Avonlea culture
It is defined by complexes of projectile points, pottery, and other artifacts discovered in archaeological sites concentrated in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan and in northern Montana.
Initial estimates of projectile points associated with the Avonlea culture placed it within the Late Woodland period.
Early studies note that the emergence of the Avonlea complex seems to correspond with the migration of Dené populations from the north towards the upper Great Plains.
These movements may have influenced the development of the Avonlea point among the indigenous Besant culture of the Middle Woodland period.
[5] In 1979, Grace Morgan introduced a theory that Avonlea was brought to the area by migrants from the Upper Mississippi River Valley to the south.
[6] As their influence grew, the Avonlea culture spread southwards into the Wyoming Basin and the middle Missouri River Valley by 400–600 CE, and eastwards into modern-day Minnesota and Manitoba.
As this site is a relative outlier to the usual Avonlea range, according to Karr et al., this might suggest "long-distance cultural exchange".
[12] Additionally, fortified sites have been uncovered elsewhere in South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, dating to about 800–1000 CE; a William Prentiss and James Chatters suggested that Avonlea populations moved southwards, where they engaged in conflicts against the Middle Missourians.
[7][13] These fortfications may have been built during the Southern Athabascan split, when tribes like the Navajo and Apache migrated south from their origins in modern-day northwestern Canada.
Beginning about 700 CE, the Algonquians to the east began moving into Avonlea territory and introduced the Prairie Side-notched type.
[18] In 1966, Kehoe broke the Avonlea complex down into three varieties: Gull Lake, Timber Ridge Sharp-notched, and Carmichael Wide-eared.
As its name implies, it is distinguished by the presence of larger, wider, rounded notches and basal corners (or "ears").
[24] Avonlea-associated projectile points are characterized by distinctions in their diminutive size, side notches, and triangular shape, and they are the earliest such examples to be recorded on the northern Great Plains.
This differs from later cultures' inclination towards petrified wood and chalcedony, although these stones are still represented among Avonlea lithics.
[18] Kehoe used this absence of pottery as evidence for a Dené association, as contemporary populations did not make extensive use of vessels.
These wares first appear in Saskatchewan at the Sjovold site and date to 1630±200 BP, making them contemporary with Avonlea,[29] and are very similar to samples recovered in Minnesota.
[37] The contemporary glaciated landscape provided plenty of water sources and grasslands; vast buffalo herds flourished at this time.
Kehoe and McCorquodale suggest the Avonlea point was favorable for close-range dispatching of these corraled and felled buffalo.
[4][38] However, later evidence revealed that coordinated bison drives had been practiced at least as early as the preceding Besant and Pelican Lake cultures, albeit not on the scale of the Late Precontact period.
Additionally, the bow and arrow has now been dated back to the Pelican Lake culture, predating the newest estimations of Dené arrival by several hundred years.
