The Laurel complex or Laurel tradition is an

archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...

which was present in what is now southern

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, southern and northwestern

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

and east-central

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

in Canada, and northern

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, northwestern

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

and northern

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

in the United States. They were the first pottery using people of Ontario north of the Trent–Severn Waterway. The complex is named after the former

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

of Laurel, Minnesota. It was first defined by Lloyd Wilford in 1941.

Hopewell Interaction Sphere

The

Hopewell Exchange system The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from ...

began in the Ohio and Illinois River Valleys about 300 BCE. The culture is referred to more as a system of interaction among a variety of societies than as a single society or culture. Hopewell trading networks were quite extensive, with

obsidian Obsidian () is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Obsidian is produced from felsic lava, rich in the lighter elements s ...

from the

Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowston ...

area,

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

from

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

, and shells from the Gulf Coast. The construction of ceremonial mounds was an important feature of the Laurel complex, as it was for the Point Peninsula complex and other Hopewell cultures. Sites were usually located at rapids or falls where

sturgeon Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretace ...

come to spawn and ceremonies may have coincided with this yearly event. The mounds and the artifacts contained within them indicate contact with the Adena and Hopewell of the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

valley. It is unknown if the contact was direct or indirect.

Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung

The first mound-builders in what is now the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung National Historic Site of Canada, Laurel culture (c.2300 BP - 900 BP) who lived "in villages and built large round burial mounds along the edge of the river, as monuments to their dead." These mounds remain visible today. Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung is considered to be one of the "most significant centres of early habitation and ceremonial burial in Canada," is located on the north side Rainy River in

Northwestern Ontario Northwestern Ontario is a secondary region of Northern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north and west of Lake Superior and west of Hudson Bay and James Bay. It includes most of subarctic Ontario. Its western boundary is the ...

, Canada. It became part of a continent-wide trading network because of its strategic location at the centre of major North American waterways.

Blackduck tradition

The later Blackduck tradition has been framed as a successor culture in the region, with the archaeologist K. C. A. Dawson positioning the Blackduck as a new, unrelated population which spread northward through northern Minnesota, southern Manitoba, and northwestern Ontario to AD 900. Blackduck ceramics were notably better-constructed than Woodland period predecessors, with thinner walls and larger size. It was noted by Dawson that at the Wabinosh River site north of Lake Superior, late Laurel ceramics display some traits of the Blackduck and Selkirk traditions. Dawson associates the Laurel with an Archaic period residual population, with an influx of Blackduck people as the climate in the north became milder; he associates the Blackduck with the

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

References

Sources

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External links

The Footprints of Wasahkacahk: The Churchill River Diversion Project and Destruction of the Nelson House Cree Historical Landscape
(1977, Eva Mary Minah Linklater)
Initial Woodland Complexes in the Far North: The Laurel Culture, 50 B.C. to A.D. 1000
Hopewellian peoples Late Prehistoric period of North America Archaeology of Manitoba Archaeological cultures in Ontario Archaeology of Quebec Native American history of Michigan Native American history of Minnesota Native American history of Wisconsin Woodland period Archaeological cultures of North America 1st millennium BC in Canada 1st millennium in Canada {{NorthAm-native-stub