NYSAA Bulletin No. 52 — Archaic Sites: Croton Point & Dogan Point — Passage 3 (part 13)

[Various (1971)] While the weight of the evidence, cultural and chronological, strongly indicates that the Brewerton phase was still extant in central New York around 2000 B.C., we have, unfortunately, no way of assessing the antiquity of the key sites of this phase at Brewerton, viz., the Robinson and Oberlander No. 1 stations (Ritchie 1940). Had charcoal been available from the deeper le vels of these central-base campsites, I suspect it would have yielded an age determination congruent with that of the Vosburg phase in eastern New York. The Brewerton culture, then, probably constituted the dominant, and probably the sole Late Archaic occupation of northern and north central New York at around 2500 B.C., when the Lamoka culture flourished in the same role in south-central New York.

The Brewerton phase is definitely linked with the St. Lawrence Valley; its primary territory, as shown by the distribution of numerous surface sites, and very rare subsurface sites, extended from the St. Lawrence region along the east side of Lake Ontario, with the Adirondacks as a backstop, into the Seneca River system, Oneida Lake and the northern Finger Lakes region. It is less intensively present in the lower Genesee Valley and in western New York. To the south of this New York heartland Brewerton traces progressively diminish, in much the same manner as those of the Vosburg phase in southeastern New York.