Lawrence Iroquoians Research Articles

Une archéologie sociale des Iroquoiens de Saint-Anicet, la question identitaire / A Social Archaeology of the Saint-Anicet Iroquoians: A Question of Identity

The Saint-Anicet region has received continuous archaeological attention between 1992 and 2017, resulting in a large dataset on three village sites. The McDonald, Droulers, and Mailhot-Curran sites represent a local sequence covering the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The material culture, specifically remains of longhouses, corn cultivation, and a rich ceramic assemblage, clearly indicates an Iroquoian identity. While the main goal of fieldwork was to build a social archaeology based on the extensive excavation of longhouses, fieldwork was guided by the conviction that Saint-Anicet Iroquoians were members of a distinct group, identified as St. Lawrence Iroquoians by archaeologists. This study will review the data and arguments supporting this specific cultural identity while problems linked to this identity building will be acknowledged.

Needles and bodies: A microwear analysis of experimental bone tattooing instruments

Tattoos can be conceptualized as embodied experiences, ideas, and meanings expressed by groups and individuals. In Northeastern North America, many Iroquoian nations from the Contact period were known for practicing body transformations of this sort. Moreover, the archaeological literature abounds with cases of Iroquoian bone objects interpreted as tattooing implements. However, such functional interpretations are often proposed without any clear and thorough demonstration, and thus may be misleading. This paper presents the conclusive results of an experimental microwear analysis of replicated bone tattooing needles. They allow to access and investigate the social dimensions of tattooing practices in the past, as is illustrated with an example from St. Lawrence Iroquoians.

Effects of population dispersal on regional signaling networks: An example from northern Iroquoia.

The dispersal of Iroquoian groups from St. Lawrence River valley during the 15th and 16th centuries A.D. has been a source of archaeological inquiry for decades. Social network analysis presented here indicates that sites from Jefferson County, New York at the head of the St. Lawrence River controlled interactions within regional social signaling networks during the 15th century A.D. Measures indicate that Jefferson County sites were in brokerage liaison positions between sites in New York and Ontario. In the network for the subsequent century, to which no Jefferson County sites are assigned, no single group took the place of Jefferson County in controlling network flow. The dispersal of Jefferson County populations effectively ended this brokerage function concomitant with the emergence of the nascent Huron-Wendat and Iroquois confederacies and may have contributed to the escalation of conflict between these entities. These results add to a growing literature on the use of network analyses with archaeological data and contribute new insights into processes of population relocation and geopolitical realignment, as well as the role of borderlands and frontiers in nonstate societies.

Using Worked Bones to Study Iroquoian Households: The Case of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians from Saint-Anicet, Quebec

Bone tools are abundant on Iroquoian sites and are generally analyzed using a typo-functional perspective. This article will serve as a demonstration of a demonstration of the utility of bone tools to study the household and social organization of St. Lawrence Iroquoians through intra- and inter-household spatial analyses.

The Household among Iroquoian Seal Hunters of the Province of Canada during the Late Woodland Period (1000-1535 CE)

During the Late Woodland Period (AD 1000-1600), St. Lawrence Iroquoians developed a seasonal transhumance between the present day Quebec City area ("province de Canada") and the mouth of the Saguenay River, located on the margin of the St. Lawrence estuary, to hunt seals. The archaeological data highlights two types of settlements: a first type used in spring by small groups of male hunters targeting harp seals, and a second type occupied in summertime by nuclear families, when gray and common seals feed in the area. On the one hand, we find differences between the dimensions and types of spring and summer camps. On the other hand, we note that the shape of houses revealed by archaeological excavations in the Tadoussac area differ from those found in the semi-permanent settlements located in the Quebec City area and thus reflect short-term occupations related to intense seal hunting periods.

