The Draper Site is a precontact period (late fifteenth-century)

Huron Huron may refer to: Native American ethnography * Huron people, who have been called Wyandotte, Wyandot, Wendat and Quendat * Huron language, an Iroquoian language * Huron-Wendat Nation, or Huron-Wendat First Nation, or Nation Huronne-Wendat * N ...

-Wendat ancestral village located on a tributary of West Duffins Creek in present-day

Pickering, Ontario Pickering (2021 Canadian census, 2021 population 99,186) is a city located in Southern Ontario, Canada, immediately east of Toronto in Durham Region, Ontario, Durham Region. Beginning in the 1770s, the area was settled by primarily British colon ...

, approximately 35 kilometres northeast of Toronto. The site is found in a wooded area on existing farmland and may be reached by walking from the end of North Road. The Huron community on the Draper Site expanded at least five times over some thirty years beginning around 1525. At its largest, it had a total of 35

longhouses A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often re ...

that held up to 2000 people. They were located on four hectares of land, and the settlement was fortified with multiple rows of wooden

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 expansion of this village coincided with the abandonment of smaller villages in the area.K. Bolander
Million Pieces Turned Up
, ''Stouffville Sun-Tribune'', Aug 24, 1978, p. 1. In the late sixteenth century, after more than a generation on the Draper Site, the entire community moved five kilometres northwest to establish a new settlement, which archeologists have named the

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 ...

. The latter is located in the southeast corner of present-day

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 ...

. It is the largest Wendat ancestral village excavated to date. The same community was formerly thought to have left the Mantle Site circa 1550 to establish the so-called

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 ...

and the

Aurora Site The Aurora Site, also known as the "Old Fort", "Old Indian Fort", "Murphy Farm" or "Hill Fort" site, is a sixteenth-century Huron-Wendat ancestral village located on one of the headwater tributaries of the East Holland River on the north side of ...

, to the north-west in what is today the Town of

Whitchurch-Stouffville Whitchurch-Stouffville (2021 Canadian census, 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, ...

. New analysis in 2018 established that the Mantle Site was active from 1587 to 1623. In early 1975 and 1978, the largely undisturbed Draper Site was completely excavated. This

archeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology ...

work was to explore and salvage artifacts and evidence in preparation for the destruction of the site during the construction of the

Pickering Airport The Pickering Airport Lands are parcels of lands owned by the Government of Canada located in York Region and Durham Region in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario. The lands, totaling approximately and located approximately east of Downtown Tor ...

."Slower pace at Draper Site: rescue technique not needed"
," ''Stouffville Sun-Tribune'', October 9, 1975, 5.

* Birch, Jennifer.
Rethinking the Archeological Application of Iroquoian Kinship
" ''Canadian Journal of Archeology'' 32 (2008), 194–213. * Birch, Jennifer.
Coalescent Communities Iroquoian Ontario
'. PhD Dissertation, Dept. of Anthropology, McMaster University, 2010. * Birch, Jennifer.
Coalescence and Conflict in Iroquoian Ontario
" ''Archeological Review from Cambridge'' 25, no. 1 (2010), 29–48. * Bowman, Irene.
The Draper Site: White Pine Succession on an Abandoned Late Prehistoric Iroquoian Maize Field
" ''North Pickering Archaeology'', Part II (1974), 54–85. * Dodd, Christine F.
Ontario Iroquois Tradition Longhouses
" M.A. Thesis, Simon Fraser University. Burnaby, BC, 1982. (Search "Draper"). * Finlayson, William D. ''The 1975 and 1978 Rescue Excavations at the Draper Site: Introductions and Settlements''. Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1985. * Hayden, Brian, ed. ''Settlement Patterns of the Draper and White Sites: 1973 Excavations''. Burnaby, BC: Archaeology Press Simon Fraser University, 1979. * Sioui, Georges E
Wendat: The Heritage of the Circle
Trans. J. Brierley. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 1999. * Trigger, Bruce G.
Natives and Newcomers: Canada's Heroic Age Reconsidered
'. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1985. Pp. 72, 101, 103, 151, 215, 220. * Warrick, Gary A.
Reconstructing Ontario Iroquoian Village Organization
" M.A. Thesis, Simon Fraser University. Burnaby, BC, 1983. * Warrick, Gary A.
A Population History of the Huron-Petun, A.D. 900-1650
" PhD Thesis, McGill University. Montreal, PQ, 1990 (revised edition published a
A Population History of the Huron-Petun, A.D. 500-1650
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). * Warrick, Gary A.
The Precontact Iroquoian Occupation of Southern Ontario
" In Jorden E. Kerber, ed., ''Archaeology of the Iroquois: selected readings and research sources'', ch. 7, pp. 124–164. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2007. * Williamson, Ronald.
"'Otinontsiskiaj ondoan (The House of Cut-off Heads): The History and Archaeology of Northern Iroquoian Trophy Taking
" In ''The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians'', 190–221. Ed. Richard J. Chacon and David H. Dye. New York: Springer, 2007 (esp. pp 210–212).

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

* Pickering Public Library
Archaeological Artifacts from Pickering Sites
* Konrad, V
Map: Known Archaeological Sites in the North Pickering Community
March 1973 Iroquois populated places Archaeological sites in Ontario First Nations history in Ontario Wyandot Buildings and structures in the Regional Municipality of Durham 16th century in Ontario Woodland period sites in Canada

Further reading

References

External links