tools showing one or more edges so prepared and so scarred by actual use as to clearly indicate their function. These artifacts fall neatly into three formal categories as described below.

Utilized Flake Scrapers The twelve specimens composing this category are all minimally worked, irregularly shaped flakes with one or more sides chipped to form a beveled edge and showing characteristic scraper wear, i.e., chip scars from edge wear are confined to only one of the two surfaces defining the working edge of the implement. These tools vary in greatest dimension frorr 13 to 52 mm. Two were found in stratified deposits: one from above and one from beneath the buried beach in Area I. Snub-nosed end scrapers. This is a distinctive category of fifteen more or less regularly shaped prepared implements

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with a beveled working edge at one end (Pl. VIII, Fig. 2, top left). Varying in length from 21 to 42 mm, they tend to be triangular or wedge-shaped, although some are quadrangular. They are, with but one exception, flake tools with a well-prepared and steeply beveled working edge and usually with only minimal edge trimming elsewhere. The undersurface of each scraper is the smooth flake facet originally sheared from the parent core. The bulbar end of the flake is opposite to the beveled scraping edge and is thus at the narrowest end of the flake, that is, at the apex of the normally triangular implement. There is but one example where the bulbar end of the flake and the beveled scraper edge coincide. The nonbulbar face of these artifacts tends to be ridged or keeled. One specimen only is a biface. Probably many of these implements were originally hafted, but some may have been used as they are, being wielded between the thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately, only one snub-nosed end scraper came from a stratified section of the site. This is a fire-spalled triangular specimen from the upper midden (stratum b) in Stratified Area II.

Bifacial Ovate End scraper This describes a unique implement at the Mero site manufactured of a speckled pink chert not common in the region (Pl. VIII, Fig. 2, upper right). The artifact is pointed at one end and has a broad convex working edge opposite. While retaining a large part of the original flake facet on one face, the implement has been extensively shaped by well-controlled flaking on both faces. The scraper may actually have been used for cutting and scraping, and edge trimming and shape strongly suggest that the nonfunctional pointed end had once been driven into some sort of handle. This unique artifact was discovered in the intermediate occupational zone (stratum d) of Stratified Area II associated with cord-marked and dentate-stamped pottery. It is 76 mm long and 48 mm at its greatest width, that is, across the working end.

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Knives There is no well-defined formal variety of artifact which we may unequivocally call "knife." Excepting only four chipped flint tools (Pl. VIII, Fig. 2, lower left), there are no artifacts from the Mero site that cannot be classified as probably something other than a knife. The four exceptions to this generalization exhibit flaking and edge wear such as would be expected from employment mainly or solely in cutting (at least as opposed to scraping) operations. Two of these are partly worked flake implements while the other two are asymmetrical bifaces, broken in both cases. They were all found in nonstratified parts of the site. The surprising rarity of "knives" strongly suggests that we have identified only a fraction of those actually present in the excavated material, presumably because our criteria for such identification agree only partly with the true attributes of the artifacts actually used as knives. Although some knife fragments may be present in the excavated collection of unclassifiable fragments of flaked-stone implements, and some others may be represented in the category designated ''blanks,'' it does not seem likely that tools intended for use as knives have been confused for such other artifact categories as drills, scrapers, projectile points, etc. Even though a projectile point or a scraper could also occasionally have been used as a knife, it seems unlikely that such use was common because of the shape and edge characteristics of such artifacts. It is therefore suggested that the functions normally ascribed to knives were most likely served by the multitudinous sharp-edged flakes scattered about the site. These may well have been used as found or detached from a block of chert and then discarded when dulled through use or when no longer needed. Flakes so employed, unless in some way purposefully modified for use, would be extremely difficult to identify with any degree of confidence in a large collection of poor quality, variably weathered chert. But that many flakes were so used is an inference almost dictated by the infinitesimal sample of identified knives as compared with the large quantities of animal remains from the site. We tentatively conclude that knives were not as formalized a category as were projectile points, drills, and even scrapers.

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Quadrangular Implements This is a provisional class of both flake and core implements having a square to roughly rectangular outline and of uncertain function (Pl. VIII, Fig. 2, lower right). In length, breadth, and thickness they range from 16 by 15 by 6 mm all the way up to 61 by 53 by 28 mm. While the degree of edge retouch is highly variable, they all seem to have been purposefully squared. The largest example is a trimmed, though exhausted, block core. Including this specimen, only three yield no evidence of edge battering such as that on the remaining twelve which suggests scraping and cutting-if not actually hacking-use along one, two, three or all four of the edges. Whether these were used primarily as knives or as scrapers is impossible to determine; a combination of both functions is possible. None appear to be gun flints. Two were found in Stratified Area II where the largest (the core tool) came from the upper midden-bearing stratum (b). A quadrangular flake implement was found in the lowest occupational level (stratum f). Minimally worked across one face, it was untouched on the other. Spokeshave One flake with a deeply notched and beveled corner would have been suitable for shaving arrows or similar wooden shafts and has accordingly been identified as a "spokeshave." The implement measures 36 by 29 by 6 mm, and the notch is 5 mm deep. It was recovered from a disturbed context. No other similar artifacts are known from the Mero site.

Hand Axe The designation "hand axe" in this context seems to be both a descriptive and a functional one. The single chippedstone implement in this category resembles a crude Acheulian hand axe. It is roughly egg-shaped, but with one end more pointed than the other. Judging from the rough character of one of the long edges, however, the working edge was that opposite. Apparently, the implement was held in the hand and the longest edge used as a chopper. So held, it would have

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made an efficient instrument in the cracking and splitting of bone or in the hewing of wood. A core tool, it is relatively massive for its size, being 100 mm in length, 69 mm in breadth, and 44 mm in thickness. Although recovered from excavation unit A2, this interesting specimen was just outside of the physical stratification exposed in Stratified Area II and cannot with assurance be attributed to any specific level.

VI ARTIFACTS OF PECKED AND GROUND STONE, COPPER, AND BONE Pecked and Ground- stone Artifacts Three categories of stone artifacts shaped by methods other than chipping or flaking are represented by only a few specimens each. These are functional classes and comprise artifacts identifiable as hammerstones, net weights or sinkers, and grooveless axes or celts .

