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Princess Point complex
Alternative names	Princess Point culture
Period	Middle Woodland to Late Woodland
Dates	c. 500 CE – 1000 CE
Type site	Princess Point site
Followed by	Glen Meyer culture
Defined by	David Marvyn Stothers

The Princess Point complex (also called the Princess Point culture) is an archaeological culture of the Middle to Late Woodland period of northeastern North America.

The complex marked a transition between the latter part of the Middle Woodland period^[1] and the early Late Woodland period.^[2] One date estimate places the time period of the Princess Point complex as lasting from around 500 CE to around 1000 CE.^[3] It later developed into the Glen Meyer culture.^[4]

Named for its type site at Princess Point near modern-day Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the complex was present in the area between the Grand River and the Niagara Peninsula.

It is characterized by a horticultural economy, including the cultivation of maize, as well as aspects of sedentism.^[5] It was originally conceptualized by the archaeologist David Marvyn Stothers.^[1]

Characteristics and social changes

The Princess Point marked a transition to early maize-based agriculture and an increasingly sedentary way of life. Stothers describes Princess Point maize cultivation as "developmental-experimental",^[4] and notes the appearance of palisaded agricultural villages containing proto-longhouses.^[4] Maize cultivation as a supplement to foraged foods began at least as early as 500 CE.^[6] James V. Wright linked the Princess Point culture with the introduction of maize agriculture into Ontario.^[7]

There was a general westward geographic shift in focus during this period, with the appearance of sites such as the Glass site (AgHb-5) on the western bank of the Grand River. By the end phase of this Grand River focus, however, occupation had shifted away from river-adjacent floodplains to well-drained sandy hills and plains in modern-day Norfolk County, which were more suitable for maize agriculture.^[4]

Early maize cultivation in Ontario

The Princess Point culture is linked to the introduction of maize to Ontario.^[7] This was initially believed in the 1970s to have occurred around AD 650.^[8] Later accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) testing done in the mid-1990s on samples from the Grand Banks site (AfGx-3) returned a calibrated radiocarbon date of AD 540.^[8]

Archaeological framework

David Marvyn Stothers developed the Princess Point complex as an archaeological framework in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His definition of it as a complex was rooted in an understanding of "Princess Point" as being widely distributed; therefore, it was divided into three regional foci (the Point Pelee, Ausable, and Grand River) and three phases falling within an original date range of AD 600 to AD 900.^[9]

William Fox later revised this framework, proposing instead that the Princess Point complex should be more narrowly defined around the Grand River focus, with the Ausable focus being excluded as too poorly documented, and the Point Pelee focus assigned to the Riviere au Vase phase of the Western Basin tradition. The timescale was also narrowed to AD 650–900.^[9]

Foci and sites

Stothers divided the Princess Point complex into a set of three regional foci composed of clusters of similar sites. In a 1973 list,^[10] these were:

Grand River focus

Surma site
Orchid site
Martin site
Jordan Harbour site
Reimer site
Selkirk #5
Selkirk #2
Port Maitland site
Newman site (AfGv-3)
Cayuga Bridge site (AfGx-1)
Grand Banks site (AfGx-3)
Indiana site
Middleport site (Princess Point component)
Glass site (AgHb-5)^[11]
Porteous site (AgHb-1) – transitional Princess Point–Glen Meyer site^[12]
Mohawk Chapel
Princess Point
Rat Island

Point Pelee focus

Indian Clearing (AbHl-4)
Kreiger site
Van Hooste site
Cummings site

Ausable focus

Smith site (AhHk-1)
Fox site (AhHk-29)
Bear site (AhHk-31)
Pinery site (AhHl-12)

As well, the Forster site is a notable Princess Point site which also contained a Glen Meyer component.^[13]

References

Citations

^ ^a ^b Noble 1982, p. 177.
^ Crawford et al. 1998, p. 124.
^ Bursey 2003, p. 192.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Stothers 1974, p. 42.
^ Haines et al. 2011.
^ Haines et al. 2011, p. 232.
^ ^a ^b Wright 1972, p. 57.
^ ^a ^b Crawford, Smith & Bowyer 1997, p. 114.
^ ^a ^b Crawford & Smith 1996, p. 783.
^ Stothers 1973, p. 70.
^ Stothers 1974, p. 37.
^ Noble & Kenyon 1972, p. 11.
^ Bursey 2003, p. 191.

Bibliography

Bursey, Jeffrey A. (2003). "Discerning Storage and Structures at the Forster Site: A Princess Point Component in Southern Ontario". Canadian Journal of Archaeology. 27 (2). Canadian Archaeological Association: 191–233. JSTOR 41103448.
Crawford, Gary W.; Smith, David G.; Desloges, Joseph R.; Davis, Anthony M. (Summer 1998). "Floodplains and Agricultural Origins: A Case Study in South-Central Ontario, Canada". Journal of Field Archaeology. 25 (2). Taylor & Francis: 123–137. doi:10.2307/530574. JSTOR 530574.
Crawford, Gary W.; Smith, David G.; Bowyer, Vandy E. (January 1997). "Dating the Entry of Corn (Zea Mays) into the Lower Great Lakes Region" (PDF). American Antiquity. 62 (1). Cambridge University Press: 112–119. doi:10.2307/282382. JSTOR 282382.
Crawford, Gary W.; Smith, David G. (October 1996). "Migration in Prehistory: Princess Point and the Northern Iroquoian Case" (PDF). American Antiquity. 61 (4). Cambridge University Press: 782–790. doi:10.2307/282018. JSTOR 282018.
Haines, Helen R.; Smith, David G.; Galbraith, David; Theysmeyer, Tys (2011). "The Point of Popularity: A Summary of 10,000 years of Human Activity at the Princess Point Promontory, Cootes Paradise Marsh, Hamilton, Ontario". Canadian Journal of Archaeology. 35 (2): 232–257. ISSN 0705-2006. JSTOR 23267554.
Jackson, L. J. (May–June 1983). "Early maize in south-central Ontario". Arch Notes (3). Ontario Archaeological Society: 9–11. ISSN 0048-1742.
Noble, William C. (1982). "Potsherds, Potlids, and Politics: An Overview of Ontario Archaeology During the 1970s". Canadian Journal of Archaeology (6). Canadian Archaeological Association: 167–194. JSTOR 41102241.
Noble, William C.; Kenyon, Ian T. (1972). "Porteous (AgHb-1): A Probable Early Glen Meyer Village in Brant County, Ontario" (PDF). Ontario Archaeology (19). Ontario Archaeological Society: 11–38.
Smith, David G.; Crawford, Gary W. (1997). "Recent Developments in the Archaeology of the Princess Point Complex in Southern Ontario". Canadian Journal of Archaeology. 21 (1): 9–32. ISSN 0705-2006. JSTOR 41103320.
Stothers, David Marvyn (1974). "The Glass Site AgHb-5 Oxbow Tract, Brantford Township, Brant County, Ontario" (PDF). Ontario Archaeology (21). Ontario Archaeological Society: 37–43.
Stothers, David M. (1973). "Early Evidence of Agriculture in the Great Lakes". Bulletin (9). Canadian Archaeological Association: 61–76. JSTOR 41243013.
Walker, Ian J.; Desloges, Joseph R.; Crawford, Gary W.; Smith, David G. (December 1997). "Floodplain Formation Processes and Archaeological Implications at the Grand Banks Site, Lower Grand River, Southern, Ontario". Geoarchaeology. 12 (8): 865–887. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1520-6548(199712)12:8<865::AID-GEA3>3.0.CO;2-3.
Wright, James Valliere (1972). "Princess Point culture". Ontario Prehistory: An eleven-thousand-year archaeological outline. Archaeological Survey of Canada. pp. 57–58.