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In the Woods: The Cow Head Complex Occupation of the Gould Site, Port au Choix

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The Cultural Landscapes of Port au Choix

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology ((IDCA))

Abstract

This chapter presents Recent Indian Cow Head data from the Gould site (EeBi-42), Port au Choix. The Cow Head complex (hereafter abbreviated to Cow Head) appears to be centred on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland (Fig. 13.1), and its current characterization is based on published material from two Northern Peninsula sites, Spearbank (DlBk-1) (Hartery 2007; Tuck 1978) and Peat Garden (EgBf-6) (Hartery 2007). Material from the recently excavated St. Pauls Bay-2 site (DlBk-6), also on the Northern Peninsula, supports this characterization (Lavers 2009). In addition, Cow Head bifaces have been identified at L’Anse aux Meadows (EjAv-1) (Ingstad 1977) and in two surface collections at Portland Creek Pond (EbBj-4, EbBj-5) (Biggin 1985; Thomson 1987). On the Quebec Lower North Shore, sites comparable to Cow Head (EiBg-85, EiBg-86) are found at the Blanc Sablon River (Pintal 1998). Elsewhere in Newfoundland, individual Cow Head bifaces are identified in Recent Indian contexts at a small number of Bonavista Bay sites (Austin 1980, 1984; Carignan 1975, 1977), and Cow Head projectile points are identified in private collections from three sites near Burgeo (Rast 1998, 1999) (Fig. 13.1).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cal BP  =  calendar years before present based on calibrations using Calib 6.0html (Stuiver and Reimer 1993) and represented by the one sigma probability range.

  2. 2.

    BP  =  radiocarbon years before present.

  3. 3.

    Faunal identifications were done by Lisa Hodgetts for Mike Teal’s Master’s thesis (Teal 2001).

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Acknowledgements

Gould site excavations were initially and generously funded by a Memorial University New Initiatives Research Grant from the Office of the Vice-President (Research). Subsequent funding was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University; the J.R. Smallwood Foundation for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, Memorial University; Parks Canada; the Provincial Archaeology Office of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador; and the Town of Port au Choix. Facilities for analysis were funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canada Research Chairs Program and Memorial University. We would like to thank: Lisa Hodgetts for identifying the faunal material from the Gould site, Larry Nolan for developing our GIS software and assisting us in its application, Charles Conway for drafting the figures, Chris Hammond and Dominique Lavers for artefact photographs and the many crew members who spent several summers working on our Gould site excavations. This chapter has benefited greatly from the insightful comments of Don Holly and Jean-Yves Pintal.

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  1. Department of Archaeology, Memorial University, St. John’s, NL, Canada, A1C 5S7

    M. A. P. Renouf

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  1. M. A. P. Renouf
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Correspondence to M. A. P. Renouf .

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  1. Archaeology Unit, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, A1C 5S7, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

    M. A. P. Renouf

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Renouf, M.A.P., Teal, M.A., Bell, T. (2011). In the Woods: The Cow Head Complex Occupation of the Gould Site, Port au Choix. In: Renouf, M. (eds) The Cultural Landscapes of Port au Choix. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8324-4_13

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