The persistence of place: Hunter-gatherer mortuary practices and land-use in the Trent Valley, Ontario

Abstract

Hunter-gatherer mortuary practices identified in the Trent Valley region, ON are highly patterned for the Middle Woodland period (400 BCE-700 CE), but the importance of many of these mortuary sites can be recognized as far back as the Late Archaic period (2500–1000 BCE). A geospatial modelling approach is used to predict the distribution of mortuary sites based on ecological factors that may have influenced land use strategies. The assessment reveals that Late Archaic and Middle Woodland mortuary sites were primarily located near aerobic wetlands that were likely rich in emergent plant life. The predicted suitably of mineral soil horizons, when compared with Trent Valley floodplain behaviour, suggests that wild rice may have been a particularly abundant resource near mortuary sites. The position of wild rice in Anishinaabe traditional stories is discussed to contextualize its potential early food value to Indigenous occupants of the Trent Valley, prior to the resource’s documented historic importance. The highly selective positioning of mortuary sites and their continuity within the Trent Valley region shed light on how ancestral ties to key places were established and maintained in precolonial hunter-gatherer societies.