1444 Queen Street East, Suite 102, Toronto, ON M4L 1E1
+1 416-406-5959
info@ontarioarchaeology.org

Ontario Archaeology – OA067, 1998

Accelerator-Dating the Weiser Site, Kent County, Ontario: New Perspectives on the Wolf to Fort Meigs Transition in the Western Lake Erie Region
Volume:  OA67
Year:  1999
Author:  DAVID M. STOTHERS, TIMOTHY J. ABEL AND JAMES R. GRAVES
Page Range:  1 – 22
Abstract:  The Weiser Site (AdHo-1) and the Wolf to Fort Meigs phase transition in the western Lake Erie region were formerly estimated to date to circa A.D. 1400, based on ceramic seriations and radiocarbon assays derived from research in northwestern Ohio. A new suite of radiocarbon assays, including two AMS assays obtained from the Weiser site itself, has allowed a refinement of this estimate. Based on a consideration of these new assays along with expanded understandings of ceramic seriation, the Wolf to Fort Meigs phase transition is now believed to date to the middle of the fifteenth century. The implications of this revised chronology are discussed.

Archaeologists in the Continental Boreal Province: A Personal Recollection
Volume:  OA67
Year:  1999
Author:  KENNETH C.A. DAWSON
Page Range:  23 – 39
Abstract:  The personalities, backgrounds and contributions of the people who undertook archaeology in the Continental Boreal Province, the mid-north forests of Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, are reviewed. Exploration began in Ontario in the mid-1850s, and was followed by investigations in Manitoba and Saskatchewan about a century later.

The Barrie Site: A Pioneering lroquoian Village Located in Simcoe County, Ontario
Volume:  OA67
Year:  1999
Author:  RICHARD E. SUTTON
Page Range:  40 – 86
Abstract:  The Barrie site (BcGw-18) is one of a very small group of sites located in Simcoe County which represent the only known Uren substage Middle Iroquoian village sites located north of the Oak Ridges Moraine in all of southcentral Ontario. The site was partially excavated from 1991 to 1993 as part of the author’s doctoral dissertation research on Iroquoian migration patterns. The earliest Iroquoian village sites in Simcoe County date to the Middle Iroquoian period, and were established as the result of a rapid migration from south of the Oak Ridges Moraine. As one of the earliest known Iroquoian villages in the region, the Barrie site offers a unique opportunity to examine the adaptations made by pioneering slash and burn horticulturalists. The following article provides a detailed analysis of the site’s settlement patterns and artifact assemblage. It also examines the local and regional context of the Barrie site, the possible source area for the migrants, and the structural conditions which may have caused the colonization of this region in the first place.