Volume 1

The Archaeology of Patterson Village

Author William (Bill) Finlayson takes this simplistic definition, yet extraordinarily complicated field of study, and gives us a fascinating look into a piece of local Ontario history. Through the meticulously documented and analyzed “objects dug up from the ground,” we learn how the people of Patterson Village worked and socialized. Dr. Finlayson’s wonderfully descriptive prose, illustrations, and pictures, transport us back in time to the mid-1800s where we have a front-row seat to the lives of the people of Patterson Village.

The Archaeology of Patterson Village – A 19th Century Company Town in the Township of Vaughan, Ontario represents the largest excavation of a 19th century Euro-Canadian site in Ontario to date.

Between 1856 and 1888, Thomas Patterson and his brother operated one of the first farm equipment manufactories in the Township of Vaughan, Ontario. Patterson was a paternalist capitalist and established a company town which included 18 homes for married workers, and a boarding house for single men. For two years, This Land Archaeology Inc. worked on the complete excavation of the village. Findings included 16 cellars, and 36 privy pits in the subsoil. The excavations produced 291,911 artifacts as well as an estimated 1,113,097 small artifacts and preserved plant remains.

Volume 2

The Archaeology of Five Queensville Farmsteads

William (Bill) Finlayson once again brings the past to life. This time, it is through the lives of the generations of people who settled in Queensville, Ontario. The Archaeology of Five Queensville Farmsteads – a 19th Century Crossroads Community in the Township of East Gwillimbury, Ontario  affords us a glimpse into what life was like for the master builders of the Sharon Temple, a unique architectural structure in Canada. We learn how they, their families, and many others who built the community and made it their home, lived.

This crossroads community of Queensville, Ontario, was settled early in the 19th century primarily by Quakers; they were part of the Great Migration of about 20,000 people who fled the United States because of religious persecution. Some of these early settlers were actively involved in the Children of Peace, a break-away sect of Quakers who constructed the Sharon Temple.

Between 2008 and 2017, Bill’s company, This Land Archeology Inc. excavated five farmsteads south of the crossroads on both sides of Leslie Street. One of these farmsteads was owned for a time by Ebenezer Doan, one of the master builders of the Sharon Temple, and another by his son, Ira, and grandson, Ezra. The excavations produced tens of thousands of artifacts, cellars, and associated features including privies for each farmstead. These findings provide new insights into life in 19th century Queensville.

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Volume 3

The Archaeology of Two Whitchurch-Stouffville Farmsteads

In The Archaeology of Two Whitchurch-Stouffville Farmsteads, Bill shares that in the second half of the 19th century, John Yake Sr., a prominent Stouffville businessman, purchased two parts of Lot 32, Concession 10, in what is now the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville. John Yake Sr. rented the small house at the western end of the lot, which eventually became the Yake site. John Yake Jr. lived on the western part of the lot, initially in the large house which became the Windmill site, and ultimately in a new brick house which was still occupied at the time of our excavations.

The Yake and Windmill sites were situated on former agricultural fields of the dwellers of the Mantle site, a large Indigenous village occupied in the sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries and currently located less than a km to the northwest of Lot 32. Excavations of the Windmill site recovered a spear point about 10,000 years old, which was likely collected by the Yake family while farming their land and subsequently discarded when filling in the cellar of the early log house at the Windmill site.

 

Volume 4

The Archaeology, History, and Architecture of The Philip Eckardt Log House

Our Lands Speak (O.L.S.) is a prolific quality publication series founded in 2017 by William D. (Bill) Finlayson and issued on subjects in and affecting Ontario archaeology. The goal: to create additional space to disseminate information about Ontario’s rich archaeological history, including both historic and prehistoric archaeological investigations, as well as important First Nations perspectives. The Archaeology, History, and Architecture of The Philip Eckardt Log House – The Oldest House in the City of Markham, Ontario, Canada, continues to reflect Bill’s dedication to making archaeological findings available to the general public and to interested researchers.

George W.J. Duncan, co-author of The Archaeology, History, and Architecture of The Philip Eckardt Log House, is an architectural historian interested in the documentation of Ontario’s heritage buildings, local history, and cultural landscapes. Over four-plus decades, he has authored several books and numerous articles on these subjects, as well as on issues concerning heritage conservation. His best-known work in print is York County Mouldings from Historic Interiors, originally published by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario in 2001, with a second edition published by Lee Valley Tools Ltd.