.Ham mer stones

The implements shaped by hammering or pecking are but simple cobbles whose form has been minimally modified. This first category consists of four fine-grained basalt cobbles obviously derived from a gravel deposit and showing clear signs of battering along two or more edges. While many rocks were found exhibiting some degree of edge or surface battering, these four are the only ones clearly battered from use and seemingly identifiable as hammerstones. None were associated with stratification. Netsinkers

Another group of pecked-stone objects, identified as net weights or sinkers, is made up of a dozen native limestone cobbles worked only to the extent necessary to produce a rough groove or opposing notches, evidently for securing a line. Most of the netsinkers were found close together in the upper midden in Stratified Area I. They constitute the only evidence, aside from the numerous fish remains, of aboriginal fishing at the Mero site, and they clearly relate to a late period in the history of the locality. The shallow offshore waters here would seem particularly suited to the use of nets, especially during the spawning season. There was 67

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no evidence at this locality, as there was at the Heins Creek site, of the use of harpoons for the taking of fish. Celts

Three small celts or grooveless axes are the only examples from the excavations of ground and polished stone tools. Only one of these is unbroken. This specimen, the smallest, is made of chlorite schist and measures 82 by 36 by 15 mm, with the greatest width at the convex bit; this celt is made of such soft material that is could hardly have been a functional tool unless employed as a weapon. The surviving bit end of a much larger celt has a slightly convex edge and is made of a quartz pyroxene gneiss. It is 48 mm wide at the bit and is 24 mm thick. The third specimen is a badly broken and battered one which seems to have seen use as a hammer, presumably after it was broken. It is manufactured of a slatey schist. None of the celts came from stratified areas. Copper Artifacts Only two artifacts of native copper were found at the Mero site. Both of them came from mixed areas of the site without stratigraphic clue to temporal provenience. One of the copper artifacts is a very well-formed and well-preserved awl. The other is the blade of a tanged spatulate knife. Awl

The copper awl, measuring 116 mm in length, 7 mm in maximum breadth, and 5 mm in maximum thickness, has a cross section which is round at the needle-like tip or point, square further back from the point, and rhomboidal along the remaining and greater part of its length. The end opposite the point has been pounded flat in "screwdriver" fashion, suggesting that the implement was not hafted but was used as found (Pl. XI, Fig. 1, lower right).

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Knife The only other copper artifact is the broad and flat curved blade of a tanged spatulate knife. The tang is missing, but all of the blade is intact. This has a long convex edge, an opposing concave edge, and a broad rounded point. It is more heavily corroded than the awl and measures 57 by 20 by 2 mm. According to Quimby ( 1963), such artifacts as this type of copper knife are very characteristic of late phases of the Late Woodland Period in the Upper Great Lakes. Artifacts of Bone Limited numbers of tools and ornaments made from animal bones, antler, and teeth, in that order of relative frequency, were recovered from almost all parts of the site (Pl. X, Fig. 2; Pl. XI, Fig. 1). A total of eighty-two broken and whole specimens, shaped by whittling, grinding, drilling, and polishing, comprise the collection. Approximately a quarter of these came from stratified areas. The sample includes artifacts classifiable as awls, pins, projectile points, drifts, "mat-sewing needles," "counters," and ornaments, as well as miscellaneous whole and broken objects of unknown or uncertain use. The polishing evident on some tools, such as awls, is probably a function of use rather than intent. On another bone artifact it is the result of water-rolling, while on some it seems to be purposeful rather than simply accidental.

Split Bone Awls The most numerous category of bone tools is that of single-pointed split bone awls (Pl. X, Fig. 2, lower group). Twenty were recovered. The awls were made of mammal (probably deer) long bones, split and worked on one end only. In cases where much of the unmodified end is still present, the bone is roughly cut, sometimes with part of the trabecula still remaining. The long parallel sides (presumably the part held in the hand) often have sharp edges and may have been wrapped in something. Only one specimen has a finished end

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opposite the point. Whether this lack of finishing the other end reflects later breakage or original lack of attention to the nonworking end of the tool is difficult to decide. The fact that only one specimen has a finished end opposite the point argues that the makers simply failed to interest themselves in this detail. In marked contrast to these areas, the pointed ends are smoothed and polished. In every case the transition from polished tip to unmodified shank is abrupt and distinctly visible as a clear break from polished to unpolished bone. The points themselves are usually very sharp and needle-like where still preserved. In length, the split bone awls range from 62 to 130 mm with widths up to 20 mm. Judging from the configuration of some of the points, the awls had been broken and resharpened many times, reducing what were once long slender instruments to relatively broad short ones with abrupt instead of long tips. These tools as a group are strictly utilitarian in nature-the aesthetics discernible in the manufacture of some other classes of bone artifacts did not extend to them. The data from stratigraphy suggest that essentially similar split bone awls were made and used for a long time at the Mero site. One example from Stratified Area I was discovered in place beneath the buried beach. Two specimens from Stratified Area III, and one each from Stratified Areas I and II were found in the upper occupational level (stratum b in each area). One of these is the only example with a finished end (spatulate) opposite the point. Deer Ulna Awls

Five bone awls were manufactured of split deer ulnas with the intact proximal ends of the bones retained as grips or handles (Pl. X, Fig. 2, upper group). These range in length from a short 51 mm to a long 99 mm. The disparity in length reflects a constant resharpening process during which the originally long implements were eventually reduced to extremely short stubby ones. Where any parts of the original tips remain they are universally sharp rather than blunt. It is possible that some of the split bone awls described above are actually fragments of ulna awls, but the small number of proximal ends of ulnas makes this suggestion unlikely.

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Like the split bone awls, the ulna awls evidently persisted for a long time with little or no discernible alteration. Two pertain to the earliest horizons in Stratified Areas II (stratum J), and III (stratum d), while one was found in the upper occupational level (stratum b) of Stratified Area II.

Drifts Another variety of split bone implements, provisionally identified as drifts, exhibits two working ends. The four tools so classified have broad blunt working ends rather than the sharp needle-like ones characteristic of the awls. These blunt points range from slightly to pronouncedly rounded and from slightly to more or less spatulate. They would hardly have made efficient perforating instruments, but could have been employed in a variety of uses from incising or punctating pottery to trimming the edges of flints. The tools in this category vary from totally unmodified (except for the ends) splinters to well-worn and polished examples. In length they range from 63 to 88 mm and are up to 19 mm in breadth. All were found in disturbed contexts.

Decorated Awl (?) This is a unique and very well-made polished artifact from a mixed part of the Mero site (Pl. X, Fig. 2, second from bottom). Made from a split long bone, it has an ovoid cross section and a sharp and slender point at one end; the other end, now broken, seems to have been rounded. The implement is carefully decorated with a pair of longitudinal grooves and shallow transverse notches along one edge. The notches are far too shallow to be described as barbs, and it seems certain that the artifact was a tool rather than a weapon, with the point serving as a perforator of some sort.

Projectile Points Two socketed conical projectile points, one of antler and the other made from a deer metapodial, were the only bone

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weapons definitely identifiable as such (Pl. XI, Fig. 1, center). Both were without a stratigraphic context. The antler projectile point is now 44 mm long, although it was once considerably longer; its greatest surviving diameter is 7 mm. This elongated conical antler point was made from the tip of a tine and was socketed up to within 35 mm of the point. It is considerably weathered. The bone specimen is complete and is shorter and relatively more broad than the other, measuring 25 mm in length and 12 mm across the base. It is socketed almost to the very tip. The point is sharper than on the antler specimen and the entire artifact is less weathered, a condition not necessarily indicative of lesser age.

"Mat-sewing Needles" Five fragments of what have been identified from other sites as "mat-sewing needles" (McKern 1945: Pl. 23) were also excavated at the Mero site (Pl. XI, Fig. 1, upper left). These interesting artifacts are of split bone which has been ground and polished into flat "needles" about 10 mm in width. Their original length is not known since none of the fragments from this site are nearly complete. Two of the fragments have been drilled, one with a single perforation and the other with a pair of perforations placed 13 mm apart. The only surviving example of a finished end is broad, blunt, and transversely thinned. One piece is decorated with incised lines arranged in a crude zig-zag pattern down the length of the tool. Two of the fragments were unearthed in the upper midden in Stratified Area I.

''Counters'' Five fragments of highly polished bone were recovered from the intermediate (stratum d) and bottom (stratum f) occupational levels in Stratified Area III. These were reconstructable into two complete end sections (using pieces from both strata) of one large, or two smaller artifacts-probably the latter. These objects are flat and tabular in shape and are from 4 to 7 mm thick. Except that they are made of a dense

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bone, they resemble somewhat the antler "counters" described and illustrated by McKern ( 1945: Pl. 28). The bone itself has been ground and polished, with minute striations caused by the grinding still in evidence as fine lines on all surfaces. If the two reconstructed end sections represent opposite ends of a single artifact, as seems unlikely, then one end of that artifact was considerably narrower and more spatulate than the other. The larger end section is more blunt and has a slight bevel. Dimensions on these two sections are 35 by 17 and 34 by 22 mm. One of the pieces had been charred in a fire after it had been broken. The "counters" are among the most finely finished and highly polished bone artifacts from the Mero site. Although their function is highly uncertain, they clearly belong to one of the earliest occupations represented.

Pins The most numerous category of bone "ornaments" is that comprising bone pins (Pl. XI, Fig. 1, bottom). Eleven of these artifacts were found. They average 69 mm in length and are very uniform as far as method of manufacture and general pattern are concerned. Made from bone splinters subsequently well worked, they are round or flat in cross section: four can be classified as round pins and the remaining seven as flat. The round specimens are quite variable as to size, both the smallest and the largest pins being included in this group. The flat pins are more uniform with an average length of 70 mm. (the range is 66 to 77 mm). All of the whole pins have a head set off distinctly from the body of the pin by notching, banding by incised lines, banding by lines or ridges left elevated above the more heavily reduced body, or by simple grooving. In almost all cases where the complete head is pre served, the means employed to set it off do not encircle the entire pin but are confined to only one face or, in the case of notched flat pins, to opposing sides. Even in the case of round pins, notching or grooving is limited to one surface, being absent on the "back." In almost all instances, the pins are very well made and are carefully finished and highly polished. In these respects they contrast markedly with the bone awls. We can only surmise that they were used as personal ornaments, perhaps in the hair.

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Only one bone pin came from a stratified part of the site. This specimen is from the buried beach in Stratified Area I. Tooth Pendants

Two pendants made from the canines of carnivores were found at the Mero site, one a bear canine, the other a dog, coyote, or small wolf (Pl. XI, Fig. 1, upper right). The bear canine (several were found at the site, this being the only one that was worked) has been lightly grooved around the root tip for suspension. Unfortunately, it was from a mixed area. The dog ( ?) canine is perforated at the tip of the root, apparently also for suspension, and was discovered in the buried beach (stratum c) in Stratified Area I.

Unclassifiable Fragments Twenty small fragments of other bone tools may represent parts of awls- both tips and midsections-as well as parts of completely unidentifiable artifacts. Many of these pieces exhibit high polish and/ or wear. Nine are charred or calcined. One of the fragments is a part of a blunt spatulate tool with a broad rounded worked end of unknown function. In addition to the above are seven pieces of antler, including four pointed sections which may have been antler projectile points broken off above the socketed area. One of these is likewise charred. None of the antler fragments except the tips exhibit any kind of fashioning or modification in the direction of distinct tool types; evidence for their status as artifacts consists solely of use marks in most instances. Some of the tips, however, appear to have been sharpened. Only six of these unclassifiable fragments were found in stratified areas where they occurred in all levels. These particular examples are probably best interpreted as pieces of awls and pins. Not included as artifacts in this discussion are many beaver incisors, quite a few of which are longitudinally split. Some of these may or may not have been used as engraving tools hafted in an antler or bone handle.

VII

THE NORTH BAY I CERAMIC ASSEMBLAGE The North Bay I ceramic assemblage comprises the pottery distributed in and underneath the buried beach in Stratified Area I as well as its typological counterparts wherever else they were encountered on the Mero site" For purposes of control, however, the following description is based on the sample from the stratified area exclusively" Identical or similar pottery from nonstratified contexts is discussed in a later section" Beginning with the sherds from the earliest component on the site, here called North Bay I, the pottery from the Mero site is described in chronological units as delimited by stratigraphy, an approach made possible by the frequently excellent sherd series confined to a particular stratum" While sharing many attributes or features with other pottery from the Mero site, the North Bay I ceramic assemblage includes some attributes and combinations of attributes which are unique to the assemblage" The North Bay I series includes several pottery types, all based on a common ware defined in terms of paste and tempering characteristics" The potsherds in this series are usually thick, heavy, and extremely gritty; they are usually crude and poorly made" Aside from occasional pieces of quartz, garnet, and mica, some of which may be original clay constituents, the temper consists of dark gray to black angular pieces of plagioclase feldspar-probably labradorite variety-almost certainly derived from anorthosite" The feldspar tempering is present as angular fragments ranging in size from almost microscopic to 15 mm with a very liberal representation in the upper range. Some sherds exhibit a lot of white feldspar, perhaps derived from a different parent rock" Particle size varies from sherd to sherd as does the color of the included feldspar; thus some sherds are heavily tempered with smaller pieces of temper while others are less heavily tempered with usually larger particles of feldspar. While the great majority of the sherds are tempered with dark gray or black anorthosite, some appear to have been prepared with gabbro or similar rock. It is interesting that anorthosite does not occur on the Door Peninsula, unless occasionally in the glacial gravels. However, if the general direction of late Wisconsin age glaciers was from the region of the Sault, as seems probable, there are no known Canadian or Michigan sources for the hypothetical anorthosite in the glacial 75

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till. The nearest source of such material is in western Oconto County, across Green Bay and 70 miles away. Approximately 5 per cent of the North Bay I sherds are tempered exclusively or mainly with quartz or limestone" Almost all of the sherds are very heavily tempered. Indeed, many appear to be crushed rock fragments merely held together with a minimum of clay. While most sherds are not as heavily tempered as this, very heavy tempering is one of the principal features of the North Bay I ceramic assemblage. The particles characteristically protrude through the sherd surfaces, both interior and exterior, and are frequently interconnected by small cracks and fissures. The many protruding temper particles cause many of the sherds to sparkle as they are handled. North Bay I paste is contorted and poorly compacted. It is usually sandy or gritty to the touch. The sherds are extremely friable, arrl they break with irregular fractures. They frequently exhibit fractures running parallel to the surface along cleavage planes produced by surface malleation. Thus, many sherds have all, or sections, of a surface sloughed off. Paste color ranges from tan through black; it is usually dirty tan or gray, being darkest where the anorthosite tempering is most plentiful. The pottery incorporated in the beach is generally lighter in color, presumably because of the water action" It is also somewhat smoother and less sandy to the touch" Surface hardness on the Mohs scale is about 2"5" An almost universal characteristic of the North Bay I series is an uneven and much contorted interior surface. This surface is kneaded in appearance, resulting perhaps from hand and finger pressure on the interior of the pot while the exterior surface was being maleated or smoothed" This and the other features described above, as well as a common stratigraphic distribution, unite the various types which make up the series. These types are describe below and, in a more formal and general way, in Appendix II, "Descriptions of Proposed Wares and Pottery Types." North Bay I Cord-marked Excluding many examples of typologically identical sherds from nonstratified contexts, this proposed pottery type is represented by 149 sherds, of which 126 came from beneath the buried

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beach itself (Pl. XI, Fig, 2). A few other examples possibly were present in the beach, but these have been so thoroughly waterworn that no trace of the original surface finish remains to distinguish them from the other waterworn potsherds. North Bay I Cord-marked sherds range in thickness from 5 to 20 mm (some sloughed specimens may have been substantially thicker); they have a mean of 8. 7 mm and a standard deviation of 1 9 mm. The sherds divide into two classes on the basis of presence or absence of secondary smoothing (that is, partial obliteration of the cord-marking by subsequent smoothing before firing): 117 sherds exhibit no secondary smoothing and 32 are partly or almost wholly smoothed Some, but not all of the smoothed specimens appear to have come from basal portions of vessels. Two sherds in this collection from the stratified context are heavily cord-marked on both surfaces, the orientation of the impressions on one surface being at right angles to those on the other face. Both sherds appear to have come from near the neck or rim of a vessel. North Bay I Cord-marked sherds are covered with frequently overlapping and usually coarse imprints from a cordwrapped or, in perhaps a few cases, rough fabric-wrapped paddle (see Quimby, 1961). The application of this wrapped paddle seems to have been both vigorous and sloppy, although some finer examples can be seen. Many of the sherds have strikingly barklike appearance with a sometimes 1. 5 mm deep corrugated surface. Individual cord imprints are 1 to 2 mm wide and are either contiguous or spaced not more than a cord's width apart. They seem to have been made by some sort of twisted fibrous cord. Tempering particles protrude through the exterior cordmarked surfaces much less frequently than is the case with the plain interior survaces. In many examples this contrast is marked. The four North Bay I Cord-marked rimsherds in the sample from Stratified Area I are all very similar. The rims are simple; they are straight and have rounded (almost flattened to almost pointed) plain lips. Surface roughening begins on the rim immediately below the lip. Interiors are plain and conform to the characteristics already described for the North Bay I ceramic assemblage. Decoration is absent. These sherds testify that the North Bay I series included some vessels that were entirely cord-marked up to the lip and that bore no decoration of any kind. Nevertheless, many of the North Bay I Cord-marked sherds probably belonged to vessels represented by some of the decorated specimens. Little is ascertainable regarding vessel shape beyond the determination that rims

