The original occupants of Michigan, called Paleoindians by archaeologists, represented a continent-wide cultural phenomena during the terminal- and post-Pleistocene period. These hunting and gathering bands, descended from those people who had crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Asia, entered what is the continental United States through the ice-free corridors of Northern Canada. The fluted point, the diagnostic artifact of the Paleoindian people, is found from the southwestern to the extreme northeastern United States. Paleoindian groups entered the Southern Peninsula of Michigan soon after its colonization by plants and animals, following the retreat of the Wisconsin Ice front. They supposedly hunted the Pleistocene megafaun which contemporaneously wandered the spruce fir parkland of the area. Undoubtedly, the hunting of smaller game and gathering activities figured large in the daily subsistence activities. Cold adapted to periglacial conditions, they lived in the southern sector of the Michigan Peninsula while the ice still hovered at the Straits of Mackinac. The northern distribution of the fluted point distribution runs roughly from Saginaw Bay to the Traverse Bay Region (Quimby, 1958; Mason, 1958) Fluted points have been recovered from the Newaygo area, three having been precisely located in Newaygo County (Mason, 1958). One fluted point find is located on the uplands overlooking the Muskegon Valley near the village of Croton east of the project area. Some 9,000 years ago a marked change in the forest cover of the eastern United States occurred (Cleland, 1966). This is directly associated with the further retreat of the Wisconsin Ice northward and the amelioration of climate in the Great Lakes region. In general, evidence gathered from palynology, geology and other sources indicates a change from the post-Pleistocene in the forest community from a spruce tundra parkland to a pine or coniferous forest and finally to the incursion of deciduous elements producing the mixed broadleaf-coniferous forest found in the Newaygo area today. Major vegetational and climatic changes following the Pleistocene produced dramatic changes in the distribution of resources necessary for human livelihood. Communities living in the Great Lakes region, as throughout the Northeast, responded to this change by adapting to the new and local condition of environment. The period beginning about 8,000 B.C. is known as the Archaic in the archaeological record. Essentially wanderers, as their predecessors, and constituting a small band of persons, they probably moved seasonally in defined territories of the Great Lakes. Their diagnostic artifacts, the stone tools manufactured for the hunting and processing of game, as well as wood-working are found throughout the Southern Peninsula of Michigan. Several collections are known from the Newaygo area although no Archaic site in the area has been excavated. Woodland period, beginning the 6th century B.C., is marked by the introduction of ceramics, an innovation ubiquitous in the Northeast at this time. The burial complex already highly developed in the Archaic period takes on the form of a conical burial mound. A new and distinctive stemmed projectile point graces the hunting shaft. Besides these innovations, the Early Woodland of Michigan is thought to be much like the Archaic in economy and seasonality (Fitting, 1975). No evidence of Agriculture is forthcoming as the archaeological record now stands. Hunting and plant gathering, a diffuse economy as described by Cleland, would seem to characterize the Early Woodland community (Cleland, 1966, 1976). Beginning with this period, it is probable that inhabitants of the river systems draining into Lake Michigan in western Michigan began specific interaction with communities further south in the Illinois Valley in trade and exchange matters, a phenomena that is well-proven for the succeeding Middle Woodland period. With the inception of the Early Woodland period, the archaeological record in the Newaygo area is much more precise (Prahl, 1966, 1970). This period is dated by radiocarbon dates at the Carrigan and Croton Dam sites, a group of five mounds erected at the confluence of the Big and Little Muskegon Rivers in the village of Croton, east of the present project area. Although no habitation sites associated with this burial complex have been located, projectile points and other lithic material from the hearth at the base of one of these mounds compare favorably with those at the Early Woodland level at the Schultz site (Prahl, 1970). A similarity of these projectile point types