Telling Localized Indigenous Histories of Trade through AMS Dating and Bayesian Chronological Modeling in Southern Ontario, Canada

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Dating Iroquoia: Advancing Radiocarbon Chronologies in Northeastern North America" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Late sixteenth-century chronology of Indigenous sites in Southern Ontario has, until recently, relied upon relative means such as ceramic seriation and trade good chronologies. Bayesian chronological modeling of high-precision AMS radiocarbon dates is increasingly being applied to sites believed to date to this time period. The results are forcing archaeologists to reconsider the timing and tempo of the cultural and sociopolitical processes which define our accepted narratives. In this paper, I present modeled AMS dates for sites in Wendat, Tionontate, and Attiwandaron community relocation sequences demonstrated to date to ca AD 1580-1600. I compare the assemblages of European-manufactured goods between these sites with those expected from Glass Bead Period I (ca 1580-1600) sites, and suggest that the differences I find relate to issues of both access to European goods as well as differing Indigenous attitudes toward engagement with European-manufactured materials and people. I also compare assemblages of Indigenous-manufactured goods between sites to further assess the degree to which the Indigenous communities in question were interacting with one another. I conclude by considering the benefits of employing intensive radiocarbon-dating programs on protohistoric and early historic-era Iroquoian archaeological sites, in terms of testing existing chronologies and telling more accurate Indigenous histories.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Dating Iroquoia: Advancing Radiocarbon Chronologies in Northeastern North America   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23865