Chemical and Mineralogical Signatures of Archaeological Features at the Mailhot‐Curran Iroquoian Site, Eastern Canada

The St. Lawrence Iroquoians built villages in southwestern Quebec (Canada) along the St. Lawrence River. They left behind longhouses, hearths, middens, and storage pits like those discovered at the Mailhot‐Curran archaeological site in Saint‐Anicet. Here, we contrast the properties of Iroquoian features with undisturbed soil to define the chemical and mineralogical signature of hearths, middens, and pits. The native soil has a neutral pH and consists of an Ah horizon overlaying a Bm horizon dominated by quartz and feldspars. In the hearths, ashes are characterized by neoformed calcite and apatite with carbonates, higher total P, and enrichment in amorphous inorganic Al, Fe, and Si. The rubified layer of hearths contain poorly crystallized Fe oxides. The mineralogy of the rubified layer is dominated by authigenetic ankerite, an Fe‐carbonate mineral identified here for the first time in Iroquoian hearths. Middens have the highest organic matter content and contain more organically complexed Al and Fe than the soil. The storage pits have low pH values and carbonate content and contain high levels of amorphous Si and total P. Our work establishes the pedologic signature of three Iroquoian features despite significant alteration of their properties by post‐occupational biogeochemical processes.

Phytolith Evidence for the Early Presence of Maize in Southern Quebec

It has long been believed that maize (Zea maysspp.mays) was introduced in Quebec at around A.D. 1000, at the very beginning of the Late Woodland period. The identification and dating of maize phytoliths extracted from the carbonized encrustations on the interior surfaces of Native American ceramic vessels from three sites located in the St. Lawrence River valley, namely the Hector-Trudel, Station-4, and Place-Royale sites, indicate that this cultigen was rather introduced in that area during the Early Middle Woodland period, ca.400 to 200 B.C. These sites provide the northernmost and possibly the oldest evidence of maize consumption in northeastern North America. More samples of maize phytoliths from the same two sites were dated to the late Middle Woodland period, between A.D. 600 and 800, suggesting an increase in the ubiquity and importance of this new crop in the subsistence strategies. Moreover, the identification of an unknown variety of maize points toward the possibility that a new local variety of maize appeared during the process. This process might have been accompanied by a more intensive and complementary collecting of wild rice. Finally, the results support the hypothesis of an in situ origin of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians.

Optical dating of St. Lawrence Iroquoian ceramics from the Mailhot-Curran site, southern Québec

Infrared-stimulated luminescence dating (IRSL) was applied on pottery sherds from the Mailhot-Curran archaeological site (BgFn-2), a Late Woodland period village located in the Saint-Anicet region, southern Québec (Canada). This site witnessed the presence of St. Lawrence Iroquoians and is thought to have been occupied roughly 500 years ago. The main goal of this study is to chronologically constrain the occupation of this site in order to establish a fine chronological sequence for the occupations of various sites found in this area. The IRSL is used to complement previous dating methods used for Mailhot-Curran (radiocarbon and seriation of the archaeological remains).Dating results are reported for ten samples of local ceramics made from Quaternary Champlain Sea clay. Luminescence dating on fine grains was preferentially used, since feldspar luminescence typically emit a decent luminescence signal. Although the latter was rather dim, anomalous fading was measured and luminescence ages were successfully corrected. It is therefore possible to validate the occupation age of this site.

Trade Goods and Nations in Sagard's Dictionary: A St. Lawrence Iroquoian Perspective

The disappearance of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, between the time Jacques Cartier encountered them in the 1530s to the arrival of the French permanently at the beginning of the seventeenth century has long been speculated on by historians and anthropologists. In this article linguistic evidence coming from the dictionary compiled by Recollect Brother Gabriel, based on his stay with the Huron in 1623 and 1624 is used to suggest that at least one of his linguistic informants was a St. Lawrence Iroquoian who had come to join the Huron, a path followed by others of his nation as well.

The sea monsters in the Madrid manuscript of Ptolemy's Geography (Biblioteca Nacional, MS Res. 255)

The sea monsters in the Madrid manuscript of Ptolemy's Geography (Biblioteca Nacional, MS Res. 255)

Charlesbourg-Royal and France-Roy (1541–43): France's first colonization attempt in the Americas

The site of the first French attempt to establish a colony in North America, by Jacques Cartier and Sieur de Roberval in 1541–43, was discovered on the Cap Rouge headland of Québec in 2005. A major multidisciplinary research programme has followed. Buildings on the cliff edge and possible traces of defences were identified as parts of the Upper Fort described by Roberval. Some construction techniques are paralleled in northern France. Finds and botanical evidence suggest that the area was used by people of high status and indicate contact with the St Lawrence Iroquoians. The site was destroyed by fire.

