Queries Near the Quarry: A Technological Analysis of the Jessup Lithic Workshop Site

Abstract

<p>The prehistory of the Lake Abitibi area has remained largely untold. Ridley's excavations in the 1950's and early 1960's showed that Lake Abititi had been a focal point for prehistoric activities over the last 4,000 - 5,000 years. Since that time, however, few excavations have been conducted and the chronological sequence today contains many gaps. Upon the advice and encouragement of Dr. Wm. Noble of McMaster University, who drew my attention to this area, an archaeological investigation under my direction was carried out in the Lower Bay area of Lake Abitibi, in the summer of 1979. Here the remains of a rich and extensive site called Jessup, had been found three summers previously along the beaches by local amateur archaeologists Marjorie and Justin Jordan. The Jordans' findings strongly indicated that this was a lithic workshop site, inhabited by both Archaic and Laurel peoples. Our survey and excavation in Lower Bay rapidly proved this to be the case. The Jessup site was a workshop and habitation site inhabited by both Shield Archaic and Laurel peoples over a period of approximately 3,000 years. This thesis has examined the lithics, ceramics and faunal material from Jessup. Its major contribution is the in-depth descriptive analysis of the lithic detritus and tools recovered from the site for the purpose of determining the types of raw material reduced at the site, their sources and the strategies used by the respective occupants of the site.</p>