Quantitative and Qualitative Evidence for World-System Expansion in Northern Iroquoia, ca. AD 1550-1650

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Landscapes Above and Below in Northern Contexts (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Usually considered a macro-scale phenomenon, world-system expansion is enacted at the local scale, in the context of local sociopolitical histories. I analyze the composition and distribution of European-manufactured trade good assemblages from 90+ Iroquoian sites (12,000+ artifacts) in Southern Ontario and Southern Québec dating to ca. AD 1550–1650. Using measures of assemblage diversity and equitability, I compare the variation present among assemblages at contemporaneous sites, and briefly consider the impact of new, absolute chronologies in determining contemporaneity among sites. Ethnohistoric literature, including the Jesuit Relations, serve as interpretive tools to consider the range of interactions with European settlers and materials which Indigenous peoples enacted during the earliest years of direct and indirect Indigenous-European contact. I conclude that European trade good assemblages varied among contemporaneous Iroquoian sites, and I suggest that this variation reflects different choices intentionally made by separate communities navigating and directing the process of world-system expansion.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Landscapes Above and Below in Northern Contexts (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology