Complex Hunting Architecture on the AAR: Construction, Identification, and Documentation

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Hunting for Hunters, Underwater: Results and Future Directions for Submerged Ancient Sites" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Constructed features of stone, wood, and other materials are increasingly recognized as a common feature of hunter-gatherer subsistence economies. Such constructions are used to increase both the certainty and quantity of captured animal resources. The detection of constructed features in submerged contexts presents both opportunities and difficulties. On the positive side, the features have recognizable forms and landscape placement, and they can often be detected remotely via acoustic survey. Yet they must still be distinguished from naturally occurring features and their complete form, size, and function may not be obvious. This paper discusses these issues in light of research on the Alpena-Amberley Ridge (AAR) in central Lake Huron. The essence of this experience is that it is relatively easy to identify and ground truth individual constructions, but recognizing when these constructions are integrated into larger game capture complexes is much more difficult. These points are illustrated with reference to four complex game drives and potential fishing weirs detected beneath Lake Huron.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Hunting for Hunters, Underwater: Results and Future Directions for Submerged Ancient Sites

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50350