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were straight and shouldering, if present, was slight. North Bay I Plain One hundred and twenty-four sherds are included in this category (PL XII, Figs. 1 and 2, top). They are divided as to provenience as follows: seventy-six from beneath the buried beach in Stratified Area I, and forty-eight from in the beach. Those plain sherds which are clearly water-rolled have not been classified as North Bay I Plain for reasons which will be evident shortly. These sherds have been placed in a separate category. For purposes of good typological control, only appropriate material from Stratified Area I is included in this description of the type. North Bay I Plain is slightly less massive than North Bay I Cord-marked. The sherds range in thickness from 5 to 15 mm and exhibit a mean of 8.2 within a standard deviation of 2 mm. They have plain interior and exterior surfaces and, with the exception of the only known rim, lack decoration entirely. In tempering and paste they conform to the general description of the North Bay I ceramic assemblage. In all cases, those examples found in the buried beach have a cleaner look and are less sandy to the touch than those found in the underlying occupational level. Only one rim sherd of North Bay I Plain was found in a stratified context; this was recovered from below the beach. The rim is straight and has a flat, inward beveled lip that protruded out and over both the interior and exterior rim surfaces. The only decoration consists of plain transverse notches impressed across the lip. Again, little is known of vessel shape beyond the presence of straight rims and the absence of any evidence of distinct shouldering. The figures on distribution indicate that there is a difference in the relative frequency of North Bay I Plain and North Bay I Cord-marked with respect to representation in and beneath the buried beach in Stratified Area I. Thus 68 per cent of the undecorated sherds recovered from in the beach were plain and 32 per cent were cord-marked. Below the beach only 38 per cent of the undecorated sherds were plain while 62 per cent were cord-marked. The total sample of such sherds from which these percentages were calculated was 273. What is the reason for this shift? Three explanations may be advanced to account for the observed differences in vertical distribution: (1) the differences are an

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artifact of sampling error and have no cultural meaning; (2) the much higher proportion of plain sherds in the beach is due to the obliteration of cord-marked surfaces because of water action and incorporation in the beach deposits; and (3) the differences indicate some time depth within the North Bay I horizon and thus record a real decrease in cord-marking and a corresponding increase in the relative frequency of plain surfaces through the time span represented. The first theory is superficially invalidated by a chi-square test which rules out chance or accident as a factor in the observed frequency distribution. With one degree of freedom the calculated chi-square of 19.6 is still significant at the 0.1 per cent level. Little or no confidence may be accorded the results of this statistical test however. This is because all of the sherds combine to represent only a few original vessels as judged by rim sherds and the marked homogeneity of body sherds. Probably only three or four vessels are represented by all the sherds in question, and so the problem of sample adequacy cannot be resolved with present evidence. The second explanation, while hard to test directly, is probably not solely responsible for the observed frequencies. This is because the third explanation fits with other data. The third theory is seemingly supported by the following additional information: (1) the trend observed in the relative frequencies is compatible with the apparent trend to plain surfaces observed in the later North Bay II ceramic assemblage as known from deposits in Stratified Areas II and III; (2) some sherds (six examples) placed in a separate category because of their clearly water-rolled condition still retain unmistakable signs of cord marking (why should cord marking survive on these specimens, made on the same paste, and be totally obliterated on sherds with plain surfaces that obviously had been subjected to much less intensive water action?); (3) some specimens markedly water-rolled, and thus placed in the separate water-rolled category, still have a carbon incrustation adhering to their interior faces -it would seem unlikely that this incrustation would survive tumbling and washing while exterior and more resistant cord-marked surfaces would be ground smooth; and (4) the necessary implications of temporal depth within the North Bay I ceramic assemblage is also supported by the almost mutually exclusive distributions of the several varieties of punctated sherds to be described below. An increase in the numbers of plain-surfaced sherds over cordmarked ones during that portion of the North Bay I period

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recorded at the Mero site is suggested by the shift in relative frequencies just described. Vessel counts, however, are very low and argue caution in accepting this suggestion.

Water-rolled Sherds A total of ninety-six potsherds from Stratified Area I (69 from in the buried beach, 27 from the top of the underlying stratum) were segregated and placed in a separate category on the criterion of obvious modification by water erosion (Pl. XIV, Fig. 2). These are all fragments of pottery ranging in size from 2.5 to 10.5 mm that have been more or less ground smooth by the rolling and tumbling effect of water on a beach. This erosion of the sherds is evidenced in one or all of the following ways: no sharp details are preserved, all edges have been ground smooth and round, sherd corners are rounded, and many specimens exhibit temper particles protruding well above the level of the sherd surfaces where the softer clay has been worn away. Six of the ninety-six water-rolled sherds retain some evidence of original cord marking. Because of the degree of weathering of the water-rolled specimens, nothing can be said regarding their original surface finish unless some clear signs of other than plain surfaces has been preserved. None can definitely be said to have been decorated. The water-rolled sherds form a distinctive category; they cannot be meaningfully fitted into the various types and varieties already described or to be described below. In terms of paste and tempering, however, as well as stratigraphic position, they clearly belong in the North Bay I ceramic assemblage.

Undefined Decorated Types Stratigraphically associated with the North Bay I cord-marked, plain, and water-rolled sherds was a limited collection of sherds variously decorated by dentate stamping, punctating, corded-stamped imprints, and incising. Most of these decorated sherds have the paste and tempering attributes typical of the rest of the North Bay I ceramic assemblage and undoubtedly belong with it. Unfortunately, they are represented by only a limited number of small sherds. Accordingly, they have not been described as formal or named types.

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Dentate-stamped Sherds

This informal category is known from eighteen sherds found in place beneath the buried beach in Stratified Area I and one additional example found incorporated in the beach (Pl. XIII, Fig. 1). The characteristics of paste and temper have already been set forth in the general discussion of the North Bay I ceramic assemblage. The category embraces sherds decorated with impressions made by a toothed implement stamped on a smooth ( 16 examples) or a cord-marked (3 examples) surface. These may all be described as varieties of linear dentate stamping. Interior surfaces are plain and exhibit no striations from wiping or smoothing. Only two specimens bear decoration on the interior; this occurs on the inside of the rim and will be described below. The sherds range in thickness from 4 to 11 mm and cluster at the higher end of the scale. At least for purposes of description, the category "dentatestamped sherds" may be broken down into four varieties, depending on the form of the dentate stamping. This description is based solely on sherds from Stratified Area I, although dentate-stamped sherds from nonstratified contexts are similar. Variety 1: compound dentate. Represented by twelve sherds, this variety of North Bay I dentate-stamped pottery is decorated with what may be described as internally segmented linear dentate stamping (for an example see Pl. XIII, Fig. 1, bottom). These are relatively long rectilinear impressions (13 to at least 26 mm long) with continuous unbroken edges. The impressions are interrupted by ridged elements at right angles to the long axis of the stamp (ridges raised between the teeth of the stamp), thus creating a segmented or compartmentalized appearance. The responsible instrument must have been a slightly rounded or flat edge transversely scored along its length. Some of the imprints resemble "stab-and drag" trailing but for their regularity and resemblance to the stamped imprints. The individual impressions vary in width from 2 to a more popular 5 mm. They are 0.5 to 2 mm deep. The imprints of the individual teeth in the stamp are 1 to 3 mm long and the ridges separating them are about 0.5 mm across. The stamps run parallel to each other in contiguous bands which originally encircled the mouths of the vessels represented. They are perpendicular or oblique to the rim. Individual dentate-stamped impressions are separated from their neighbors by 4 to 8 mm. The rows or bands of dentate stamping either overlap slightly or

