RIVIERE AU VASE
PHASE
Riviere au Vase is the earliest of the four Late Woodland phases of Western Basin Late Woodland. Sites of this phase are only found in the extreme southwestern portions of the province.
Riviere au Vase developed directly from the Middle Woodland Western Basin Couture Complex. Early Riviere au Vase ceramics are quite similar to those of the preceding period, differing primarily in the thickness of the vessel walls and the methods of vessel manufacture (paddle and anvil as opposed to coil). The distinctive pottery type of the Riviere au Vase phase is "Wayne Ware". These pots are small, thin walled pots with plain, slightly outcurved rims. They are usually round bottomed, and globular or rounded in shape. Cord marks are usually visible on the outer surfaces of these pots. The interiors are usually plain.
During the later
part of the Riviere au Vase the people seem to have begun to favour slightly
elongated pots with slightly more flaring rims. Simple bands of oblique
decoration began to be used later in this phase.
Riviere au Vase Phase sites are found along the rivers and streams which drain west into Lake St. Clair in land as far as London, and along the western shores of Lake Erie. Related sites have been found in the Maumee River area of Ohio and the Saginaw Bay region of Michigan.
Excavations at Point Pelee remain the most extensive examinations of a Riviere au Vase site in Ontario. Evidence of a possible house structure, a large sample of pottery and stone tools and abundant food remains (bones) were found. On the basis of the food remains it seems as though the site was occupied during the summer and possibly the early fall. The extensive resources provided by the marsh and lakeshore and those from the surrounding country were being exploited.
No evidence of
cultivation was present at this site although corn remains have been found in
association with Riviere au Vase pottery elsewhere in the lower Great Lakes
region.
One aspect of the Riviere au Vase artifacts which is worthy of note is the presence of 'exotic' raw materials from Ohio and other areas to the south of Lake Erie. These items suggest trade and exchange with people further to the south and west - essentially a continuation of a well documented relationship which had existed during the preceding Middle Woodland period. This trade declined throughout the Riviere aux Vase Phase and is virtually absent in the succeeding Younge phase.
Pottery tends to
dominated the artifact collections from Riviere au Vase sites. Stone tools
consist of medium to small projectile points including Jack's Reef
Corner-Notched points and a variety of small side-notched points. Medium sized
celts and rectangular or trapezoidal slate pendants.
Relatively little is known of Riviere au Vase settlement in the interior parts of southwestern Ontario. Although materials from this phase have been found at numerous locations, it has often been on sites where these materials are mixed with those of later occupations, and as a consequence, interpretation of the Riviere phase materials alone has been difficult. Those interior sites where some level of interpretation has been possible indicate that they were primarily used as deer hunting and/or nut processing stations. When considered in conjunction with the large sites known from Point Pelee and Rondeau Point, and bearing in mind the admittedly limited data base, it seems possible that Riviere au Vase people were following a seasonal pattern of subsistence similar to that identified for ethnographically recorded hunter-gatherer groups in the region. This pattern of summer congregation at places of the greatest coincidence of environmental resources, and winter dispersal in small, perhaps family units, to short term, specific resource oriented camps, appears to hold true throughout the succeeding phases of the Late Woodland period.