More on Migration in Prehistory: Accommodating New Evidence in the Northern Iroquoian Case

Abstract

Crawford and Smith have developed important new evidence that bears on the hypothesis that the Northern Iroquoians migrated into the lower Great Lakes region sometime after A.D. 900. Clarification of the Princess Point Complex in Ontario forces a revision of the hypothesis. While an Appalachian origin for the Northern Iroquoians and their subsequent migration is not rejected, new evidence strongly suggests that the population shift took place three centuries earlier than I previously proposed. The situation calls for both further refinement of paleodemographic theory and new empirical research into Owasco and other earlier Northern Iroquoian complexes.