Fugawiland Project by Neil M. Sheldon

Analysis of the excavations at the ten sites A, M, U, W, I, D, X, Q, L, and Y revealed some very interesting patterns about the people of Fugawiland. The first pattern which was discovered were the coincidence of materials used to make knives, patterns on pot sherds, and shape of hut. These coincidences divided the Fugawi into two basic cultures, who will be referred to as the Copper culture and the Obsidian culture. The copper culture uses copper knives, a zig-zag design on pot sherds, and round huts . The obsidian culture uses obsidian knives, a banded design, and square huts. As can be seen in charts 1-3, metal used in knife construction, design used on pottery, and shape of hut is always the same throughout every site, and any mixtures are tiny e nough to be described as anomalous. There are two sites where on each one artifact of the other culture's material is found, and this may be an indication of trading or some other form of interaction between the two cultures.

The cultures described are divided between north and south, around the area of the Pickering River. This can easily be illustrated in Charts 4 and 5, where the north coordinates of the site are plotted against the number of artifacts of copper or obsidi an. The copper artifacts are almost all found above one certain north coordinate, and the obsidian artifacts are almost all found below that same coordinate.

Beyond the division into two different groups, the two cultures are basically very similar in their lifestyles. A pattern shows up again in the locations of the sites. There are basically four different locations which sites are found: the lakeshore, t he river, the plains, and the hills. A number of patterns then emerge to show that people are living differently at each of these different locations. Chart 7 is a table showing average densities of various objects based on the culture and location of t he site. The numbers which were used to compute this data were taken from Chart 8, the Table of All Sites, and also information retrieved by Aziz Poonawalla. In order to generate this table, the sites were divided up into settings and further into predo minating knife material. Averages were computed for each group, and densities were determined by dividing the average number of artifacts by the average area of the types of sites.

The Lakeshore sites have comparatively high densities of fish bones, mussel shells, and fish hooks. The huts are lightly built, and the hearths lie outside the huts. Knives and projectile points are low density here. Mussels are available most intense ly in the spring and fall, and the Lake Trout are in this area during the spring and summer. The quality of the huts and the location of the hearths also indicate that these sites were inhabited only in warm weather. The Fugawi most likely lived along t he Lakeshore during warm weather, sometime in the middle of spring until the end of summer. They lived mostly on mussels and fish, although some deer and rabbit were also caught in small ammounts. The shortage of knives and projectile points probably co mes from the small ammount of land meat in their diet during this time.

Inland are several sites along rivers. Here, the highest densities are found in deer bones and acorns. The huts are much thicker, with large hearths right inside them, and the density of knives and projectile points are larger. About twice as much dee r is used here than on the Lakeshore, and much more rabbit. As Acorns grow in the fall, and the huts in these areas are heavier, the people living in these sites are probably living here in the fall and winter. They depend much more on hunting deer, an d there is some fishing done also. Although not quite as much as on the lakeshore, the people here are catching just as much fish as they are rabbits.

The existence of these two types of sites indicates a pattern of migration for the Fugawi. In the spring and summer they live on the lakeshore, but as the trout begin to move upstream, and the deer begin to move inland, they follow and set up camps alon g the rivers. There seems to be some division going on in establishing inland camps. There are twice as many River sites as there are Lakeshore sites, and the River sites are half as big, yet retain the same density of pot sherds which are most likely u sed consistently throughout the year. Reasons for this may include smaller areas of land along the lakeshore, requiring more dense settlement, and sparser food resources during the winter inland requiring less dense settlement.

This migration model can be developed further with examinations of the other two types of sites. The most important thing about the Hill sites is that there are no huts at any of the sites, the most signs of habitation are are several small, scattered h earths. However, there is a high density of points and knives. The proximity of these sites to the copper and obsidian outcrops indicate a good reason for small groups of Fugawi to travel into these areas and set up small camps. There is probably some extraction going on here, as well as manufacture of knives and tools out of these materials. The low density of acorns and deer bones may come either from the short ammount of time spent here, or from the fact that they are also hunting from these camps, and bringing the deer and acorn they collect back with them. The Fugawi probably spent most of their time here in the early fall, when they had recently come inland from the lakeshore, and before the snow made it much more difficult to travel.

Finally, there are two other sites which do not fit into any of these categories. The Plains sites mirror each other on both sides of the Pickering River. The only food remains here are deer bones, and the sites are certainly the largest of all the exc avated sites. Yet there are no huts. However, interestingly, there are plenty of graves here, over 57% of the graves in all sites are found in these two, and these are the only places where bundled burials are found. Further peculiarities include two g igantic hearths near a large area where no artifacts were found. There is little evidence of any hunting or other work done here, this may probably be a ceremonial site of some sort. It is here that is found one of the few evidences of interaction betwe en the two cultures, as at both of these sites there is found one knife from the other culture.

The Fugawi probably came to these sites several times throughout the year, with probably a rather large ceremony in the spring when the dead of the winter were buried in bundles. Both sites are set up slightly differently, another indication of the diff erence in culture. The Copper culture has a site which is symmetrical in only the north/south direction, while the Obsidian culture has a site which is symmetrical in two directions. Deer bones were the only remains of food animals present, which indica tes that the deer was probably a sacred, or at least very important animal among both cultures of Fugawi. In fact, density of deer bones does not change more than 50% at any site, compared to densities of other food wastes, even at the lakeshore sites wh ere much other food is available.

Although most of the graves found are located on these sites, there are still some graves at other sites. It would be interesting to have more information on these graves, perhaps to show why only certain people were chosen to be buried in these sacred spots. One idea may be related to the relation between shell pendants and graves. As can be seen in Table 6, there is a correlation between the number of graves at each site and the number of pendants found there. If a ratio is made between pendants an d number of graves, including bundles, at each site, it is found to be much lower at the ceremonial sites. However, if the bundles are not included, the ratio seems to be relatively constant. If the location of these pendants were known better, it would be easier to understand what is going on here. If the shell pendants were mostly buried with women and children, the graves at the ceremonial sights may represent those of men, or perhaps warriors and hunters.

Thus we have a tiny glimpse of life among the Fugawi, but there are a number of other trends which are hinted at but need more information before they can be understood. The most important of these is the higher density of obsidian knives compared to co pper knives in similar sites. It seems there are simply more obsidian knives lying on the ground than copper, and this does not go along with the fact that obsidian is more rare. One possibly suggestion may be that the knives found are mostly broken or worn out, as working tools would probably not be thrown away. Obsidian is more fragile than copper and can break easily. However, being a metal, copper is more likely to bend or dull than to break, and this can easily be fixed by pounding it back into s hape and resharpening it. But in order to know this, we will need to understand the sort of condition and location the artifacts were found in.