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 […]
Alphabet Wares
Plates. We think nothing of our tableware today. We eat off them and whip them into the dishwasher. In summer we may buy paper plates, pile on the potato salad and then dispose of them when done. It’s just a plate. Back in the nineteenth century, plates and tableware played a very important role in the […]
The Infant Feeder
The excavation of the Dollery site, a mid-to-late nineteenth-century domestic site in downtown Toronto, yielded a robust collection of artifacts relating to children, from medications to toys. Perhaps the most interesting and unusual is the infant feeder. The blown glass bottle is made with a nipple and nipple shield, rather than having an additional rubber […]
Baker Site
Located on a tributary of the West Don River in Vaughan, the Baker site is an early fifteenth century A.D. Iroquoian settlement excavated in advance of subdivision development.
Bishop’s Block Site
Bishop’s Block is a site located in downtown Toronto that was excavated to make way for the newly built Shangri-La hotel. Foundations of four townhouses built in 1832 and 1860 were uncovered, and tens of thousands of artifacts were analyzed from this important early-nineteenth century site.
Butler Site
The excavation of the late-eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth-century Butler Homestead site has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the early history of Colonel John Butler (famous Loyalist) and his family in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and to regional and national history in general.
Alexandra Site
Located in the geographic Township of Scarborough, now the City of Toronto, the 2.5 hectare Alexandra site spanned much of the mid- to late fourteenth century A.D. in two major overlapping phases of occupation. Excavations at the site were conducted in advance of subdivision development.
Antrex Site
The Antrex site is a late thirteenth- to-fourteenth-century Iroquoian village located in the City of Mississauga excavated in advance of subdivision development.
A Forty-Year Fascination With Fort York
This is the first summary of archaeological contributions to our understanding of the War of 1812, published as the war commemorates its 200th anniversary. The contributors of original papers discuss recent excavations and field surveys that present an archaeological perspective that enriches– and often conflicts with—received historical narratives. The studies cover fortifications, encampments, landscapes, shipwrecks, […]
Dining With John and Catharine Butler Before the Close of the Eighteenth Century
The partial excavation of the homestead of Colonel John Butler in the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake has afforded the opportunity to explore the daily activities of one Loyalist family after the establishment of the British colony of Upper Canada in the 1780s. In particular, the large collection of zooarchaeological material (over 14,5000 specimens) can provide information […]