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are separated by an undecorated zone. Two of the sherds are cord-marked, the others have plain surfaces. Two rimsherds are present, both with flattened lips. One of these, with oblique dentate stamping beginning immediately below the lip and running around the rim, is scored transversely across the lip. The other, with perpendicular stamping arranged as above, has a plain lip and is decorated on the interior from the lip down for about 11 mm with perpendicular or slightly oblique dentate stamping. This last rim differs from the other members of Variety 1 in having narrower and slightly curved dentate impressions with tapered rather than square ends. If more of the overall range of variation was known, this last example might be placed in a separate variety. The two rimsherds suggest vessels with straight to slightly incurvate rims. Variety 1, with its large dentate-stamped imprints, comprises the majority of dentate-stamped sherds from Stratified Area I. Variety 2: segmented dentate. There are only two sherds in this descriptive category, one each from in and below the buried beach (Pl. XIII, Fig. 1, upper left). The stamped impressions evidently were made by a flat-edged, toothed implement much narrower than that used on Variety 1 sherds. The results are quite different. The imprints may be described as lines of tiny rectangular depressions-not as deep as in Variety 1-arranged in parallel rows. The length of the dentate stamps is uncertain, but it is at least 15 mm and is 1 mm wide. Individual tooth impressions are 1 to 2 mm long and are separated from each other by less than 0.5 mm to 1 mm. Unlike Variety 1, the dentate stamp was applied parallel-not vertically or obliquely--to the mouth of the vessel on the rim, and probably also the neck. The stamped imprints are parallel to each other and are separated by undecorated zones 2 to 5 mm in width. One of the sherds is a rim fragment 7.5 mm thick. The dentate stamping begins 5 mm below the lip and runs parallel to it. There are six such rows of dentate stamping separated from each other by 2 to 5 mm. The lip is rounded and plain and the rim is straight, but slightly everted at the lip. The interiors of both Variety 2 sherds are plain. The other example of this variety is a cordmarked body sherd 9 mm thick. It is from the lowest part of the decorated zone of a vessel. The bands of parallel dentate stamping are bordered by slightly oblique punctations or impressions made with the edge of a cord-wrapped paddle. These elements arealmost at right angles to the bands of dentate stamping. They are

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2 to 3 mm wide and 10 mm long. These two examples of Variety 2, representing particularly critical areas of a vessel, suggest a cord-marked pot with smooth rim and neck with dentate stamping mainly, but not entirely, confined to the rim and neck areas. There is nothing to suggest shouldering. Variety 3: beaded dentate. This variety of dentate stamping is described on the basis of two sherds, each 8 mm thick (Pl. XIII, Fig. 1, second from top, right). The stamping, asbefore, is represented by linear units parallel to each other and either contiguous or separated by undecorated areas. The individual tooth impressions are round rather than rectilinear, and the total effect is as if the surface had been impressed by parallel strings of tightly strunr round beads. The dentate stamps are approximately 1 to 2 mm wide, 14 mm long, and have been applied over a plain smooth surface. Neither of the "beaded dentate" sherds represents a rim. Variety 4: scored dentate. Three small potsherds comprise the sample (Pl. XIII, Fig. 1. second from top, left). They are 4 to 5 mm thick and are in sharp contrast in this regard to the other North Bay I dentate-stamped specimens. The appearance of the stamping is quite unlike all of the other dentate stamping from the Mero site in that this variety was stamped with an instrument whose teeth were smaller than the spaces between them. The result is a series of dentate-stamped linear elements, separated but parallel to each other as before, and characterized by what appear to be closely spaced, parallel, finely scored lines. The original stamp was about 2 mm across and was at least 15 mm long. Individual tooth imprints, with their long axis at right angles to the stamp itself, are 0.5 mm or slightly less in width, and are but lightly impressed into the sherd surfaces. Stamping is over plain smooth and, perhaps, well-smoothed-cord-marked surfaces. But for the evenness and regularity of the imprints, they might be confused for extremely fine punctations. The only rimsherd is excurvate and has a plain, flattened lip. The exterior rim surface is decorated with two parallel rows of dentate stamping running horizontally. Between the lip and the first row of dentate stamping are small square punctates. Below the bottom row more dentate stamping has been obliquely applied. Similar imprints occur on the interior rim beginning just below the lip, and they run vertically.

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Punctated Sherds

There are fourteen potsherds from the midden beneath the buried beach and another seventeen from the beach itself (a total of 31 sherds) which are decorated exclusively or mainly with punctations (Pl. XIV, Fig. 1, bottom). These may be divided for description into two varieties plus a miscellaneous category. Besides the punctations, these sherds differ somewhat from the other in-beach and below-beach sherds in Stratified Area I in their paste characteristics. They are less heavily tempered and the interior surfaces sometimes bear striations from smoothing. Variety 1. This is represented by twelve specimens, all but one of which came from beneath the beach in the lower occupational level (Pl. XIV, Fig. 1, left column, bottom). Because of marked sloughing away of interiors, only three could be measured for thickness. These range from 5 to 8 mm. The sherds have plain smooth surfaces; they are commonly better smoothed than is usual in the North Bay series. Some interiors, however, are just as typically crudely finished. Decoration consists simply of deep rectilinear punctates arranged side by side in rows, presumably oriented horizontally. Apparently, two such rows circled the rim of the vessel or vessels they represent. The punctating tool seems to have been applied at an angle of about 50 degrees to the surface so that one side of the punctation is more precipitous than the other. The only rim sherd is an almost straight, gently incurvate one with a rounded to flat undecorated lip and with a plain interior. The only decoration consists of two horizontal rows of punctations. These punctations differ from those on all the other sherds in this variety save one. They are roughly conical in shape, being broad and shallow at the upper end and deep and pointed at the other. They appear to have been produced by a pointed stick or bone. Variety 2 (Becker Punctated). Nine sherds comprise this descriptive category. They are 8 to 10 mm in thickness. Unlike any of the other sherds, these are decorated with rectilinear to almost crescentic punctates (some suggest short incisions) tightly arranged in contiguous columns or rows entirely covering the exteriors of the sherds. This conceivably could be a variety of incising but, since a sometimes similar Hopewell type in the illinois Valley is referred to as a form of punctated pottery (Montezuma Punctated), we have so identified it here. Because rimsherds and body sherds with areas of different treatment are lacking, nothing can be said about distribution on vessel surfaces within the

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stratified sample. Likewise, there is no data bearing on vessel form. Three sherds came from below the buried beach and six from within it. Other examples were found in other parts of the Mero site in nonstratified contexts. The combined sample is described in a following section under the proposed type name Becker Punctated. Miscellaneous punctated sherds. Ten frequently badly weathered sherds showing different types of punctations variously arranged are included here. They all came from the buried beach in Stratified Area I. Two, or possibly three, sherds are embellished with deep to shallow punctates applied on a cord-marked or a smoothed-over-cord-marked surface. Two exhibit punctates similar to those of Variety 1. They differ, however, in being extremely shallow as well as in their arrangement, which tends to be closely spaced and oriented obliquely. On one of them there is a border of deeper conical punctates. Three other punctated forms suggest pointed, bifurcated, and simple rod-shaped implements. Those probably made with a pointed stick occur on two sherds, one of which is either smoothedover-cord-marked or smoothed-over-fabric-impressed, while the other has been partly covered with tiny punctations seemingly produced by stabbing with a tool with three tightly clustered points (a broken bone?). Two very small rims are present. One of these is barely incurvate while the other is just the reverse. The latter is thick (10 mm) and has a flat undecorated lip. Punctations are arranged vertically in columns and seem to have been produced with a bifurcated tool, perhaps a broken bird bone. The other rimsherd also has a flat and unembellished lip. It is decorated with a single line of crude punctates just below the lip on the exterior surface. All interiors are uniformly plain. It is interesting that only one example of Variety 1 was found in the beach deposit while all of the miscellaneous category were there confined. This may suggest that Variety 1 represents a type somewhat older than the others. Except for one specimen, it was apparently not present in the top of the lower occupational zone which was reworked and incorporated in the buried beach. Those punctated sherds subsumed in the miscellaneous category are thus possible candidates for a slightly more recent period in the history of this first occupation. This limited indication of temporal depth within the North Bay 1 Complex is subject to the same limitations of sample size as holds for the vertical distribution of

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North Bay I Plain as already discussed.

Corded-stamped Sherds

This type of decorated pottery is represented by eleven sherds with plain surface finish and with imprinted decoration produced by the application of a special cord- or thong-wound stick, twig, or paddle edge (Pl. XIV, Fig. 1, top). They were all discovered beneath the buried beach feature. The individual stamps or imprints are uniformly short and seem to represent an attempt to imitate dentate stamping. Even though the decorative device was obviously a cord-wrapped instrument, the resulting impressions and their arrangement are reminiscent of dentate stamping. Unlike the North Bay I dentate -stamped sherds, however, decoration is always applied on a plain surface. Additionally, the interior surfaces usually retain some evidence of brushing (4 of the 5 sherds with intact interiors show this feature), an attribute totally absent on the dentate-stamped specimens. Finally, the sherds are less heavily tempered both in particle size and in quantity of aplastic. Unlike Heins Creek Corded-stamped, a similar but separate type, described in Part I of this report, the surfaces of these sherds are never cord-marked. The individual stamped imprints are short (10 to 15 mm) and are characteristically deeper at one end. They are about 3 mm in width and they range in depth to about 2 mm. The wrapped cords were approximately 1 mm wide and were separated from each other by a similar distance, although a few examples were more tightly wound. The longitudinal element itself (the stick, twig, or paddle edge around which the cord or thong had been wound) sometimes left an impression in the clay also, particularly at the deepest end of the stamped imprint The stamps are arranged parallel to each other in several contiguous rows or bands probably circling the rim. On two sherds the rows of parallel stamps are not contiguous but are separated by an undecorated plain zone 10 to 12 mm wide. Individual stamps vary in distance from their parallel neighbors by 1 to 7 mm. On the three partly preserved rims the stamps are aligned in a row perpendicular or diagonal to the mouth of the pot. Preserved interior surfaces are plain and undecorated, although they usually show striations from brushing or wiping. The sherds are 7 to 8 mm in thickness. Only three partial rimsherds are present in the sample. These are so fragmentary that little can be added to what has already

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been said except to observe that the lips were probably slightly rounded to flat, are beveled outward, and seem to have been transversely impressed with a cord-wrapped instrument. The rims appear to have been straight or slightly everted.

Miscellaneou s Unclassified Sherds A very small collection of different and internally variable sherds was found associated with North Bay I Complex pottery in and beneath the buried beach in Stratified Area I. These miscellaneous sherds have somewhat more variable tempering and paste characteristi cs than the rest of the North Bay I and next-to-bedescribed North Bay II series sherds. Unfortunately , most of them are so fragmentary that little can be said about them. Six small sherds are scored either by incising or by stamping with a slightly curved, plain-edged tool. The largest of these small fragments is a flat-lipped rimsherd with a double row of such marks superficially resembling plain rocker stamping. A few sherds (4) are incised and may be related to the incisedover-cord-m arked pottery described and discussed in the next chapter in connection with the North Bay II series. These North Bay !-associated examples, however, and incises over plain smooth surfaces. They are more fully described in the above context in the next chapter. A totally unique specimen appears to have been decorated on the rim with "pseudo-scal lop shell" impressions over a smoothed cord-marked surface. This sherd has a flat undecorated lip and bears striations from wiping on its interior surface. It is slightly worn, undoubtedly from water-rolling in the beach before incorporation. The other sherds are clearly different from the North Bay I series. A few of these exhibit attributes which strongly suggest intrusion from a higher level, while the remainder are so fragmentary and/or weathered as to preclude any meaningful attempt at classification .

