Von Bitter Robert, Williamson Ronald F. (eds.) The History and Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord

University of Ottawa Press, 2023. — 384 p. — (Mercury Series Archaeology Paper 182).In the mid-to late 1660s and early 1670s, the Haudenosaunee established a series of settlements at strategic locations along the trade routes inland at short distances from the north shore of Lake Ontario. From east to west, these communities consisted of Ganneious, on Napanee or Hay Bay, on the Bay of Quinte; Kenté, near the isthmus of the Quinte Peninsula; Ganaraské, at the mouth of the Ganaraska River; Quintio, on Rice Lake; Ganatsekwyagon, near the mouth of the Rouge River; Teiaiagon, near the mouth of the Humber River; and Qutinaouatoua, inland from the western end of Lake Ontario. All of these settlements likely contained people from several Haudenosaunee nations as well as former Ontario Iroquoians who had been adopted by the Haudenosaunee.These self-sufficient places acted as bases for their own inhabitants but also served as stopovers for south shore Haudenosaunee on their way to and from the beaver hunt beyond the lower Great Lakes. The Cayuga village of Kenté was where, in 1668, the Sulpicians established a mission by the same name, which became the basis for the region’s later name of Quinte. In 1676, a short-lived subsidiary mission was established at Teiaiagon. It appears that most of the north shore villages were abandoned by 1688.This volume brings together traditional Indigenous knowledge as well as documentary and recent archaeological evidence of this period and focuses on describing the historical context and efforts to find the settlements and presents examinations of the unique material culture found at them and at similar communities in the Haudenosaunee homeland.Contributions by Martin S. Cooper, William E. Engelbrecht, Neal Ferris, William A. Fox, Nick Grimoff, David Harris, April Hawkins, Richard W. Hill, Sr., Kurt A. Jordan, Victor Konrad, Chrisopher Menary, Dana Poulton, David Robertson and Gary A. Warrick.Ronald F. Williamson is founder and now Senior Associate of Archaeological Services Inc. He has spent most of his career studying the history and archaeology of Ontario Iroquoians, much of it collaboratively with Indigenous partners. He is also Vice Chair of the board of Shared Path Consultation Initiative, a charitable organization dedicated to moving beyond collaboration and consultation to Indigenous decision-making in land use planning. He has published extensively on both Indigenous and early colonial Great Lakes history. He is appointed as adjunct status at the University of Western Ontario and he is Chair of the board of the Museum of Ontario Archaeology in London. His primary interests are in the ancestral Wendat occupation of Ontario, the Early Woodland Period in the Northeast and more broadly in the origins and development of the northern Iroquoian cultural pattern.Robert von Bitter is the Archaeological Data Coordinator at the Ontario Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries in Toronto where he lives with his wife and two daughters. Although broadly interested in the archaeology of the province, Robert has recently found the second half of the 17th century both a unique and fascinating period on which to focus his personal research.