Process and Meaning in Spatial Archaeology by Eric Jones John Creese

Author:Eric Jones, John Creese [Eric Jones, John Creese]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781607325109
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Published: 2017-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

Major Site Sequences and Their Historical Context

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The site sequence approach, established by Tuck (1971) and adopted by many others (e.g., Bamann 1993; Birch 2010a, 2012b; Birch and Williamson 2013; Bradley 1987; Niemczycki 1983; Pearce 1984; Ramsden 1977; Snow 1995; Warrick and Molnar 1986; Williamson, Thomas, and MacDonald 2003), involves using a combination of data sets, including relative and absolute dates, the seriation of ceramic types, and known settlement trajectories to reconstruct sequences of village relocation through time and across space. In both Ontario and New York State, some of these site sequences have been interpreted as corresponding to particular ethnohistorically documented ethnic groups or particular nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), Attiwandaron (Neutral), Tionnontaté (Petun), and Wendat (Huron) Confederacies.

A number of these site sequences have been reconstructed based on surface collections and data from limited excavations. In south-central Ontario, more than three decades of cultural resource management-driven projects have resulted in the excavation of dozens of complete village plans and large suites of material culture, particularly in the greater Toronto region, an area of intense occupation by ancestral Wendat populations.

The area discussed here comprises a roughly trapezoidal area north of Lake Ontario and south of the Oak Ridges Moraine, which was home to several dozen Iroquoian communities ancestral to the Wendat (map 4.1). The major drainages in this area, from west to east, are the Humber River, Don River, and Rouge River–Duffins Creek. At least three, possibly four, major site relocation sequences have been identified on these watercourses, representing hundreds of years of occupation by contiguous populations described in detail elsewhere (Birch and Williamson 2013:25–40). As such, we offer only a short summary here.

Between AD 1330 and 1420, following the transition to settled village life and the intensification of agricultural production, there was a demographic surge in south-central Ontario. Warrick estimates that the population of the ancestral Wendat landscape increased from 10,000 to 24,000 persons (Warrick 2008:141–42, 182). Settlement data indicate that the number of villages on the north shore of Lake Ontario tripled between the mid-fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries (Birch 2012a).

The event—in Sewell (2005) and Beck and colleagues’ (2007) terms—at the heart of this inquiry occurs in the mid-fifteenth century when we see multiple small, un-palisaded communities coming together into fewer large, heavily fortified village aggregates (figure 4.2). These include the Parsons, Damiani, Keffer, and Draper sites. Each exhibits evidence for multiple palisade expansions, suggesting that aggregation occurred rapidly, within approximately twenty-five to thirty years, or a human generation. In addition to the construction of multiple-row palisades, sites dating to this period contain clear evidence for violent conflict, including burials exhibiting violent trauma (Helmuth 1993; Molto, Spence, and Fox 1986; Williamson 1978) and butchered and modified human bone in middens (Birch 2010b; Jenkins 2011; Robertson and Williamson 1998; Williamson 2007). One possible explanation for this outbreak in conflict is suggested by Birch and Williamson’s (2013:111–18) recent modeling of deer densities and hide requirements for village communities on the north shore of Lake Ontario. It may have been

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