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Occasional Papers in Archaeology No. 1

Early Palaeo-Indian Occupation in the Rice Lake, Otonabee River, and South Kawartha Lakes Watersheds, South-Central Ontario-Research Since 1976

Foreword by Jonathan C. Lothrop, Ph.D., Curator of Archaeology, New York State Museum. Preface by William D. Finlayson, Ph.D., F.R.S.C., Founder of Our Lands Speak Book Series and Occasional Papers in Ontario Archaeology.
Our Lands Speak Occasional Papers in Ontario Archaeology is a superior quality publication series issued on subjects in and affecting Ontario archaeology. The goal of the series is to create additional space to disseminate information about Ontario’s rich archaeological history, including both historic and prehistoric archaeological investigations, as well as important First Nations perspectives. Another objective of this series is to make use of current advances in publication technologies. The print versions of the Occasional Papers include high quality colour illustrations, which few North American journals or monograph series currently offer.

Lawrence Jackson, Ph.D., is one of the foremost Palaeo-Indian scholars and author of this first Paper in Our Lands Speak Occasional Papers in Ontario Archaeology series, Early Palaeo-Indian Occupation in the Rice Lake, Otonabee River, and South Kawartha Lakes Watersheds, South-Central Ontario-Research Since 1976. He trained as a graduate student in archaeology at Trent University, Ontario, and began field work in the 1970s on sites of diverse time periods—petroglyph sites in Nova Scotia, a contact period village in Simcoe County, subarctic caribou interception sites with the National Museum of Canada, and Early Palaeo-Indian research for the Royal Ontario Museum on the shores of glacial Lake Algonquin near modern Georgian Bay.

Occasional Papers in Archaeology No. 2

The Draper Site, An Ontario Woodland Tradition Frontier Coalescent Village in Southern Ontario, Canada: Looking Back, Moving Forward

Our Lands Speak – Occasional Papers in Archaeology No. 2

The Draper site, excavated in 1975 and 1978, remains the largest and most significant Iroquoian site subject to salvage excavation in southern Ontario. In this innovative study, Dr. William D. Finlayson reviews more than 40 publications, theses, articles, and unpublished reports as a prelude to the reconsideration of some of the key aspects of the site. This includes presentation of a new sequence of expansions of the village, new perspectives on the use of defensive strategies in the planning of the village, and the presence of menstrual houses. Draper is used to define a specialized type of coalescent village, the Frontier Coalescent Village. This study provides new insights into the coalescence of at least five smaller villages, some from Duffin Creek and some from further afield at Draper, and the special mechanisms which made this possible and sustainable.

On a broader scale, the Draper site is situated among the almost 50 Iroquoian sites currently known on the Duffin Creek. A major conclusion of this study is that this drainage was occupied by one or more communities of Iroquoians who were not Huron-Wendat, but rather a community of Iroquoians ultimately contemporary with the Huron-Wendat confederacy which occupied Huronia in the 17th century. The use of Michi Saagiig oral histories provides new evidence in support of the migration theory for the occupation of south-central Ontario by Iroquoians in the latter part of the first millennium A.D. Comparisons are drawn to the Iroquoian occupation of the Crawford Lake area where there was also a long occupation by Iroquoians, at least one community of which were also not Huron-Wendat. The study also elaborates on the Ontario Woodland Tradition as an organizational concept to replace the Ontario Iroquois Tradition.

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The Keffer Site

The Keffer Site: 15 th and 16 th Century A.D. Ontario Woodland Tradition Frontiers, Communities and Coalescence on the Don and Upper Rouge River Drainages, Southern Ontario, Canada.

The Keffer site, excavated in 1985 and 1988 remains one of the most significant Frontier Coalescent Ontario Woodland Tradition (OWT) Villages to be subject to salvage excavation in Northern Iroquoia. In this innovative study, Finlayson and Lerner provide a detailed study of the chronology, culture history and settlement patterns of the Keffer site and 28 other Black Creek and Realignment Substage sites on the Don and Upper Rouge Rivers.

Keffer was a 1.6 ha village occupied by Iroquoians and Anishinabek between about A.D. 1526 and 1550. Results of this study propose a new sequence of the growth of the village during Construction, Initial and Final Occupation Phases, new perspectives on defensive strategies in the planning of the village throughout its occupation. Five clusters of houses have been identified within the village with chief’s houses present in four of these. The study of the 18 longhouses and four Anishinabek wigwams provides new evidence for the occupation of Keffer by both Iroquoian and Anishinabek peoples. An in-depth study of the large number sweat bath structures in the central corridors of the longhouses suggests that three of the longhouses were probably occupied by Anishinabek peoples.

On a broader scale, Finlayson and Lerner define four communities of OWT peoples who occupied the Don and Upper Rouge rivers during the Black Creek substage, before coalescing to create the Keffer site. The changes in the occupation between the Black Creek substage and the Realignment substages are detailed as are the similarities to the contemporaneously occupied Draper Coalescent village on the Duffin Creek to east. The study further details the significance of frontiers on the Duffin Creek and the Niagara Escarpment with a later frontier on the Humber River as key to understanding the OWT occupation of the central and western northern shore of Lake Ontario.

The study emphasizes the importance of using ‘old data’ in writing archaeological histories and the need to have a firm grasp on chronology, culture history and settlement patterns before the investigation of problems of broader anthropological interest.

Endorsements for Keffer site publication

This volume reports on the extensive settlement data from the Keffer site including detailed descriptions of longhouses, sweat baths, and ancillary structures including likely Anishinabek wigwams. An early chapter provides an history of investigation of the site and summaries of the numerous significant studies carried out by other scholars. The high-quality figures and tables will facilitate use by students and researchers for their own comparative purposes. However, this volume is far more than a site report. Comparisons are made between the Draper and Keffer sites, two contemporaneous sixteenth century coalescent villages located in the central north shore of Lake Ontario. Re-evaluation of existing data by the authors situates these sites in a rapidly evolving social and political landscape. Much is accomplished with this volume, not the least of which is laying the groundwork for future research. Anyone perusing this book will be struck by the myriad possibilities for future archaeological research in the province of Ontario and beyond.

William Engelbrecht, Ph.D.
SUNY: Buffalo State College, Anthropology, Emeritus

This volume presents an analysis and interpretation of the Keffer site settlement patterns. The Keffer site, an early 16 th century Huron-Wendat/Anishinabek village, was fully excavated as a CRM project almost 40 years ago under the direction of the senior author. This publication provides a detailed investigation of the site from a settlement pattern approach, covering ancillary structures (sweat baths), houses and palisades, settlement layout, and regional context. Data is laid out in a series of tables, graphs, and over 200 full-colour house and site plans. The Keffer site along with 28 other sites in the Don and Upper Rouge drainages in the Toronto region, dating to the late 15 th and 16 th century, are arranged chronologically in regional sequences, based on settlement duration, population, and occupational histories of individual sites. It offers the most current history of Huron-Wendat/Anishinabek interaction on the north shore of Lake Ontario ca. 1475-1550. This book will become one of the classic references for future research on the Indigenous landscape of 15 th and 16 th century southern Ontario.

Gary Warrick, Ph.D.
Wilfrid Laurier University, Contemporary Studies (retired)

This data-rich volume examines the Keffer site, a frontier village of the Ontario Woodland Tradition, excavated by Finlayson during his tenure at the London Museum of Archaeology (now the Museum of Ontario Archaeology). Through the re-evaluation of legacy collections, the application of modern technologies, and the integration of Indigenous perspectives, the authors challenge traditional interpretations about ancestral Anishinabek and Iroquoian interactions, situating Keffer within a broader context of 29 archaeological sites along the Don and Upper Rouge River drainages. Featuring 48 tables of data and 228 full-color maps, The Keffer Site lays a foundation for future research, offering multiple interpretations and fostering a shared understanding of the complex histories that continue to shape this region now recognized as the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) of southern Ontario.

Rhonda Bathurst, Ph.D.,
Executive Director,
Museum of Ontario Archaeology

Keffer Supplementary Volume

A Note to the Reader

The production of this volume involved the creation of some figures by Lerner in AutoCAD and others created by Finlayson using ArcGIS, some of which had inserts of maps created by Lerner. The conversion of some figures by the editor encountered significant problems in both colour rendition and image quality. A concerted effort was made to solve these issues but four figures in particular (Figures 4.32 through 4.35 and the Plan of House 12 in Appendix A) were considered of less than desired quality in the published version. Accordingly, we decided to publish this Supplementary Volume with Figures 3.16 through 3.18 as well as the original figures submitted for publication. This provides the reader with Figures of consistent quality.

