HomeMy WebLinkAbout736Duotang bound book, 9 pages, 23 x 29.5 cm., photocopied article - Kenyon,
Walter A. "The Miller Site - 1959 ". Ontario History. Vol. LII, No. 1 (March, 1961),
pp. 63 - 67
Kenyon, Walter A. "The Miller Site - 1959 ". Ontario History. Vol. LII, No. 1
(March, 1961), pp. 63 - 67
"Ontario History, Vol. LII, No. 1 (March, 1961), pp. 63 - 67.
THE MILLER SITE - 1959 By Walter A. Kenyon [Superscript ""5""]
During the fall of 1958, investigations at the Miller Site, Pickering, Ontario,
disclosed several hundred feet of ancient palisading. This marked the southern
periphery of a village occupied about 1,000 years ago by a pre-Iroquoian group
called Glen Meyer.
Returning to the site about the middle of June 1959, we continued our irregular
trenching operation in an attempt to determine the extent of the habitation area.
Our plan was simply to follow the palisade until we had established the limits of the
village. We approached the problem in this manner because it had been decided
previously that the site was of sufficient importance to warrant its complete excavation.
But before we could devise any realistic approach to this task, it was necessary to
know the size of the settlement.
Following the palisade was not too difficult for the first few hundred feet. Gradually,
however, the post-molds became less and less distinct along the western edge of
the village. Possibly the fortification ended at this point; or more likely, we were
simply unable to follow it in the extremely dry sand. Along the eastern edge of the
village, meanwhile, we encountered a completely different problem.
Here, probably because
5. Assistant Curator of Ethnology, The Royal Ontario Museum. Toronto."
"64 ONTARIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
of a higher organic content in the soil, the ground was more moist, and post-molds were
more easily detected. And they were everywhere. It soon became impossible to decide
with any accuracy which post-molds were part of the palisade, and which were part of
some other structure. However, with the aid of a group of high school students,
we began to strip the humus from a large rectangular area to see if we could detect
any pattern in what appeared to be a totally random distribution of post-molds.
Slowly the cleared area increased. First it was a 50 x 50 foot square; then this was
gradually extended to the west.
Post-molds continued to appear as soon as we were below the old plough-line,
but no discernible pattern emerged. Finally, however, a short line of post-molds was
found, curving at both ends into the undug portion to the west. As we followed the line
farther and farther, it became increasingly clear that we had at last found what we were
searching for—the ground plan or outline of a Pre-Iroquoian house.
At this point, with excitement and enthusiasm at its peak, we reached the end of our
financial resources. Funds ran out. This however, was not a unique situation for an
archaeologist. Like research workers in so many other fields, the archaeologist has
learned that he must—and can—rely on the interest and support of the community.
This situation was no exception. Within a few days, Imperial Oil Ltd., had given us a very
generous financial grant, Miller Paving Ltd., had supplied us with excellent cooking and
dining facilities, and the Rover Scouts had volunteered to supply us with a larger working
force. Additional aid was supplied by the Department of Anthropology at the University of
Toronto.
Professor McIlwraith and J. N. Emerson kindly agreed to use the Miller Site as the
location for their annual ""student dig"".
As a result of this total effort, we excavated some 13,000 square feet of the site.
In the process, we acquired enough data to build us a fairly complete picture of daily
life in this ancient settlement.
Subsistence was based on a combination of agriculture and fishing,
with hunting playing a definitely subsidiary role. The evidence is found in the large
quantities of fish bones and charred corn that were found scattered about their hearths,
and in the relative scarcity of bird and mammal bones. The first bones, kindly analysed by
Dr. E. J. Crossman of the Museum, suggest that the inhabitants of the site caught their
fish in some shallow bay, rather than in creeks. This would almost certainly be
Frenchman's Bay, where the same aggregate of species is still found.
This raises an interesting question. Why, when they were so dependent upon fish which
could only be taken in Frenchman's Bay, did they not move closer to the lake,
instead of living almost four miles away? The answer, I believe, was found during the
excavation of the site. First, the settlement is isolated, set well back even from Duffin's
Creek. Second, the village was fortified. And finally, of a total of 24 bodies which were
recovered, two had suffered obvious—and very pain"
"NEW PAGES OF PREHISTORY, 1959 65
ful—violence. One had been struck by an arrow on the left side of the rib-cage.
The arrow had penetrated the body, lodged in the spine, and in all probability
caused instant death. The other, a large powerful male, was struck between the
shoulder blades by an arrow which also lodged in the spinal column.
This individual, however, was more fortunate. Although the thin, narrow projectile point
had shattered on impact, the arrow-shaft and most of the point were successfully
removed. The tip, however, remained imbedded in the vertebrae.
The fact that the bone had grown almost completely around the stone fragment
indicates that the wound had healed successfully. A third body may also have suffered
violence, but the evidence here is not conclusive. Such indications of violence,
when combined with the isolated position of the village, and the fact that it was fortified,
creates a clear picture of hostility. The group chose a remote spot for their settlement
because isolation would decrease the probability of attack.
