Identifying Archaeological Bone via Non-Destructive ZooMS and the Materiality of Symbolic Expression: Examples from Iroquoian Bone Points.

Today, practical, functional and symbolic choices inform the selection of raw materials for worked objects. In cases where we can discern the origin of worked bone, tooth, ivory and antler objects in the past, we assume that similar choices are being made. However, morphological species identification of worked objects is often impossible due to the loss of identifying characteristics during manufacture. Here, we describe a novel non-destructive ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) method which was applied to bone points from Pre-Contact St. Lawrence Iroquoian village sites in southern Quebec, Canada. The traditional ZooMS technique requires destructive analysis of a sample, which can be problematic when dealing with artefacts. Here we instead extracted proteins from the plastic bags in which the points had been stored. ZooMS analysis revealed hitherto unexpected species, notably black bear (Ursus americanus) and human (Homo sapiens sapiens), used in point manufacture. These surprising results (confirmed through genomic sequencing) highlight the importance of advancing biomolecular research in artefact studies. Furthermore, they unexpectedly and exceptionally allow us to identify and explore the tangible, material traces of the symbolic relationship between bears and humans, central to past and present Iroquoian cosmology and mythology.

Effects of population dispersal on regional signaling networks: An example from northern Iroquoia.

The dispersal of Iroquoian groups from St. Lawrence River valley during the 15th and 16th centuries A.D. has been a source of archaeological inquiry for decades. Social network analysis presented here indicates that sites from Jefferson County, New York at the head of the St. Lawrence River controlled interactions within regional social signaling networks during the 15th century A.D. Measures indicate that Jefferson County sites were in brokerage liaison positions between sites in New York and Ontario. In the network for the subsequent century, to which no Jefferson County sites are assigned, no single group took the place of Jefferson County in controlling network flow. The dispersal of Jefferson County populations effectively ended this brokerage function concomitant with the emergence of the nascent Huron-Wendat and Iroquois confederacies and may have contributed to the escalation of conflict between these entities. These results add to a growing literature on the use of network analyses with archaeological data and contribute new insights into processes of population relocation and geopolitical realignment, as well as the role of borderlands and frontiers in nonstate societies.