The Research Potential and Challenges of Unpublished Legacy Collections: The Quackenbush Site
Research on never-published legacy collections can contribute in meaningful ways to the narrative of the past. But it can also present unique problems. Our contribution focuses on the research potential and challenges presented by the collections and records from the Quackenbush site, a pre-contact Iroquoian settlement in the Kawartha Lakes region that was excavated by […]
Don Mills Crossing
In November, 2017, ASI was contracted by the City of Toronto to conduct a Cultural Heritage Resource Assessment (C.H.R.A.) to ensure that properties of cultural heritage value or interest were appropriately identified, understood, and conserved as part of an up-to-date planning framework for the Don Mills and Eglinton area. A write-up of the project can […]
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 […]
Hazley Bay Stone Culvert
A Cultural Heritage Evaluation was conducted as part of a CPR Bridge replacement in the Township of Laurentian Valley. The culvert was constructed circa 1876 as part of the Canada Central Railway line connecting the Town of Pembroke with Ottawa and Brockville.
Edwards Gardens
A Heritage Impact and Cultural Landscape Assessment was conducted in advance of proposed alterations to Edwards Gardens, a 14-hectare public garden in North York that is owned by the City of Toronto.
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 […]
Nineteenth-century Working Class Residential Transience and Stability: Three Properties in Toronto’s St. Andrew’s Ward
Transience, or residential mobility, is the reality for many working-class and impoverished urban people. This was as much the case in the nineteenth century as it is today. Based on examinations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century demographic patterns and individual or household movements in a variety of Toronto neighbourhoods, it is possible that such movement was […]
Nineteenth-century Working-Class Residential Transience and Stability in Toronto’s St. Andrew’s Ward: Examining Differential Effects on Artifact Assemblages
When excavating historical archaeological sites, we often view them through the lens of assumed permanence, or at least an extended and significant occupation. Our interpretations about the intersections of social realities with material culture are then built upon a framework of stability and longevity. These assumptions create a one-to-one relationship between occupants and assemblage; Family […]
Teiaiagon on the Humber River: Controlling the Western Branch of the Toronto Carrying Place
The settlement of Teiaiagon, located on the Humber River near the limit of upstream travel by canoe, existed for less than a generation between the early 1670s and late 1680s. During this brief period, however, it may have become the most important of the Haudenosaunee villages established on the north shore of Lake Ontario, as […]
Come from the Shadows: Metals on the Iroquois Frontier
The metal assemblages of Iroquois du Nord villages in and around the north shore of Lake Ontario are examined to provide insight into the chronological, technological and cultural aspects of these short lived, late 17th century settlements. These are compared and contrasted with the metal assemblages of contemporary Haudenosaunee sites to the south of Lake […]