Organizational Complexity in Ancestral Wendat Communities

During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Northern Iroquioan societies of northeastern North America experienced a process of widespread settlement aggregation. In southern Ontario, Canada, dozens of small villages came together into fewer large, nucleated settlements with populations of up to 1,500 to 2,000 individuals. The formation of these coalescent communities resulted in the development of new forms of social, political and economic organization.