Abstract

Although the ceramics from the Canadian plains are sparse in quantity, their formal and stylistic variations, at least in southern Alberta and the adjacent portions of Saskatchewan, are sufficiently distinctive to determine that the pottery can be divided into two major ceramic traditions, the Saskatchewan Basin complex and the Cluny complex. An Early variant of the Saskatchewan Basin complex is affiliated with Avonlea phase occupations dating approximately between A.D. 600 and A.D. 900, and a Late variant with subsequent Old Women's phase components; both of these phases were originally defined on the basis of non-ceramic–mainly lithic–data. The Cluny complex, in contrast, associates with a new phase, the One Gun phase, which appears to represent an intrusion of Middle Missouri peoples into the area sometime after A.D. 1725. It would appear quite definite that the Cluny complex/One Gun phase materials were manufactured by a splinter group of the Hidatsa, possibly the Crow, while at least the Late variant of the Saskatchewan Basin complex/Old Women's phase assemblages are the remains of prehistoric and protohistoric Blackfoot groups.