An Archaeological Analysis of Eastern Grant Land, Ellesmere Island, N.W. Territories. Moreau S. Maxwell. National Museum of Canada, Bulletin 170, Ottawa, 1960. iv + 109 pp., 10 figs., 17 pls. $1.50.

TLDR: Quimby and Hough as mentioned in this paper described the "Aqua-Piano Indians" as a group of people who were early offshoots of the ancient boreal peoples.

Abstract: variant interpretations of western Great Lakes geochronology have been reviewed previously in this journal (reviews by George M. Stanley and George I. Quimby of Jack L. Hough, Geology of the Great Lakes, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 277-9, 1959). Succeeding chapters deal with the distribution of fluted points following the presentation of the author in an earlier article in this journal (Fluted Points and Geochronology of the Lake Michigan Basin, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 247-54, 1958) and then a discussion of the distribution of piano points and their correlation with the extinct lake beaches. Here the author lumps the Browns Valley, Brohm, Sheguiandah, and George Lake sites into a single cultural category. Quimby labels this category the \"Aqua-Piano tradition\" — hopefully with tongue-in-cheek. It is difficult to understand exactly what the author really wishes to designate by this term, for in addition to defining it as a tradition on page 34, we find the term used to describe the \"Aqua-Piano stage\" on page 33, and on page 41 it is used to designate the \"AquaPiano Indians.\" The following chapters on prehistory treat the Boreal Archaic, Old Copper, Early Woodland, Middle Woodland-Hopewell, and Late Woodland manifestations. Quimby views Boreal Archaic and Old Copper as distinct cultural entities though stating that, \"It is entirely possible that the Old Copper Indians were early offshoots of the ancient boreal peoples\" (p. 50). The archaeological-geological content of the book occupies the first 107 pages of text and is followed by a brief sketch of early historic fur trade and its cultural effects, brief cultural summaries of the Huron, Chippewa, Ottowa, Potowatomi, Sauk, Fox, Miami, Winnebago, and Menominee. The concluding chapter concerns itself with the destruction of aboriginal cultures. The book summarizes an immense period of time in concise fashion. There are some errors of fact, such as the characterization of the first forest cover as spruce-fir, which was actually spruce (see S. T. Anderson, \"A lateglacial pollen diagram from Southern Michigan, U.S.A.\" Danmarks Geologiske Undersagelse. II. Roekke. Nr. 80. Copenhagen, 1954), a significant error in that spruce-fir connotes a warmer climate than spruce alone. In addition, the patrilineal Winnebago are described as having a social organization which \"stressed lineage in unilateral descent in the male line through one's mother's brother\" (p. 136). Despite these errors, Quimby has succeeded in achieving his goal of producing a useful book for the lay reader. The student and the professional will also use the book for Quimby has a long and intimate knowledge of the whole range of prehistory here. They will use it with less assurance, however. Part of the difficulty for the latter is the fact that the region considered is an arbitrary region and is neither a natural or cultural area, as Quimby indicated previously in his chapter on the same region in Griffin's Archeology of Eastern United States. Another difficulty is in the confusion of terminology, referred to earlier, where tradition, culture, stage, period, and people are used rather indiscriminately. The book will be used and quoted widely, and the ideas and interpretations presented will stimulate discussion and reinterpretation. In this respect, the book achieves a second goal.