VIII

THE NORTH BAY II CERAMIC ASSEMBLAGE Five distinctive series of pottery, each differing in one or several formal attributes, were present in Stratified Areas II and III. These five series, each a different ware composed of one or several types, were distinguished on a typological basis in every instance, and partly on the basis of physical stratification which presented a clear tripartite division. Three distinctive pottery wares were found mixed with modern refuse ir. the upper culturebearing stratum and, together, were confined to that stratum, to the corresponding upper midden in Stratified Area I, and to the nonstratified parts of the Mero site. The latest prehistoric assemblages on the site, they are a shell-tempered and a grit-tempered Upper Mississippian pottery, and a grit-tempered, cord-decorated Late Woodland pottery. In some parts of Stratified Areas II and III, two culture bearing strata were discovered beneath this upper member and were separated from it and from each other by sterile tan sand. In many places these two strata (the intermediate and lower middens, or strata d and/) were merged into one stratum. In those sectors where they were distinct and separated by a culturally sterile sand layer the two strata yielded identical pottery, but with an associated "foreign" pottery confined to and sharing the lower stratum. In those instances where the intermediate and lower occupational levels were merged, it was possible to separate out the ''foreign" sherds on the basis of typology. These artifacts are described following the analysis of the well-represented pottery common to both the intermediate and lower culture-bearing strata. This material is here identified as North Bay II. For convenience in discussion, this assemblage is divided into two temporal components as determined by stratigraphy. Excluding the "foreign" sherds, North Bay IIa refers to the component in the lower midden in Stratified Areas II and III, and North Bay IIb refers to the component in the intermediate occupational level. The North Bay II ceramic assemblage includes a very uniform group of potsherds distinguished on the bases of formal attributes and distribution. The sherds were excavated in Stratified Areas II and III where they were the only sherds found in the intermediate 88

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occupational level (din the soil profile), were by far the majority category where the intermediate and lower middens were joined in a single physically distinct stratum, and comprised the great majority of the sample found in the undisturbed and fugitive lower occupational level wherever it was distinguishab le (stratumf). The series is thus confined in Areas II and III to the intermediate and lower culture -bearing levels and where these two levels were joined. Some additional specimens (a total of 25) were found in the upper midden; their presence here as a distinctly minority group can almost certainly be attributed to redeposition due to evident disturbance around the areas of preserved stratification . The North Bay II ceramic assemblage is a remarkably homogeneous unit; it is composed of a small number of genetically related types based on a common ware. This ware, particularly with regard to paste characteristi cs, is evidently very closely related to the North Bay I ceramic assemblage. The ware attributes, that is, the traits of type and quantity of tempering, paste characteristi cs, constructiona l features, etc., of the North Bay I and North Bay II pottery differ in degree rather than in kind. Only with respect to tempering material is there an almost qualitative distinction. Except for this, the two wares do not represent collections of mutually exclusive traits; rather, they express different frequency clusters. If the two wares had been found in a totally mixed situation, it would have been difficult to segregate them. There are some sherds which could only be classified in one group or the other by arbitrary means if the ware attributes were the only available criteria. Fortunately the two wares were distributed in discrete stratigraphic contexts which drew attention to their other differences and we are thus enabled to point out with assurance the manner and degree of divergence between them. The differences between the North Bay I and North Bay II sherd series are of the same order in the case of surface treatment: the two categories differ mainly in the matter of relative frequencies of particular attributes and combinations of attributes. With regard to decoration, however, there are some qualitative differences. The ware characteristi cs described for the North Bay I series generally apply, with qualifications , to the North Bay II series. Tempering is massive and heavy, but is not typically as heavy as in the case of North Bay I paste. The ranges of variation overlap, although the very common occurrence of densely packed crushed rock fragments in the North Bay I series sherds is not found at all in North Bay II. While still very liberally tempered, the latter

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tends to a distinctly lower temper-to-clay ratio. While anorthosite (labradorite) does occur in the North Bay II series as a tempering agent, the great majority of sherds are tempered with crushed gabbro or similar rock, an important distinguishing characteristic of North Bay II pottery. Thus, the marked predominance of mottled, lighter colored, and more variegated temper particles contrasts with the darker and more uniform tempering of North Bay I pottery. North Bay II sherds are also less gritty, less contorted with a more compact paste, and are less sandy to the touch. They are not nearly as thick as many of the North Bay I specimens. Interior surfaces are virtually identical to those in the earlier pottery. They are lumpy and kneaded-like in appearance and are characterized by protruding temper particles. Probably the most evident distinction between the two wares lies in the area of color. North Bay II sherds are typically light to reddish tan whereas the North Bay I specimens tend to be gray in color. This difference, while not inviolable, is highly characteristic. Additionally, North Bay II sherds tend to be harder and better fired. Hardness on the Mohs scale is about 3.5. In summary, then North Bay II ware may be distinguished from the similar North Bay I ware by all or some of these characteristics: (1) gabbro rather than anorthosite is the major tempering material; (2) the paste is usually less heavily tempered; (3) the paste is more dense and well compacted; (4) surfaces are harder; (5) smoothed areas are slightly less gritty to the touch; (6) the sherds are not usually as thick; and (7) the sherds have a reddish cast.

North Bay II Cord-marked This undecorated pottery type (or, properly, the North Bay II subtype of the type North Bay Cord-marked) is represented at the Mero site by 106 sherds, many of which are quite large, from stratified contexts in Stratified Areas II and III (Pl. XV). Some other examples came from disturbed sections of the site, but these have been excluded from this description to insure a "pure" sample. These sherds range in thickness from 5 to 12 mm. They have a mean of 8.1 mm and a 1.4 mm standard deviation. Paste characteristics have already been described and compared with the closely related North Bay I series. In addition to the general differences already cited, North Bay II Cord-marked