Excavations have
unearthed 35,000 artifacts, including carbonized corn, ceramics
and stone tools
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Archaeologists completing
excavations on Fischer-Hallman Road (Courtesy of Wood PLC
/ Kristy O'Neal)
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An archaeological dig along southern Ontarios Fischer-Hallman
Road has unearthed traces of a Late Woodland Iroquois village
dated to between roughly 1300 and 1600.
Researchers originally expected to find just a few artifacts. As
of last week, however, theyd excavated more than 35,000 objects,
including rare carbonized pieces of beans and corn, cooking ceramics,
animal bones, and stone tools, reports Luke Schulz for Kitchener
Today.
Wood PLCthe engineering
and environmental consulting company leading archaeological assessment
of the sitehas also identified 25 structural features and
20 longhouse post molds. Barbara Slim, lead archaeologist on the
dig, tells CBC
News Liny Lamberink that these features include items
like hearths, which provide crucial evidence of human activity.
To ensure the team doesnt miss anything, researchers hand
sift through sections of soil measuring one-by-one square meters.
So far, theyve excavated around 400 of these units.
Archaeologists know of at least four or five Iroquois villages
that once existed in southern Ontario, Slim tells Kitchener Today.
According to CBC News, pottery specimens unearthed at the site are
typical of Late
Woodland Middle Ontario Iroquoian villages.
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Carbonized corn and bean
seeds (Courtesy of Wood PLC / Kristy O'Neal)
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Speaking with Johanna Weidner of the Waterloo
Region Record, Slim notes that activity in the area predates
the newly excavated village by millenniaa fact evidenced by
a 4,000-year-old Late
Archaic period arrowhead found during the dig.
The archaeologist adds, That just goes to show this was a
very important resource area where people were coming back again
and again.
Liaisons from nearby Indigenous communities, including Six Nations
of the Grand River, the Haudenosaunee Development Institute and
the Mississaugas of the Credit, are collaborating with archaeologists
on the project.
Were pretty excited to be working alongside them, having
the First Nation community share their experience with us,
Slim tells CTV
News Heather Senoran.
Matthew Muttart, a field director with Wood PLC, tells Kitchener
Today that the excavation team and First Nations groups will
work together to clean and catalog the artifacts this winter. He
hopes that the finds will help educate the public on the regions
history.
Were in this part of the world that [has] been occupied
for at least 10,000 years; it has a very rich history and a history
that Canadians dont get a lot of opportunities to learn about,
Muttart says. Were writing the last chapter of this
site
so its really important that were doing
it meticulously, giving it the respect and care that the site deserves.
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Partially excavated fire
pit (Courtesy of Wood PLC / Kristy O'Neal)
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In addition to helping the public understand Ontarios past,
the discoveries provide important connections to the present, especially
for Indigenous people today.
Dont forget, weve been here all along, this isnt
ancient history, Heather
George, a Mohawk woman and historian at the University of Waterloo,
tells CBC News. I hope that by having these artifacts accessible
to community and interpreted by community that it gives that space
for those conversations to happen.
Fencing separates the dig from a nearby construction project, per
CTV News. The construction company hopes to complete a two-lane
road through the area by the end of 2020; the end date of archaeological
work, meanwhile, will depend on what the team finds.
Usually in archaeology when you have a roadway you assume
that that extent of disturbance would completely have removed the
site, Slim tells Kitchener Today. In this case
it did the opposite; it capped it under [almost six feet] of fill
with four layers of asphaltso were in the process of
excavating that.
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