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NYSAA Bulletin No. 26 — Croton Point Midden Excavation — Passage 5 (part 17)

Louis A. Brennan et al. (1962) 224 words View original →

[Louis A. Brennan et al. (1962)] This living pattern, on the evidence of the uniform volume of individual shell heaps that vary but little through the several horizons during which they were laid down, consisted of a basic population unit of perhaps a dozen to fifteen persons which visited a regular series of food gathering stations and depended on no one food resource for very long. Our Kettle Rock middens produce ample bone to testify to a substantial meat diet even while oysters were being consumed, and enough mullers to testify to the No. 26 November 1962 15 probable substantial use of vegetable foods. We are satisfied at this time that most of these bands had each its own peculiarity in projectile point style and that of ten, when several styles are found at a site they indicate only that several different bands camped at that site and not that many style s were made by the same people. The provenience of Vinette I-like pottery with variations in projectile point styles probably indicates no more than that this ware was manufactured through a rather extended period of time, say 300 years, by the natives of this area who were basically of the same blood and cultural traditions despite some differences in projectile point styling. While we are satisfied that Vinette I pottery dates from about 3500 to 3300 B. P.