Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T14:33:21.271Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LATE ARCHAIC RITUALISM IN DOMESTIC CONTEXTS: CLAY-FLOORED SHRINES AT THE BURRELL ORCHARD SITE, OHIO

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2017

Brian G. Redmond
Brian G. Redmond*
Affiliation:
Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA (bredmond@cmnh.org)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Past research on the development of Archaic ideological complexity in eastern North America has focused on ritualism and ceremony related to mortuary behaviors, with less attention to ritualism within what is commonly thought of as domestic contexts without overt mortuary ceremonialism or monumental architecture. The recent discovery of puddled clay architecture and associated features at the Burrell Orchard site (33LN15) in northeast Ohio provides new evidence of significant, nonmortuary ritualism within Late Archaic basecamp contexts. That such activity took place alongside normal seasonal subsistence tasks is revealed by thick midden deposits containing abundant burned rock, nutshell, and deer bone. The many bone and stone tool deposits associated with the floors, along with the labor-intensive nature of the clay construction for what appears to have been individually short-term use, support the interpretation of these features as shrines possibly associated with hunting ritualism.

Estudios anteriores sobre el desarrollo de la complejidad ideológica del periodo Arcaico en el este de Norteamérica se han centrado principalmente en el ritualismo y el ceremonialismo relacionados con las prácticas mortuorias. Se ha prestado menos atención al ritualismo dentro de los que comúnmente se consideran contextos domésticos, en los que están ausentes el ceremonialismo explícitamente mortuorio o la arquitectura monumental. El reciente descubrimiento de arquitectura con pisos de arcilla humedecida y rasgos asociados en el sitio de Burrell Orchard (33LN15), en el noreste de Ohio, proporciona nuevas evidencias del desarrollo de un grado significativo de ritualismo no mortuorio en el contexto de campamentos base del Arcaico tardío. El hecho que tales actividades se llevaran a cabo junto con las tareas normales de subsistencia estacional es demostrado por la presencia de espesos depósitos de basura que contienen abundante roca quemada, cáscara de nuez y huesos de ciervo. Los diversos depósitos de huesos y herramientas de piedra asociados con los pisos, junto con los significativos requerimientos de mano de obra para la construcción de los pisos arcilla para lo que parece haber sido uso individual a corto plazo, apoyan la interpretación de estos rasgos como santuarios posiblemente asociados con rituales para propiciar la caza.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 683 - 701
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by the Society for American Archaeology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Binford, Lewis R. 1967 Smudge Pits and Hide Smoking: The Use of Analogy in Archaeological Reasoning. American Antiquity 32:1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, James A. 1985 Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers: The Emergence of Cultural Complexity. Academic Press, Orlando, Florida.Google Scholar
Brown, James A., and Vierra, Robert K. 1983 What Happened in the Middle Archaic? Introduction to an Ecological Approach to Koster Site Archaeology. In Archaic Hunters and Gatherers in the American Midwest, edited by Phillips, Robert L. and Brown, James A., pp. 165–195. Academic Press, Orlando, Florida.Google Scholar
Brown, Linda A. 2005 Planting the Bones: Hunting Ceremonialism at Contemporary and Nineteenth-Century Shrines in the Guatemalan Highlands. Latin American Antiquity 16:31–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Linda A., and Emery, Kitty F. 2008 Negotiations with the Animate Forest: Hunting Shrines in the Guatemalan Highlands. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15:300–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burks, Jarrod, and Locke-Rogers, Kellie 2015 Multi-Instrument Geophysical Survey Results from the Late Archaic Burrell Orchard Site (33LN15) and the Nineteenth Century Burrell House. Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc. Contract Report 2014–32. Copies available from Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc., Columbus, Ohio.Google Scholar
Byers, A. Martin 2004 The Ohio Hopewell Episode: Paradigm Lost and Paradigm Gained. University of Akron Press, Akron, Ohio.Google Scholar
