Transformations in Native and European Trade Networks Across Northern Iroquoia

Summary

Native North Americans began to engage in exchange with European explorers, merchants, and missionaries during the mid-to-late 16th century. Previous studies of these initial exchange interactions in Northern Iroquoia (including the Lower Great Lakes, Saint Lawrence Lowlands, and Northern Allegheny Plateau) have been narrow in spatial and social scale, focusing often on the initiation of trade relationships between Europeans and a specific nation (for instance, the Mohawk) and the rate at which that nation incorporated European goods into their material repertoire. The timing of these nascent relationships throughout the northeast has not been compared, nor has a regional comparison of the nature of the earliest trade goods been attempted. Using published material culture data, I compare variation in the earliest evidence of European goods throughout Northern Iroquoia. I argue that the tempo at which European goods were accepted by Native people, as well as the specific ways those objects were used, varies throughout the project area. In particular, I consider the effects of direct (European-Native) and indirect (Native-Native) exchange on the ways that Native people creatively used these objects to specific, culturally-meaningful ends.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage