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 […]
The Battle of York
In honour of 200th anniversary of the Battle of York, a battle that was fought on April 27th, 1813, we would like to share a few artifacts discovered at Fort York that are dated to the War of 1812. [line] This musket ball artifact was found during excavations for the Visitor’s Centre at the Fort […]
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 […]
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 […]
Remembrance Day
As Ontario archaeologists, we often come across objects from the many wars that have involved British and Canadian forces. In honour of Remembrance Day, we’ve found a few more items to share with you from our sites. Lest we forget. The first items in our series are from the Loretto Site in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The […]
Mother’s Day
In honour of Mother’s Day, we thought we would show a few artifacts that are known examples of mothering in Canadian history. The first artifact is an example of a juvenile vessel fragment from the Dunsmore Site; a mid-to-late fifteenth century ancestral Iroquoian village site found in Simcoe County. Archaeologists call these finds ‘juvenile vessels’ because they […]
Labour Day
To celebrate Labour Day, we thought we’d show you just how arduous daily tasks were for some of the pre-contact populations that formerly inhabited southern Ontario. If you thought your job was hard, you haven’t seen anything yet… In the early sixteenth-century, the Mantle site in Stouffville, Ontario would have housed and fed over 1,800 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