Byers, A. Martin 2011 Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands: The Ohio Hopewell System of Cult Sodality Heterarchies. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Byers, A. Martin 2015 Reclaiming the Hopewellian Ceremonial Sphere: 200 BC to AD 500. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Carr, Christopher 2008 World View and the Dynamics of Change: The Beginning and the End of Scioto Hopewell Culture and Lifeways. In The Scioto Hopewell and Their Neighbors: Bioarchaeological Documentation and Cultural Understanding, edited by Troy Case, Daniel and Carr, Christopher, pp. 289–334. Springer Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology, Springer Science & Business Media, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claassen, Cheryl 1996 A Consideration of the Social Organization of the Shell Mound Archaic. In Archaeology of the Mid-Holocene Southeast, edited by Sassaman, Kenneth E. and Anderson, David G., pp. 235–258. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Claassen, Cheryl 2010 Feasting with Shellfish in the Southern Ohio Valley: Archaic Sacred Sites and Rituals. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Claassen, Cheryl 2015 Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America: An Interpretive Guide. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Claassen, Cheryl 2016 Abundant Gifts of Stone and Bone. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 41:274–294.Google Scholar
Ellis, Christopher J., Keron, James R., Menzies, John, Monckton, Stephen G., and Stewart, Andrew 2015 For Immediate Occupancy: Cozy Three-Thousand-Year-Old Heritage Winter House with River View near Lake Huron—Apply to Terminal Archaic Realty. In Building the Past: Prehistoric Wooden Post Architecture in the Ohio Valley-Great Lakes, edited by Redmond, Brian G. and Genheimer, Robert A., pp. 29–62. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Emerson, Thomas E. 1991 The Apple River Mississippian Culture of Northwestern Illinois. In Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest, edited by Emerson, Thomas E. and Lewis, R. Barry, pp.164–182. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.Google Scholar
Ernst, James E., Musgrave, Donald K., and Hayhurst, Ernest N. 1976 Soil Survey of Lorain County, Ohio. United States Soil Conservation Service, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Feest, Christian F. 1986 Indians of Northeastern North America. E. J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands.Google Scholar
Gibson, Jon L., and Carr, Philip J. (editors) 2004 Signs of Power: The Rise of Cultural Complexity in the Southeast. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Gilmour, Garth H. 1997 The Nature and Function of Astragalus Bones from Archaeological Contexts in the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 16 (2):167–175.Google Scholar
Gordon, Robert B. 1966 Natural Vegetation of Ohio (map). The Ohio Biological Survey and The Ohio State University, Columbus.Google Scholar
Greber, N'omi B. 1983 Recent Excavations at the Edwin Harness Mound, Liberty Works, Ross County, Ohio. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Special Publication 5.Google Scholar
Greber, N'omi B. 1996 A Commentary on the Contexts and Contents of Large to Small Ohio Hopewell Deposits. In A View from the Core, edited by Pacheco, Paul, pp. 150–172. Ohio Archaeological Council, Columbus.Google Scholar
Greber, N'omi B. 2015 Wooden Structures and Cultural Symbolism in Ohio Hopewell. In Building the Past: Prehistoric Wooden Post Architecture in the Ohio Valley-Great Lakes, edited by Redmond, Brian G. and Genheimer, Robert A., pp. 85–125. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Greber, N'omi B., and Ruhl, Katharine C. 2000 The Hopewell Site: A Contemporary Analysis Based on the Work of Charles C. Willoughby. Reprinted. Eastern National, Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. Originally published 1989, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.Google Scholar
Hall, Robert L. 1997 An Archaeology of the Soul. University of Illinois Press, Champaign.Google Scholar
Hall, Robert L. 1998 A Comparison of Some North American and Mesoamerican Cosmologies and Their Ritual Expressions. In Explorations in American Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Wesley R. Hurt, edited by Plew, Mark G., pp. 55–88. University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Heyman, Marjorie, Abrams, Elliot M., and Freter, AnnCorinne 2005 Late Archaic Community Aggregation and Feasting in the Hocking Valley. In The Emergence of the Moundbuilders: The Archaeology of Tribal Societies in Southeastern Ohio, edited by Abrams, Elliot M. and Freter, AnnCorinne, pp. 67–81. Ohio University Press, Athens.Google Scholar
Hill, Erica 2011 Animals as Agents: Hunting Ritual and Relational Ontologies in Prehistoric Alaska and Chukotka. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 21:407–426.Google Scholar
Hultkrantz, Åke 1979 The Religions of the American Indians. University of California Press, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim 2006 Rethinking the Animate, Re-animating Thought. Ethnos 71:9–20.Google Scholar
Ives, Lewis James 1947 The Natural Vegetation of Lorain County, Ohio. Master's thesis, Department of Botany, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.Google Scholar
