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A Reconsideration of Aboriginal Fishing Strategies in the Northern Great Lakes Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Susan Rapalje Martin*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931

Abstract

Aboriginal northern Great Lakes fishing strategies varied with season, target species, and organization of the labor force. The placement of Woodland archaeological sites complied with the structure of these fisheries, but their locations do not reflect prey specificity or one specialized technology. Rather, resource-general locations suggest an essential step in the process of specialization. Flexibility in settlement and social styles existed among prehistoric foragers of the midlatitudes, as did a variety of solutions to food-getting problems. Slow, accretional processes rather than temporally discrete growth processes were responsible for Late Woodland site characteristics in this region. Stable locational-selection patterns are visible through reexamination of the historical data base and through statistical analyses of environmental factors associated with sites at a number of Woodland localities.

Résumé

Résumé

Las estrategias indígenas de pesca en la región de los Grandes Lagos norteños varíaban según la estación, la especie preferida, y la organizatión de los obreros. La ubicación de los sitios arqueológicos Woodland se conforma con la estructura de estas pesquerías, pero sus localidades no dependen de una pesca especifica ni de una tecnología especializada única. En lugar de esto, las localidades indican un avance esencial en elproceso de especialización. Una flexibilidad en la colonizatión y en los estilos sociales existaba entre los forrajeros prehistóricos de las latitudes medias, así como existaban una variedad de soluciónes de los problemas de buscar comestibles. Unos procesos aumentandose despacio y de una manera continua eran responsables para las características de los sitios Late Woodland en esta región y no procesos temporales aumentandose por etapas. Unos patrones para la seleción de las localidades se presentan cuando se examinan los datos históricos y cuando se hace una análisis estadística de losfactores del medio ambiente que se asocian con los sitios en varias localidades Woodland.

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Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1989

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References

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