Pottery Function, Cooking, and Subsistence in the Upper Great Lakes: A View from the Middle Woodland Winter Site in Northern Michigan

Summary

The relationship between subsistence and food-processing technology is a burgeoning topic in archaeology and has the potential to yield new perspectives on resource choice and cuisine in the Upper Great Lakes. This paper presents the results of exploratory functional pottery analysis from the well-dated Winter site, a Middle Woodland habitation in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The analytic data discussed includes those physical properties affecting ceramic vessel performance, as well as use-alteration traces, particularly those indicative of cooking and food processing techniques. The analytic results are compared to similar data from the Naomikong Point site, another northern Michigan Middle Woodland site. Both sites are then contrasted with data from the nearby Late Woodland Sand Point site in order to explore possible temporal changes in subsistence practices, which could be linked to a broader suite of behavioral changes taking place during the late prehistoric period in this region. Together, the comparative application of functional pottery analysis to these assemblages could serve as the foundation for a more refined regional understanding of prehistoric vessel function, cooking techniques, and diet.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Great Lakes Archaeology: Current Research and Perspectives   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage