Excavations were carried out at the Crowfield fluted point site just west of London, Ontario in 1981 and 1982 by the author and D. Brian Deller with funding from the Ontario Heritage Foundation. After mapping finds on the surface of a ploughed field, square excavations were begun. Although some unheated Paleo-Indian stone tools representing normal occupation debris were recovered (about 30 items), most stone artifacts had been subjected to intense heat which had fractured them into small pieces. In the second square excavated a number of unheated items were found extending below the ploughed zone into the undisturbed subsoil. Even though the outline of the pit had disappeared over the thousands of years since it was constructed, the items had clearly been in a pit dug down into the subsoil. Although distorted by old root and modern disturbances, exact plotting of heat fragmented pieces revealed it was roughly circular pit of some 1.5 metres in diameter which extended down approximately 20 cm below the ploughzone.

In all over 4500 heated artifact fragments were recovered, the vast majority of which seem to have originated in the major pit feature discovered. Refitting of the fragments revealed they made up 182+ complete Paleo-Indian artifacts which had not been broken in manufacture or use and it is clear they were deliberately burned. The large number of items recovered from the single pit feature, and the fact they were deliberately burned or sacrificed, suggests ceremonial activities and it is possible these pit items represent a cache of goods associated with a cremation burial. However, no organic remains were recovered because of the age of the site and the acidic soils which destroy anything other than stone tools and debris.

The artifacts recovered included almost 30 fluted bifaces which are notable for their extreme thinness (<5 mm thick), shallow concavities at the base, usually the removal of several flutes from one or both faces, and extreme degree of expansion from the base. We have called these Crowfield style fluted points and they seem to represent the last or terminal fluted point producing groups in the area.

Other stone artifacts associated with the feature included a number of bifacially worked knives, some drills or perforators unfinished biface tools (preforms), several side scrapers, two beaks, some needle-like tools called gravers or piercers, and several large unmodified flakes which seem too be ones transported around to be made into tools as needed.

Plotting of the individual tool types in the subsoil feature remnant has revealed that they are not randomly distributed in the feature. Rather, individual tool forms are situated only/predominantly in certain locations in that feature. For example, almost all the fluted bifaces and biface preforms are in the southern half of the feature while the drills/perforators are found only in a small area in the north central part of the feature and the side scrapers were predominantly in the feature's centre. This evidence indicates the tool classes we recognize somehow match the conceptions of the Paleoindian peoples themselves. It also indicates that the material was sorted and carefully placed in the feature, supports the idea the items were burned where found, suggests that it is more likely the feature represents an individual's tool kit than contributions from several individuals, and indicates that Paleoindian individuals transported their tool kits around sorted into types used for different purposes. The last-named makes logical sense as it would be easier for an individual to find the right tool for a particular task if transported sorted into different functional types and historically known groups with complex tool kits used the same strategy, such as the Inuit and Alaskan Eskimo. However, this is the first direct evidence anywhere that Paleoindians followed the same strategy.

Published References

D. B. Deller and C. J. Ellis - 1984 - Crowfield: A Preliminary Report On a Probable Paleo-Indian Cremation in Southwestern Ontario.   Archaeology of Eastern North America 12:41-71.

 D. B. Deller, C. J. Ellis and J. R. Keron - 2009 -  Understanding Cache Variability: A Deliberately Burned Early Paleoindian Tool Assemblage from the Crowfield Site, Southwestern Ontario, Canada. American Antiquity 74(2):371-397.

C. J. Ellis - 2009 - The Crowfield and Caradoc Sites, Ontario: Glimpses of Paleoindian Sacred Ritual and World View. In Painting the Past with a Broad Brush. Papers in Honour of James Valliere Wright, edited by David L. Keenlyside and Jean-Luc Pilon, pp. 317-249 Canadian Museum of Civilization Mercury Series Paper. Gatineau, Quebec: in press.

Other References

D. B. Deller and C. J. Ellis - 1982 - Archaeological Investigations at Thedford II, Crowfield and Other Paleo-Indian Sites in Southwestern Ontario. Archaeological Licence Report on file, Ontario MInistry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, Heritage Branch, Toronto, Ontario.

D. B. Deller - 1988 - The Paleo-Indian Occupation of Southwestern Ontario: Distribution, Technology and Social Organization. PhD Dissertation, Dept. of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, P. Q.

C. J. Ellis - 1984 - Paleo-Indian Lithic Technological Structure and Organization in the Lower Great Lakes Area: A First Approximation.  PhD Dissertation, Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B. C.