Part Five
The Initial Woodland Period in Central and Northern Minnesota
1000 B.C. - A.D. 1000
Initial Woodland complexes in central and northern Minnesota are also defined largely by the style and presence of the first pottery vessels in these parts of the state. As in southern Minnesota, these vessels are jars that appear, usually, in both larger utilitarian forms and smaller ritual/burial forms. Part 5 focuses on the three most intensely investigated and reported localities in central and northern Minnesota: Mille Lacs, Headwaters Lakes, and Rainy River.
The Initial Woodland complex in the Mille Lacs locality in east central Minnesota is called the Rum River phase (ca. 200 B.C. – A.D. 500). Because of the rich archaeological record of the locality, the Mille Lacs Lake area and its Rum River outlet were an early region of archaeological exploration in Minnesota (Brower 1901; Brower and Bushnell 1900). Identifying characteristics of the Rum River phase are the locality’s oldest burial mounds, Malmo pottery, and calibrated radiocarbon dates that fall within the ca. 200 B.C. – A.D. 500 age range. At present, Rum River components are known from only five sites in the locality. The distribution and context of these components suggests that the phase is the archaeological remains of a lakeshore-oriented culture that moved seasonally from one camp to another in a seasonal round much like that of their Late Archaic predecessors.
The Initial Woodland period in the Headwaters Lakes locality of central Minnesota remains controversial because of claims that the earliest pottery in the locality dates as early as 1300 B.C. if not earlier. Christy Hohman-Caine and Grant Goltz have suggested that the Initial Woodland archaeological complex of the locality be called the Elk River culture, a taxonomic term that we adopt, too. The presence of Brainerd ware ceramics, small conical burial mounds, and a range of Plains-oriented stemmed and notched dart points characterize the Elk River culture. Human burials are present in both rounded earthen mound and non-mound contexts. The culture seems to reflect a hunter-gatherer lifeway that was transitional between Late Archaic and Terminal Woodland settlement-subsistence patterns. Phases of the Elk River culture may be present in the Mille Lacs locality and elsewhere in central Minnesota.
The Laurel culture in the far north is Minnesota’s most intensely investigated and best-known Initial Woodland complex. Centered in the Rainy River locality along both sides of the Rainy River, components of the archaeological culture are most easily recognized by the presence of Laurel ware, the first pottery ware in the locality, and by their association with the largest burial mounds bordering the river.
In Minnesota, Laurel is best-known from excavations at the Grand Mound/Smith Mounds (21KC3) and McKinstry (21KC2) sites along the Rainy River, the Pike Bay Mound (21SL1) and Pearson (21SL3) sites on Lake Vermillion, and the Lake Bronson site (21KT1) in the prairie area of Kittson County. However, Laurel ceramics and perhaps the culture extends from northwestern Michigan, southwestern Ontario, and northwestern Wisconsin across northern Minnesota into southeastern and west central Manitoba and east central Saskatchewan. The culture may date between 50 B.C. – A.D. 1000 in northern Minnesota and as late as the thirteenth century in areas of south central Canada.
As will become apparent, the archaeological cultures in all of these localities remain poorly defined, mainly because of a long-term research focus on burial mounds and ceramics. However, ongoing cultural resource management (CRM) investigations, especially during the last twenty years, are adding substantially to our knowledge of the Initial Woodland period in these central and northern areas of the state.
Contributors to this section: Guy Gibbon
Date of last contribution: December 2008