The Archaeology of New York State by William A. Ritchie

Author:William A. Ritchie [Ritchie, William A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82049-5
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

THE MEADOWOOD PHASE

This culture was formerly included in the Point Peninsula Focus of the Vine Valley Aspect, Woodland Pattern (Ritchie, 1944, pp. 112ff.) and subsequently designated the Point Peninsula 1 Focus of the Early Woodland period.

As explained in the following section on the Point Peninsula culture (this page), the Meadowood is now regarded as a separate historic entity from the Point Peninsula and is placed in the Early Woodland stage in New York because of its established Vinette 1 ceramic associations (Figure 1).

It has seemed to the writer appropriate to name this phase the “Meadowood,” after the estate of Delos Wray at West Rush, Monroe County, New York, where the first excavated site of the complex, a small cemetery, was found in 1930 by Charles F. Wray, who invited the writer’s participation (Ritchie, 1944, pp. 125-26). The same designation has previously been accorded the major point type of this culture (Ritchie, 1961, pp. 35-36).

While Meadowood points have virtually a state-wide distribution, with rare representation in the eastern and southern parts of the state and adjacent areas, the known Meadowood sites, mainly burial components, are found in northern, central and western New York, with five of the eight sites in the central section (Figure 4, sites number 37-44). Six of these sites have already been described in print, viz., Wray, Oberlander No. 2, Vinette (lower component), Pickins, Muskalonge Lake (earlier finds) (Ritchie, 1944), Muskalonge Lake (later finds) and Hunter site on Red Lake (Ritchie, 1955).

Brief references are made throughout the following account to the still largely unpublished Riverhaven No. 2 habitation site (Kochan, 1961; n.d.) and the Morrow burial site. The latter, situated on nearly level land near the north end of Honeoye Lake, Ontario County, New York, was accidentally disclosed by land-development operations in the fall of 1956. Great damage was inflicted on the site by collectors prior to announcement of discovery, when the New York State Museum and the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences carried out salvage excavations, resulting in the recovery of some important data. It is believed that between thirty-five and forty burial pits were clustered in an area of some sixty by forty feet. All known burial modes for the Meadowood culture occurred here, with some in situ pit cremations. Grave goods seem to have been present with most burials, and they included a carbonized fish net and basketry, at least three birdstones, many gorgets, a tube pipe, and considerable amounts of red ocher.

Eleven burials excavated by the writer, one with an offering of forty-two mortuary blades, are described in detail in his unpublished site report.

The site distribution of the Meadowood phase indicates a preference for relatively flat terrain and propitious fishing grounds on sizable streams and small lakes, and all of the components lie within, or adjacent to, the Central Lowland Province (see endpaper map).

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