17th century Huron village life: insights from the copper-based metals of the Ball site,southern Ontario,Canada

Copper-based metal artifacts from the Ball site, a late 16th – early 17th century Huron (Wendat) village in southern Ontario that doubled in size during its estimated 20-year existence, were analysed by INAA. The goal was to assess the number of kettles that had reached the village, explore the chronology of their arrival and examine patterns in their discard within the site. Our results suggest that about two to three dozen European copper, red brass, and yellow brass kettles may have reached the village during its occupation; that copper kettles may have been traded to the inhabitants of the village before brass kettles; that the new inhabitants may have brought some kettles with them; and that differences in the discarding of copper and brass pieces inside and outside longhouses indicate that yellow brass was possibly of lower value than red copper.     

Control of Indigenous Archaeological Heritage in Ontario,Canada

Few Indigenous peoples have control over their heritage, despite international recognition of this right in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007. In Ontario, Canada, the Ontario Heritage Act, R.S.O. 1990 regulates archaeology and grants licences to archaeologists to investigate archaeological heritage. Indigenous people want more control of their archaeological heritage in Ontario. To uphold Indigenous rights to archaeological heritage in Ontario, heritage legislation and policy needs to be revised and site protection increased. This paper recommends that Indigenous archaeological heritage in Ontario would be best protected by strengthening Ontario government land development policy and legislation to require the free, prior, and informed consent from affected Indigenous communities before removal of significant archaeological sites and remains from their ancestral territories.     

Tracing the Distribution of Late 16th and Early 17th Century European Copper Artefacts in Southern Québec and Ontario,Canada

To understand the nature of trade/exchange of ‘Basque’ copper kettles and their fragments among Indigenous communities from Québec to Ontario, Canada, we examined 948 copper samples from 75 archaeological sites. We found that 936 samples were sortable into 11 coarse chemical groups: seven biased towards Ontario, three favouring Québec and only one balanced between the two provinces. This pattern may represent kettles and pieces ‘mostly traded’ or ‘mostly kept’ by Indigenous groups within Québec. Chemical group distribution within individual provinces is complex. A tentative chronology of copper chemical groups provides additional insight into the complex trading/exchange patterns among the Indigenous groups of southern Ontario.     

The Precontact Iroquoian Occupation of Southern Ontario

Iroquoians become recognizable in the archaeological record of southern Ontario about A.D. 500, with the appearance of Princess Point sites and maize agriculture in the lower Grand River valley. After A.D. 1000, Iroquoians lived in longhouse villages situated in the interior, north of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and the St. Lawrence River. This synthesis of the Iroquoian occupation of southern Ontario prior to European contact focuses on origins, settlement patterns, demography, subsistence, and sociopolitical organization. It highlights the significant contributions to Iroquoian archaeology that have been made by government and private consulting archaeologists over the last two decades.