New Insights Into Early Paleo (Gainey) Associations with Proboscideans and Canids in the Niagara Peninsula, Southern Ontario, Canada
This paper presents the results of protein residue and use-wear analyses on stone tools recovered during complete salvage excavations of the Mt. Albion West archaeological site, located in the Niagara Peninsula of Southern Ontario, Canada. Mt. Albion West is an Early Paleo (Gainey) locality that yielded evidence of four activity foci and dozens of Early […]
The Long Road to Collaboration: A History of ASI Relationships with Indigenous Communities with a focus on the Huron-Wendat Nation
Collaborative and community-based archaeology has been gaining traction over the last few decades. Increasingly, archaeologists are becoming aware that in many cases, they have been acting as stewards, and sometimes gatekeepers, over a heritage and history that was not their own. Engaging and working with descendant communities has been argued by many as a way […]
From Grey to Print: Early Archaic Components on the East Don River: Archaeological Investigations of the Edgar and Andridge Sites
The Edgar and Andridge sites, situated on headwater streams of the east Don River, were salvage excavated by Archaeological Services Inc. between 2003 and 2006. This article summarizes the subsequent analyses of their settlement data and material culture. An environmental reconstruction was undertaken that included examinations of the geomorphological origin of the area, climate, regional […]
Population movements of the Huron-Wendat viewed through strontium isotope analysis
Environmental isotopes can provide information about the composition of groups and the movement of people across landscapes. The archaeological record of Huron-Wendat communities in south-central Ontario is one of numerous drainage-based sequences of small villages among which families or larger population segments moved. These villages amalgamated in the early to mid-sixteenth century into fewer, larger […]
Farmers, Fishers, Hunters and Trades — Indigenous Communities on Georgian Bay
Discover the marvel that is Georgian Bay, its hidden history, its storied rock, culture, and the fragile nature that abounds here. The Bay has been home to Indigenous people for thousands of years. Samuel Champlain canoed it in 1615 marveling at its maze of islands. The Bay was a significant part of the fur trade […]
Industrial Malting Tiles Found on Toronto Hospital Site
In July 2018, ASI undertook a Stage 4 salvage excavation of lands that were once part of the original Hospital Reserve in the Town of York, now Toronto. The hospital was an important public institution during the cholera epidemics of 1832 and 1834, and most particularly the typhus epidemic of 1847. The July 2018 work also […]
Urban rats have less variable, higher protein diets
Over the past 1000 years, rats (Rattus spp.) have become one of the most successful and prolific pests in human society. Despite their cosmopolitan distribution across six continents and ubiquity throughout the world’s cities, rat urban ecology remains poorly understood. We investigate the role of human foods in brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) diets in urban […]
An Early Woodland Domesticated Chenopod (Chenopodium Berlandieri Subsp. Jonesianum) Cache From the Tutela Heights Site, Ontario, Canada
A cache of charred, domesticated chenopod (Chenopodium berlandieri subsp. jonesianum) seeds is reported from the Early Woodland (930–915 cal BC) Tutela Heights site (AgHb-446) in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. This is the northernmost report of the crop, approximately 800 km northeast of Kentucky where the previous northernmost occurrences contemporary with Tutela Heights are reported. The Tutela […]
Initial Northern Iroquoian Coalescence
In this chapter, we employ the rich corpus of archaeological settlement data available for southern Ontario and New York State to examine the processes associated with village formation. This included the establishment of maize-based agricultural economies, the emergence of village-communities and the long-house-based residential pattern, and the development of social institutions that served to integrate […]
Steatite characterization using X-ray fluorescence and insights into Northern Iroquoian interregional interaction
The research presented here evaluates the applicability of energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) for characterizing steatite. We present compositional data from an assemblage of 100 steatite beads and pipes deriving from 11 Northern Iroquoian sites in southern Ontario and New York State. Percentages of major elemental constituents and principal components analysis define two compositional groups and various […]
