Abstract

In NewYork and adjacent areas, ceramic assemblages of the period ca A.D. 1000-1350, termed Owasco, are considered to have been ancestral to later Late Woodland Iroquoian ceramics. Contemporaneous ceramic assemblages in Ontario and Quebec (Pickering, Glen Meyer, Uren) are also considered ancestral to later Iroquoian ceramics. These attributions bring up the question of the ethnicidentity of the manufacturers of the early Late Woodland ceramics; that is, were they Iroquoian speakers? Or, were the Owasco and contemporaneous ceramics of Ontario and Quebec manufactured by non-Iroquoian speakers? By both linguistic groups? Can we discern patterns of continuity (vs. dis-continuity) in ceramics, based on stylistic and/or technological attributes, which may be related to continuity (or dis-continuity) in ethnic identity of the manufacturers? And perhaps most importantly, can questions concerning the sociopolitical and economic events of the Late Woodland stage in the Northeast surrounding Iroquoian ethnogenesis be studied through cerarnic evidence?