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

The writing of The Archaeology, History, and Architecture of the Philip Eckardt Log House: The Oldest House in the City of Markham, Ontario, Canada, was a joint effort by Bill Finlayson and the recently retired architectural planner from the City of Markham, George Duncan. This collaboration has provided a deeper appreciation of the occupation of the log house, its occupants, the alterations to it over the past two hundred plus years, and its ultimate conservation.

Early Studies of Crawford Lake Sediments

Welcome back to our continuing blog series on Crawford Lake. In an earlier post I noted that, while I was a graduate student based at Erindale College, U. of T., I was asked by Professor Roger Byrne to help locate an archaeological site he predicted would be found beside Crawford Lake. This small lake was […]

Before the Crawford Lake Archaeological Research Program – Part 2

Our excavations at the Brown site were quite different from those at the Milton site. We began our excavations at the top of a bank, hoping to unearth a palisade surrounding the settlement. We did locate a row of post moulds which may in fact represent part of the palisades surrounding the village. Of much greater significance though, we discovered a midden (garbage dump) just over the hill along the northern edge of the site. This midden had been covered by more than half a metre of soil eroded from the farm field above. As a result, it had never been disturbed . . . and we recovered some highly sought-after items.