The Aurora Site, also known as the "Old Fort", "Old Indian Fort", "Murphy Farm" or "Hill Fort" site, is a sixteenth-century

Huron-Wendat The Huron-Wendat Nation (or Huron-Wendat First Nation) is an Iroquoian-speaking nation that was established in the 17th century. In the French language, used by most members of the First Nation, they are known as the . The French gave the nickn ...

ancestral village located on one of the headwater tributaries of the

East Holland River The East Holland River is a river in Ontario, Canada that is part of the Holland River watershed that empties into Cook's Bay in Lake Simcoe. The headwaters of the East Holland River rise in the Oak Ridges Moraine. The river runs generally north f ...

on the north side of the

Oak Ridges Moraine The Oak Ridges Moraine is an Ecology, ecologically important Geology, geological landform in the Mixedwood Plains of south-central Ontario, Canada. The moraine covers a geographic area of between Caledon, Ontario, Caledon and Rice Lake (Ontario ...

in present-day

Whitchurch–Stouffville Whitchurch-Stouffville ( 2021 population 49,864) is a town in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada, approximately north of downtown Toronto, and north-east of Toronto Pearson International Airport. It is in area, and located in the ...

, approximately 30 kilometres north of

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. This Huron ancestral village was located on of land and the settlement was fortified with multiple rows of

palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a row of closely placed, high vertical standing tree trunks or wooden or iron stakes used as a fence for enclosure or as a defensive wall. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymo ...

s. The community arrived , likely moving ''en masse'' from the so-called

Mantle Site The "Jean-Baptiste Lainé" or Mantle Site in the town of Whitchurch–Stouffville, north-east of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is the largest and most complex ancestral Wendat-Huron village to be excavated to date in the Lower Great Lakes region. Th ...

located nine kilometres to the south-east in what is today urban

Stouffville Stouffville () is the primary urban area within the town of Whitchurch-Stouffville in York Region, Ontario, Canada. It is situated within the Greater Toronto Area and the inner ring of the Golden Horseshoe. The urban area is centred at the inte ...

. The Aurora Site is located at the south-east corner of Kennedy Road and Vandorf Side Road, east of the hamlet of Vandorf in the town of

. The Aurora Site was occupied at the same time as the nearby

Ratcliff Site The Ratcliff or Baker Hill Site is a 16th-century Huron-Wendat ancestral village located on one of the headwater tributaries of the Rouge River on the south side of the Oak Ridges Moraine in present-day Whitchurch–Stouffville, approximately 25 ...

. The Rouge River trail, used by the Huron and then later by the French to travel between Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe / Georgian Bay, ran through the Aurora Site.

Perhaps the busiest and best documented of these routes was that which followed the Humber River valley northward ... although another trail of equal importance and antiquity and used earlier than the former by the French, extended from the mouth of the Rouge River northward to the headwaters of the Little Rouge and over the drainage divide to the East Branch of the Holland River at Holland Landing.

The Aurora Site was indiscriminately looted by collectors throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. An 1885 report on Whitchurch Township notes that two thousand interments took place on the site, and that another smaller burial site was found two hundred yards from the site beside a large pond. The self-trained archaeologist William Brodie wrote two archaeological reports on his findings at the Old Fort Site (1888; 1901) dating to his first visit in 1846. In reference to the Old Fort Site, Brodie wrote in 1901:

To say that a ton of archaeological material was collected from the County of York sites, is a moderate estimate. Some of it is in European museums, some in the States, and some of it in
Laval University Laval means ''The Valley'' in old French and is the name of: People * House of Laval, a French noble family originating from the town of Laval, Mayenne * Laval (surname) Places Belgium * Laval, a village in the municipality of Sainte-Ode, Luxe ...
, some of it is still in the hands of amateur collectors, and a little of it has been secured for the Provincial Museum, but the greater part of it, once in the keeping of private collectors, is gone, being collected and lost, as private collections often are.

A complete map of the site was produced in 1930 by the amateur archaeologist Peter Pringle. The Aurora Site was completely excavated in 1947 and 1957 by the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. The 1947 dig was the first student excavation by the university, and it was led by John Norman Emerson. Emerson's doctoral work was largely based on the excavations of the Aurora Site. This excavation contributed to the conclusions of archeologists and anthropologists that the Wendat coalesced as a people in this area, rather than further east in the St. Lawrence River valley, as was thought at one time. Findings in the late twentieth century at the

and in 2005 at the

have provided more evidence of sixteenth-century settlements by ancestral Wendat in this region.See

List of archaeological sites in Whitchurch–Stouffville This is a list of archaeological sites in Whitchurch–Stouffville, Ontario, Canada: Both the Trent University Site Designation number and the Borden System archaeological designations are given. ''Late Ontario Iroquois (1400 AD - 1650 AD)'' * ...

. The use of technological and analytic advances, such as radiocarbon dating and Bayesian analysis, has resulted in new conclusions about the occupancy of these varied sites. Some researchers now believe that the Mantle Site was occupied 1587 to 1623; this view is controversial, and other researchers have disputed these findings.

References

{{reflist

External links

The Huron-Wendat Museum

Wendake, Quebec Wendake () is the current name for two urban reserves, Wendake 7 () and Wendake 7A, () of the Huron-Wendat Nation in the Canadian province of Quebec. They are enclaves entirely surrounded by the La Haute-Saint-Charles borough of Quebec City, w ...

Huron-Wendat Nation

Whitchurch-Stouffville Archaeological sites in Ontario Iroquois populated places First Nations history in Ontario Wyandot 16th century in Ontario Woodland period sites in Canada

Further reading

References

External links