Understanding Cache Variability: A Deliberately Burned Early Paleoindian Tool Assemblage from the Crowfield Site, Southwestern Ontario, Canada

Abstract

The Crowfield site, excavated in 1981–82, would be a small typical Early Paleoindian campsite except for the added presence of a plough-truncated pit feature containing 182+ burned and destroyed stone artifacts. This paper reports on the latest insights into the feature contents based on continuing attempts to cross-mend fragments, as well as detailed analyses of the spatial distribution of artifact pieces within the feature itself. These results reinforce earlier conclusions that the items were burned where found, represent a cache of still functional tools and preforms, and were purposefully destroyed. They confirm that the site represents the best evidence to date for sacred ritual by eastern North American fluted point users. Contrasts with other reported early sacred and secular caches are documented that highlight the uniqueness of the assemblage. It is argued that these contrasts indicate the Crowfield feature assemblage more closely approximates a transported, functioning tool kit, as opposed to the surplus, seasonal and insurance gear, or offerings, that dominate other early caches.