Effigy Pipes, Diplomacy, and Myth: Exploring Interaction between St. Lawrence Iroquoians and Eastern Iroquois in New York State

This article relates an archaeological “culture” of northern New York to the Eastern Iroquois nations through the evidence of ceramic smoking pipes that are about 500 years old. After categorizing the objects on the basis of distinctive but thematically related imagery, I observe that their distribution is suggestive of an interaction sphere linking the St. Lawrence Iroquoians of Jefferson County with the Mohawks, Oneidas, and Onondagas elsewhere in present Upstate New York. Later historic descriptions imply that these pipes were connected with diplomatic ritual conducted by male representatives of those communities. The resulting geographical occurrence might be the archaeological footprint of alliances antedating the famous League of the Iroquois. Bearing remarkably elaborate designs, these objects are among the most iconographically complex compositions preserved in the Northeast. All depict themes of emergence, and some may illustrate a more extensive myth asserting the common origins of several groups. Fragments of similar stories survive to this day and are among the oldest oral narratives documented among the Iroquois. My interpretations of both the behavioral/social correlates and the meaning(s) of these pipes derive from applications of the direct historical method, an approach tapping the unsurpassed richness of the Iroquoian ethnographic and historic record.

The Iroquois and the World's Rim: Speculations on Color, Culture, and Contact

CONTACT BETWEEN THE PEOPLES of the New World and of the Old World had ideational consequences for both. The event of Contact, and more importantly the process of Contact, initiated the reciprocal redefinition of the mythical realities which for centuries, if not millennia, had structured New World and Old World thoughts and behaviors about the other world. Neither the event nor the process of Contact are over. For the Iroquois, dwelling beneath the Great Tree at the center of Earth-Island, indirect knowledge of Contact at the eastern World's Rim and the indirect receipt of exotic trade goods emanating there, appear to have reified and reinvigorated the traditional ritual meanings and functions of light, bright (reflective), and white things. Not least among these were white marine shell and red, upper Great Lakes native copper, into whose meanings and functions were incorporated and assimilated analogous European trade goods of glazed ceramic, glass, and metal. This seemingly innocuous exchange of European baubles, bangles, and beads along the mid-Atlantic Coast of northeastern North America during the sixteenth century catalyzed profound changes in the ideational, sociopolitical, and economic subsystems of coastal and interior native populations. At the turn of the sixteenth century the indigenous populations of northeastern North America were either Algonquian, Northern Iroquoian, or Siouan speakers (c.f. Trigger 1978). The latter were by far in the minority and were found nearer the mid-Atlantic coast, while the majority were speakers of diverse Algonquian languages. With the exception of the Meherrin, Nottaway, and Tuscarora of the coastal Virginia and Carolina regions to the southeast and the socalled St. Lawrence Iroquoians to the northeast, the remaining Northern Iroquoian speakers dwelt in the interior in what is now north central Pennsylvania, western and central New York, and southwestern Ontario, bordering the Great Lakes of Erie and Ontario. These northern Iroquoian speakers have since been linguistically differentiated into eleven regional populations, which with caution can be identified with as many historically attested geosociopolitical entities, or tribes (nations), bearing the same linguistic identifiers (c.f. Lounsbury 1978; Trigger 1978: 282-289, 357-417, 466-524). Caution

The Eel Fisheries of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians

Recent zooarchaeological analyses of faunal materials recovered from the Steward (BfFt-2), Beckstead (BfFt-1), and Driver's (BeFu-2) archaeological sites in Eastern Ontario have demonstrated that the late prehistoric Iroquoian peoples who inhabited the upper St. Lawrence River valley depended to a great degree upon the exploitation of freshwater fish resources. Among the fish species found to be of primary importance to these peoples was the American Eel ( Anguilla rostrata [Lesueur]). The author examines both the ethnographic evidence and the available archaeological data concerning the native exploitation of this species to reconstruct the methods used in its capture and preparation, as well as its role in the St. Lawrence Iroquoians' seasonal cycle of faunal resource exploitation activities.