Childhood Learning on Turtle Island: A Ceramic Analysis of Late Woodland Villages in the Lower Great Lakes Region

This study applies a multi-scalar pottery analysis of 15th century assemblages to investigate northern Iroquoian childhood learning experiences in the Lower Great Lakes prior to European contact. My analysis is based on the two villages in southern Ontario: Keffer and Draper, and three villages in upstate New York: Garoga, Smith-Pagerie and Klock. I employ an ontogenetic approach that recognizes childhood perspectives and the different cognitive and physiological experiences of children as they develop. I rely on ethnographic and child development data to reconstruct past learning experiences. Through this framework, I integrate a modified approach to meshworks through a systematic study of the material interactions of social learning of community members involved with the forming, shaping, and decorating of pottery vessels. Meshworks of learning allow for the identification of the development of knowledge and skills related to a technological practice. These learning growths further included new spatial interactions in their communities, and so I conducted a spatial analysis of Keffer and Draper vessels to investigate the presence of specialized learning locales, and how spatial areas around the village were involved in learning and craft production. The results of my analysis demonstrate a learning practice that did not isolate younger potters from adult activities but relied on flexible learning that encouraged a certain level of artistic freedom with minimal adult interference that adhered to fundamental principles of potting traditions. Pottery learning did not take place in specialized learning locales, but throughout the village. Furthermore, the data indicates regional patterning in which potters in Ontario and upstate New York learned to make pottery through similar practices. I argue that during the process of making pottery, learning experiences were mediated by deeply rooted cosmologies and traditions built around maintaining balanced social relations between community members of all ages and genders in Lower Great Lakes communities.Ph.D.2021-07-19 00:00:0