Jefferies, Richard W. 2008 Holocene Hunter-Gatherers of the Lower Ohio River Valley. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Jordan, Peter 2011 Material Culture Perspectives on the Worldview of Northern Hunter-Gatherers. In Structured Worlds: The Archaeology of Hunter-Gatherer Thought and Action, edited by Cannon, Aubrey, pp. 11–31. Equinox Publishing, Ltd., Sheffield, United Kingdom. Google Scholar
Koerper, Henry C. 2008 Additional Notes on Astragalus Bones. Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 40 (2):11–15.Google Scholar
Lewis, R. Barry 1988 Old World Dice in the Protohistoric Southern United States. Current Anthropology 29: 759–768.Google Scholar
Miller, G. Logan, and Redmond, Brian G. 2016 Smudge Pits and Stone “Drills”: The Use of Chipped Stone Tools at Burrell Orchard. Lithic Technology 41:164–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, Christopher R., and Thompson, Victor D. 2012 Animism and Green River Persistent Places: A Dwelling Perspective of the Shell Mound Archaic. Journal of Social Archaeology 12:264–284.Google Scholar
Nolan, Kevin C., and Redmond, Brian G. 2015 Geochemical and Geophysical Prospecting at Three Multicomponent Sites in the Southwestern Lake Erie Basin: A Pilot Study. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 2:94–105.Google Scholar
Patton, Paul E., and Curran, Sabrina 2016 Archaic Period Domesticated Plants in the Mid-Ohio Valley: Archaeobotanical Remains from the County Home Site (33at40), Southeastern Ohio. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 41: 127–158.Google Scholar
Pauketat, Timothy R. 2013 An Archaeology of the Cosmos: Rethinking Agency and Religion in Ancient America. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
Pollack, David, and Henderson, A. Gwynn 2015 Fort Ancient Public Structures. In Building the Past: Prehistoric Wooden Post Architecture in the Ohio Valley-Great Lakes, edited by Redmond, Brian G. and Genheimer, Robert A., pp. 295–320. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Pollack, David, and Schlarb, Eric J. 2013 The Adena Mortuary Landscape: Off-Mound Rituals and Burial Mounds. In Early and Middle Woodland Landscapes of the Southeast, edited by Wright, Alice P. and Henry, Edward R., pp. 45–55. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Prufer, Olaf H., Seeman, Mark F., and Mensforth, Robert P. 1984 The Lukens Cache: A Ceremonial Offering from Ohio. Pennsylvania Archaeologist 54 (3–4):19–31.Google Scholar
Purtill, Matthew P. 2009 The Ohio Archaic: A Review. In Archaic Societies: Diversity and Complexity across the Midcontinent, edited by Emerson, Thomas E., McElrath, Dale L., and Fortier, Andrew C., pp. 565–606. State University of New York Press, Albany.Google Scholar
Purtill, Matthew P. 2015 Dwelling on the Past: Late Archaic Structures of the Ohio Region. In Building the Past: Prehistoric Wooden Post Architecture in the Ohio Valley-Great Lakes, edited by Redmond, Brian G. and Genheimer, Robert A., pp. 8–28. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Redmond, Brian G. 2008 Hopewell on the Sandusky: Analysis and Description of an Inundated Ohio Hopewell Mortuary-Ceremonial Site in North-Central Ohio. North American Archaeologist 28:189–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redmond, Brian G., and Scanlan, Brian L. 2009 Archaeological Investigations at the Burrell Orchard Site (33Ln15): 2008 Season. Archaeological Research Report, No. 156. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Electronic document, https://www.academia.edu/6916365/ARCHAEOLOGICAL_INVESTIGATIONS_AT_THE_BURRELL_ORCHARD_SITE_33Ln15_2008_SEASON, accessed March 15, 2017.Google Scholar
Redmond, Brian G., Scanlan, Brian L., and Marley, Meghan 2015 Archaeological Investigations at the Burrell Orchard Site (33Ln15): 2014 Season. Archaeological Research Report, No. 166. Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Electronic document, https://www.academia.edu/12865393/Archaeological_Investigations_at_the_Burrell_Orchard_Site_33Ln15_2014_Season, accessed March 15, 2017.Google Scholar
Redmond, Brian G., Scanlan, Brian L., and Marley, Meghan 2016 Archaeological Investigations at the Burrell Orchard Site (33Ln15): 2015 Season. Archaeological Research Report, 167. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Electronic document, https://www.academia.edu/21739820/ARCHAEOLOGICAL_INVESTIGATIONS_AT_THE_BURRELL_ORCHARD_SITE_33Ln15_2015_SEASON, accessed March 31, 2017.Google Scholar
Redmond, Brian G., Scanlan, Brian L., and Haines, Angela L. 2017 Archaeological Investigations at the Burrell Orchard site (33Ln15): 2015 Season. Archaeological Research Report, 168. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Electronic document, https://www.academia.edu/32068248/ARCHAEOLOGICAL_INVESTIGATIONS_AT_THE_BURRELL_ORCHARD_SITE_33Ln15_2016_SEASON, accessed, March 31, 2017.Google Scholar
