Abstract

Despite little zooarchaeological data available to construct subsistence economies of the Laurentian Archaic populations, most researchers have postulated a twofold seasonal pattern of animal exploitation. Since many of the sites are located near rapids along major waterways, fishing is often considered as the major economic activity carried out during the spring and summer months, whereas hunting and trapping would have been the sole economic pursuit during the coldest months of the year. Paucity of faunal remains in many of the sites has hindered a sound verification of the proposed model, which has not yet been fully validated. Faunal assemblages from the Morrison Island and Allumettes Island sites, located in the Ottawa River Valley, offer an opportunity to look more closely into the question of Laurentian Archaic animal exploitation and subsistence economies. Zooarcchaeological evidence gathered so far points to an opportunistic broad-based subsistence strategy as well as a suite of seasonally focused animal exploitation behaviors.