Within the village itself the people built large, multi-family dwellings.
One of these, which was completely excavated last summer, was 57 feet long and 24
feet wide. In outline, it was a slightly flattened oval with a doorway at one end.
To build such a house, the people would form an oval of long slender upright poles,
each set into the earth to a depth of about twelve or fourteen inches.
The tops would then be bent over and lashed together to form an arched roof.
Although we have no direct data on the subject, it is a safe assumption,
in the light of ethnographic data from later periods, that this structure was finally
covered by slabs of bark.
Down the centre of the house we found a line of five hearths, probably used both for
cooking and for heating. Associated with these hearths was a myriad of small,
shallow post-molds. These formed no recognizable pattern, but their relationship to the
hearths suggests that they were supports for something—possibly a vessel or a
spit—which was suspended over the fire. Apart from the central fires and their
associated post-molds, we found no evidence as to the internal arrangements of the
house.
Excavation to date at the Miller Site has also provided us with a large assortment of
the tools, weapons and personal ornaments that were in day to day use. Most numerous,
of course, are broken pottery fragments, of which we have collected over 50,000
specimens. These are chiefly fragments of cooking and storage vessels,
but included also were many pipe fragments and a few circular discs—probably
counters for some game—made by grinding smooth the edges of potsherds.
Also of pottery were two small marbles made by some woman hundreds of years
ago for the amusement of her children. These modern-looking playthings again
attest to the accuracy of Durant's observation—""The games of children are as
ancient as the sins of their fathers""."
"56 ONTARIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Stone tools were plentiful, being mostly scrapers fashioned by retouching small,
irregular flakes, but including also a number of arrow and spear points,
a few adze-blades, and the whetstones (simple slabs of sandstone)
on which the latter were shaped and sharpened. Bone was used for harpoons,
and for a variety of awls. Most of these were fashioned from a splinter of mammal bone,
but bird-bone was also employed.
Personal ornaments were fashioned from bone, shell, pottery, bear teeth and copper.
The latter, float or drift copper such as is found in northern Ontario, was beaten cold to
form small beads which, in one instance at least, were strung alternately with columella
beads, formed from the central column of the conch. Pendants were made by cutting a
shallow groove around the root of a bear canine-tooth, and by drilling a small hole
through the end of some cone-shaped fresh-water (?) shell. Tubular pottery beads
were formed by the simple expedient of grinding smooth the ends of broken pipe-stems.
Of particular interest, among the ornaments, is the presence of the conch-shell,
as this shows that the group either visited some coastal region or had trade relations
with someone who did.
During our excavations, five graves were located and removed. Four of these were
removed last summer and one previously. The five graves, containing a total of 24 bodies,
were scattered throughout the area, three within the village and two outside.
Mortuary customs may be described, then, as randomly scattered, multiple,
secondary burials. At death, the body of the deceased was either buried or exposed.
At a later date, the family or appointed persons would retrieve the bones,
interring them in a mass grave at the appointed time and with an appropriate ceremony.
This was a widespread custom in northeastern North America. It probably reached its
peak among the Huron of the Georgian Bay area where the Jesuit Fathers describe a
mass burial with its accompanying ceremony—The Feast of the Dead.
Kenneth E. Kidd of the Museum, who excavated the early historic Huron ossuary at
Ossossane, estimated that it contained the remains of 1,000 individuals.
At the Miller Site, we certainly found nothing so elaborate. But the presence of multiple,
secondary burials there suggests that Huron burial customs developed out of the earlier
Glen Meyer practices. These, in turn, probably originated with the need for assembling
the tribe, clan or family of which the deceased was a member. Among most peoples,
death is the occasion for more or less elaborate rituals. In our own culture,
we assemble or notify the participating group by letter, telephone or telegraph.
In a primitive community, however, these resources were not available; and in addition,
the men of the group are apt to be widely dispersed throughout the countryside.
With no way of assembling the group for a burial ceremony, they merely postponed it
until such time as the people were gathered together for some other purpose.
Meanwhile, the bodies of those who died at socially-inconvenient times were
temporarily buried or exposed."
"NEW PAGES OF PREHISTORY, 1959 67
In summary, the Miller Site was occupied by a pre-Iroquoian group living in long,
narrow multi-family dwellings within a palisaded village. They practiced agriculture—
at least corn and tobacco were grown—but still depended to a large extent upon
hunting and fishing, especially the latter. Pottery fragments from the site have not yet
been analysed, but casual inspection reveals a number of technical features which are
also found at Uren, the earliest known Iroquois site in Ontario. Burial customs—multiple,
secondary inhumation—also indicate a relationship with the later Iroquois culture.
Available data suggest, then, that we are dealing with a developmental sequence,
that Iroquois culture—or at least that segment of Iroquois culture occupying peninsular
Ontario—was an indigenous growth, an elaboration of the earlier Glen Meyer culture.
[The remainder of the page contains an article not relevant to The Miller Site.]"
"6235866 c1
Pickering Public Library
Central Branch"