Reimer, Paula J., Bard, Edouard, Bayliss, Alex, Warren Beck, J., Blackwell, Paul G., Bronk Ramsey, Christopher, Brown, David M., Buck, Caitlin E., Edwards, R. Lawrence, Friedrich, Michael, Grootes, Pieter M., Guilderson, Thomas P., Haflidason, Haflidi, Hajdas, Irka, Hatté, Christine, Heaton, Timothy J., Hogg, Alan G., Hughen, Konrad A., Kaiser, K. Felix, Kromer, Bernd, Manning, Sturt W., Reimer, Ron W., Richards, David A., Scott, E. Marian, Southon, John R., Turney, Christian S. M., and van derPlicht, Johannes 2013 Selection and Treatment of Data for Radiocarbon Calibration: An Update to the International Calibration (IntCal) Criteria. Radiocarbon 55:1923–1945.Google Scholar
Ritchie, William A. 1980 The Archaeology of New York State. Revised ed. Harbor Hill Books, Harrison, New York.Google Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth E. 2004 Complex Hunter–gatherers in Evolution and History: A North American Perspective. Journal of Archaeological Research 12:227–280.Google Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth E. 2010 The Eastern Archaic, Historicized. Altamira, New York.Google Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth E., and Heckenberger, Michael J. 2004 Crossing the Symbolic Rubicon in the Southeast. In Signs of Power: The Rise of Cultural Complexity in the Southeast, edited by Gibson, Jon L. and Carr, Philip J., pp. 214–233. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth, and Ledbetter, R. Jerald 1996 Middle and Late Archaic Architecture. In Archaeology of the Mid-Holocene Southeast, edited by Sassaman, Kenneth E. and Anderson, David G., pp. 75–96. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Seeman, Mark F., and Soday, Frank 1980 The Russell Brown Mounds: Three Hopewell Mounds in Ross County, Ohio. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 5:73–116.Google Scholar
Sherwood, Sarah C., and Chapman, Jefferson 2005 The Identification and Potential Significance of Early Holocene Prepared Clay Surfaces: Examples from Dust Cave and Icehouse Bottom. Southeastern Archaeology 24:70–82.Google Scholar
Skousen, B. Jacob 2016 Pilgrimage and the Construction of Cahokia: A View from the Emerald Site. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Stafford, C. Russell 1991 Archaic Period Logistical Foraging Strategies in West-central Illinois. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 16:212–246.Google Scholar
Stafford, C. Russell, Richards, Ronald L., and Anslinger, C. Michael 2000 The Bluegrass Fauna and Changes in Middle Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Foraging in the Southern Midwest. American Antiquity 65:317–336.Google Scholar
Steadman, Sharon R. 2016 Archaeology of Domestic Architecture and the Human Use of Space. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
Stothers, David M., and Abel, Timothy J. 1993 Archaeological Reflections of the Late Archaic and Early Woodland Time Periods in the Western Lake Erie Region. Archaeology of Eastern North America 21:25–109.Google Scholar
Stothers, David M., Abel, Timothy J., and Schneider, Andrew M. 2001 Archaic Perspectives in the Western Lake Erie Basin. In Archaic and Early Woodland Transitions in Ohio and Kentucky Prehistory, edited by Prufer, Olaf H., Pedde, Sara E., and Meindl, Richard S., pp. 233–289. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio.Google Scholar
Stuiver, Minze, and Reimer, Paula J. 1993 Extended 14C Data Base and Revised CALIB 3.0 14C Age Calibration Program. Radiocarbon 35:215–230.Google Scholar
Vickery, Kent D. 2008 Archaic Manifestations in Southwestern Ohio and Vicinity. In Transitions: Archaic and Early Woodland Research in the Ohio Country, edited by Otto, Martha P. and Redmond, Brian G., pp. 1–28. Ohio University Press, Athens, and the Ohio Archaeological Council, Columbus.Google Scholar
Webb, William S. 1950a The Carlson Annis Mound, Site 5, Butler County, Kentucky. University of Kentucky Reports in Anthropology VII (4). University of Kentucky, Lexington.Google Scholar
Webb, William S. 1950b The Read Shell Midden, Site 10, Butler County, Kentucky. University of Kentucky Reports in Anthropology VII (5). University of Kentucky, Lexington.Google Scholar
Webb, William S. 1974 Indian Knoll. New ed. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Webb, William S., and DeJarnette, David L. 1942 An Archeological Survey of Pickwick Basin in the Adjacent Portions of the States of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Bulletin No. 1. Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Webb, William S., and Snow, Charles E. 1974 Adena People-No. 2. Ohio Historical Society, Columbus.Google Scholar
Winters, Howard D. 1969 The Riverton Culture: A Second Millennium Occupation in the Central Wabash Valley. Illinois State Museum Reports of Investigations No. 13. Illinois State Museum, Springfield.Google Scholar
Wolverton, Steve, Nagaoka, Lisa, Densmore, Julie, and Fullerton, Ben 2008 White-Tailed Deer Harvest Pressure & Within-Bone Nutrient Exploitation during the Mid-to Late Holocene in Southeast Texas. Before Farming, 2008 (2):1–23.Google Scholar