with those found by Munson at the American Bottoms on The Mississippi River (Kramer Points) has also been noted (Ozker, 1977). Cremations, hearth with burnt animal bone and projectile points, small amounts of copper ornaments and red ochre, characterize the Croton Dam and Carrigan burial group (Prahl, 1970). These two Early Woodland manifestations, the Carrigan-Croton Dam mound group and the Schultz site in the Muskegon and Saginaw Valleys, both date from the 6th century B.C. The living condition of the Early Woodland people at the Schultz site have recently been described by 0zker (1977). The period known as the Middle Woodland begins two or three centuries before the Christian era and is known spectacularly in the Ohio and Illinois Valleys by the Hopewell burial complex. The Middle Woodland economy in the Upper Great Lakes is riverine oriented, associated with regional trade networks and large burial works with sub-floor burials and grave goods, some representing trade items. Michigan Hopewell sites are highly evident along the river systems in Western Michigan and were formulated by Quimby as the Goodall Complex (Quimby,1941, 1943). Again, no direct archaeological evidence for an entirely agricultural-based economy is present, although mud flat horticulture has been suggested. From what evidence exists, the typical Middle Woodland community might be hamlet-sized rather than a large nucleated village. The adaptive pattern may still be diffuse utilizing a wide range of resources from disparate microenvironments. While the archaeological evidence in Ohio suggests a chiefdom level of community service operating from seasonally occupied ceremonial centers, evidence from the Middle Woodland Schultz site in the Saginaw Valley suggests a much simpler social organization (Fitting, 1975) Excavation done by Flanders at the Norton Mounds and other sites on the Grand River has provided the basic outlook on western Michigan Hopewellian sites and their association with the Illinois Valley (Griffin, Flanders and Titterington, 1970). Prahl subsequently excavated and reported on several of the Middle Woodland sites in the Muskegon Valley, the northern extent of the Hopewellian influence in Michigan (Prahl, 1966, 1970). The Middle Woodland period is represented in the Newaygo County area by several mound groups in Section 22 of Brooks Township (T12N, Rl2W). The Brooks, Parsons, Palmeteer and Schumaker mound groups are all erected on the same upper glacial terrace of the Muskegon River. Below this terrace on the flood plain of the river lies the Jancarich site associated temporally and culturally with the above-mentioned mounds. The Jancarich site, approximately three acres in size, represents a small Middle Woodland hamlet. Early Middle Woodland or Naples Dentate ceramics were recovered from this site (Prahl, 1966, 1970). These sites all date from one or two centuries before the Christian era. An additional mound group representing the Late Middle Woodland period is found south of the Muskegon River at Brooks Lake in Section 27, Brooks Township (T12N, R12W). A small Middle Woodland occupation site was brought to the attention the past summer (1979) of Grand Valley State Colleges field team at the residence of Henry Plank of Croton, Michigan (Field notes on file, GVSC Anthropology Laboratory), The Toft Lake Site north of the village of Newaygo also represents a Late Middle Woodland component (Losey, 1967). The Late Woodland period is represented in the Newaygo area by the Brunett Mound just east of the village of Newaygo and occasional surface collections found in the upland lake area north of the village (Prahl, 1970). As yet no extensive Late Woodland occupation area has been found in the vicinity of the Muskegon River adjacent to the presently proposed project area, although intrusive mound activity is evident at the Brooks and Carringan mounds in the form of burials added to the upper level of the original mounds. The period of intrusive mound activity at the Carrigan Mound dates from the 6th century A.D. (Prahl, 1966, 1970). The Late Woodland Spring Creek site, known from extensive excavation, is downriver from Newaygo. Much of the Late Woodland activity would appear to shift to areas north of the Muskegon Valley such as the headwaters region of the Pere Marquette and White Rivers flanking the western edge of the central High Plains of Michigan. Historically, the Ottawa, a central Algonquin group, occupied the Muskegon Valley. The documented Indian settlement at Old Women's Bend, downriver from the village of Newaygo, represents the last vestige of Indian life in the area.