St. Patrick’s Day
In honour of St. Patrick’s Day, we would like to present a few of our favourite Irish artifacts collected from various sites around Ontario. Enjoy! Recovered from the Holden site in Stouffville, this brass, looped-back button (Cat.#4047) is decorated with the image of Daniel O’Connell. An important figure in Irish history and national icon, Daniel O’Connell […]
3 Merry Widows
Of the over 20,000 domestic artifacts recovered from the Weir I site in Scarborough, Ontario, this little one caught our eye. The small, round aluminum container is stamped “3 Merry Widows/Agnes, Mabel, Beckie.” Dating from the 1920s and 1930s, 3 Merry Widows was a popular brand of rubber (and, therefore, reusable) condoms. The use of […]
International Mother Language Day
February 21 was declared International Mother Language Day by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1999 to encourage multilingualism and advocate diversity of cultures and languages. This particular date is significant as it commemorates the struggles of the Bengali people to have linguistic recognition in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) that culminated in […]
Fort York
Fort York, considered to be the birthplace of Toronto, contains the best collection of War of 1812 era buildings still standing on their original foundations. These are contained in Fort York National Historic Site, the largest urban archaeological site in the City of Toronto. Until recently, most of the excavations took place under the direction […]
Halloween
The nature of our job means that sometimes we stumble across unusual and eerie things. We’ve searched our archives to bring you three examples of creepy finds or strange sites, which most certainly sent a shiver down the spine of the archaeologist who uncovered them. The first object in our series is a tiny porcelain […]
In Your Backyard!
Late Woodland point from the Beaches area, Toronto In April 2015, Shauna Kirk emailed ASI to ask about a point that her daughter, Jocelyn, recently found on a walk near their home in a ravine east of Toronto. We invited them both in to show us the point and see other artifacts found in their area. […]
The Expedient Tool
Various types of stone tools are recovered from Ontario’s archaeological sites each year. Some are formed so perfectly that we know what their intended use was, and others are shaped in such a way that we can pretty much date them to one of Ontario’s prehistoric periods. However there is a tool type that can […]
Toronto General Hospital Site
ASI conducted archaeological investigations at the site of Toronto’s first General Hospital between 2006 and 2010. The hospital was situated on the Town of York Hospital Reserve, as illustrated on maps of the day. Our work began at 326-358 King Street West in downtown Toronto, now home to the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Excavations were required to […]
The Broke Token
This “Broke Token” was found in the buried topsoil of the Loretto Site in Niagara Falls. Interestingly, this North American token was found in the same stratigraphic lot as the pai sikka (learn about the pai sikka token). The token was struck to commemorate the first naval victory of the War of 1812 by […]
Robbie Burns Day
In honour of Robbie Burns Day, we’d like to share with you a Scottish artifact that we found recently on a site in Aurora, ON. This metal button (measuring 2 cm in diamater) is embossed with the words “COMUN NAN GAEL” on the front, which translates as “Land of the Gaels” in the Gaidhlig language of […]