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“. . . The sacredness of his work and his humble, yet passionate, approach to it is undeniable, and nowhere more so than in this landmark study, The Draper Site, an Ontario Woodland Tradition Frontier Coalescent Village in Southern Ontario, Canada: Looking Back, Moving Forward. It is incredibly refreshing to work with someone like Bill who cares so deeply about uncovering more truths of the past by examining and re-examining complex archaeological findings in order to serve our diverse cultures and history. His willingness to reconsider his own discoveries and analysis and thoughtfully collaborate with others in his field for the greater good of this work defines the qualities of a true professional and maverick of our time. . .”

– Sheri Andrunyk, Publisher, I C Publishing, Ontario, Canada

“Between 1975 and 1978, one of the most significant Iroquoian sites in the North America was excavated north of Toronto under the direction of William D. Finlayson. . . It was the largest Iroquoian site to be fully excavated. It was also the first time computer-assisted recording was used to map and manage the information on more than 170,000 analyzable artifacts, plus data points for the thousands of features, from a site 4.25 hectares in extent—truly a monumental undertaking. . . For the first time, we could see how an Iroquoian community grew and changed over time. . . An initial report on this massive project was published in the National Museums of Canada Mercury Series in 1985. In itself, this was an amazing accomplishment. . . Now, some thirty-five years later Finlayson has published a new volume summarizing the Draper site more completely and placing it within the context of other Iroquoian and Algonquian sites in southwest Ontario. Taken together, the Draper project—Finlayson’s two outstanding reports as well as the dozens of specialized studies, theses, and dissertations this project has enabled—remains one of the most valuable archaeological records of northern Iroquoian people yet produced. . .”

–James W. Bradley, Ph.D., Director Emeritus,
Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology in Andover, MA

 

“. . . It is about time that the Anishinaabeg are part of this narrative and are being incorporated into the story of Ontario. This is good and wonderful progress, and as a Storyteller and Knowledge Keeper for my people, it tells me that archaeologists are finally listening. I believe that archaeologists, working within their scientific frameworks, are able to find out certain things. However, they are not able to know the whole story with science alone. For example, archaeologists can’t be entirely sure about who the ancient ones were in terms of their ethnicity/culture. . . It really is interesting to me that finally somebody is doing this kind of work. I admire Dr. Finlayson for publishing this volume and for being able to think like this: that he has listened to my work, that he has talked to me, and that he is able to pick up on something that is probably quite foreign to him. That he has not dismissed the Anishinaabeg in his work and that our history is taken into account. This is all I can ask for, so that in the end we may come to a different conclusion about the history of Ontario. Our stories may vary slightly, but there should not be huge discrepancies in coming to understand the truths of the past. Our stories should be able to match the science and vice versa. It’s an exciting approach, to me. You’ve got to take in the oral story, you’ve got to take in the nuances of the culture, and you also have to listen to the language. . .”

– Gidigaa Migizi, Knowledge Keeper Michi Saagiig Nation

“. . . It has been said that there are qualities in wholes that are not apparent in the parts. Nothing could be truer with respect to archaeology. The people of the past, like us, lived in communities but ventured beyond these to acquire food, socialize, trade, fight, and, frankly, for any number of other reasons. If we are to pay witness to these behaviours, we must examine the archaeological record from a variety of scales. The present volume offers us an opportunity to look beyond the Draper site palisades to other sites in the immediate area, to those of the Duffin Creek drainage and beyond. The added benefit in this is that a considerable amount of information that was heretofore more or less inaccessible in the so-called grey literature of unpublished reports and manuscripts, is made readily available to present and future researchers. There is much work yet to be done, both with respect to classifying and interpreting the data recovered from the excavation of the Pickering Airport Lands and comprehending how it all fits within the wider landscape of the people of the past of these lands we now call Ontario. The present volume takes a tremendous step forward in this direction and should further serve to inspire others to make similar contributions. . .”

– Joyce M. Wright, Ph.D.