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As previously discussed, the Genesee biface of Ontario seems to exhibit more stylistic ties to the east, making its way into the region by at least 3800 B.P. Ellis and colleagues (1990a: 100) believe that in Ontario the broad point tool was something that was adopted by local groups living in the area, and that in general, the lifeways of people stayed the same. Since the excavation of the Peace Bridge site, it has been proposed that extensive Onondaga chert exchange networks were established on the Niagara Peninsula, which is what facilitated the diffusion of the Genesee technology to the west.

The Peace Bridge site has been interpreted as an intensive quarry site inhabited with semi-permanency, whose inhabitants seem to have manufactured Onondaga products and widely distributed them (Robertson et al. 1997: 505, 507). Williamson and MacDonald (1998: 30-31) have argued that environmental changes on the Niagara Peninsula that took place 3900 years ago might have influenced the Onondaga exchange network. According to Pengelly (1997), two lakes existed within Lake Erie’s drainage throughout both

Nipissing phases. The first, Lake Wainfleet, was located on the Niagara Peninsula, and the second, Tonawanda, extended into New York. The water levels of both lakes began to decrease after 3900 years ago, disappearing completely by about 3780 +/-80 B.P.

(Pengelly 1997). This date corresponds very closely to the first examples of the Genesee biface in what is now known as Ontario. The environmental change might have caused the people living on the Niagara Peninsula to redefine their relationship with their landscape, both on the western side of Lake Wainfleet, and to the east of it. The disappearance of this large lake might have encouraged people to move into and make

use of areas that had been previously under water, or seasonally flooded. In particular, Williamson and MacDonald (1998: 30) believe that these changes in water levels would have allowed for the settlement around a new outcrop of Onondaga: the Fort Erie outcrop upon which the Peace Bridge site was established.

It is possible that the access to new resources and the loss of old ones was only one of the outcomes of the lakes’ withdrawal. It could have also brought people, who had

previously been living on either side of Lake Wainfleet, in closer contact. This contact might have exposed communities living on the western side of the former lake to the broad-shouldered technologies that existed in the east. Alternatively, the disappearance of the lake might have encouraged people living to the east of it to move into the area, bringing their technology with them.

Again, this hypothesis is only a possibility, and it does have some inherent problems. To start, the earliest date retrieved from Peace Bridge is approximately 300-400 years later than the initial occupation of Davidson. Next, other Onondaga outcrops in the Grand River region were also used at this time (Robertson et al. 1997: 495), and Onondaga was being exchanged prior to this time period for the purposes of producing Adder Orchard bifaces (Fisher 1997: 18). (Though Onondaga exchange does seem to have intensified between 4000-3800 years ago: Ellis and colleagues (2009) suggested that Kettle Point chert was used more heavily to make Adder Orchard points than to make Genesee points, while the reverse was true for Onondaga.) Therefore, the Peace Bridge quarry site itself may not have been of great importance to the introduction of Genesee technology to Ontario, though it seemed to have become important for Onondaga exchange by at least 3600-3500 years ago.

Regardless of when the Peace Bridge quarry became important, Williamson and MacDonald (1998) argue that the sizeable quarries uncovered at Peace Bridge are evidence for the exchange of Onondaga material with people of the surrounding region. Similar to observations of rhyolite exchange reported by Custer (1984), Stewart (1987, 1994) and Pagoulatos (2010), Onondaga appears to have been exchanged in the form of worked products such as Genesee bifaces and preforms (Williamson and MacDonald

1998). Kenyon (1981: 5) also noted that more Onondaga Genesee preforms were recovered from the Surma site than the Davidson and Sadler sites—suggesting that the exchange of more complete Genesee bifaces took place more often in places that were further from the outcrop.

Similar to the situation observed by Cross (1990) in Maine, it would seem that material exchange also took place even when both parties had access to Onondaga material. In 2003 Clark completed a study on INAA sourcing of the Onondaga of Genesee bifaces in order to investigate Onondaga exchange. He found that the material for one biface, though found on the Peace Bridge quarry, actually originated from an Onondaga outcrop on the other side of the Niagara River (Clark 2003: 125, 130-131). The results of Clark’s (2003) study may also support the position that the community of Genesee-making practice on the Niagara Peninsula came to be through interactions with groups in New York.

Therefore, though previously there have been debates over whether it was the migration of broad point-using people, or the diffusion of the idea of the broad-bladed biface itself that left such a widespread horizon throughout eastern North America, it would seem that this technological trend is made up of both migration and technology adoption events. For example, arguments have been made that the change in technological systems

followed the movements of people in the Savannah River area and the New England area. Elsewhere, assemblages seem to suggest the adoption of the technology by local peoples. The wide-spread adoption of broad-bladed bifaces often seems to be tied to the choice to use specific raw materials, as well as building social relationships through the

participation in exchange networks. For example, the exchange of rhyolite preforms seems to have been a factor in the adoption of the Susquehanna Broad biface in

Pennsylvania and New York, and the exchange of Onondaga seems to have encouraged the adoption of the Genesee form in Ontario. Additionally, Cross (1990) and Clark (2003) were able to identify material exchange even when local raw materials were in use, suggesting that exchange is not exclusively tied to acquiring desirable materials, and regardless of its purpose, it seems to help to facilitate building and maintaining