The Keffer Site & The Draper Site (paperback bundle)

The Keffer site, excavated in 1985 and 1988 remains one of the most significant Frontier Coalescent Ontario Woodland Tradition (OWT) Villages to be subject to salvage excavation in Northern Iroquoia. In this innovative body of work, Finlayson and Lerner provide a detailed study of the chronology, culture history, and settlement patterns of the Keffer site and 28 other Black Creek and Realignment Substage sites on the Don and Upper Rouge Rivers.

Keffer was a 1.8 ha village occupied by Iroquoians and Anishinabek between about A.D. 1526 and 1550. Results of this study propose a new sequence of the village’s growth during Construction, Initial, and Final Occupation Phases, and new perspectives on defensive strategies in the planning of the village throughout its occupation.

On a broader scale, Finlayson and Lerner define four communities of OWT peoples who occupied the Don and Upper Rouge Rivers during the Black Creek substage, before coalescing to create the Keffer site. The study further describes the significance of frontiers on the Duffin Creek and the Niagara Escarpment with a later frontier on the Humber River as key to understanding the OWT occupation of the central and western northern shore of Lake Ontario.

This study emphasizes the importance of using previously existing data in writing archaeological histories and the need to have a firm grasp on chronology, culture history, and settlement patterns before investigating problems of broader anthropological interest.

This data-rich volume examines the Keffer site, a frontier village of the Ontario Woodland Tradition, excavated by Finlayson during his tenure at the London Museum of Archaeology (now the Museum of Ontario Archaeology). Through the re-evaluation of legacy collections, the application of modern technologies, and the integration of Indigenous perspectives, the authors challenge traditional interpretations about ancestral Anishinabek and Iroquoian interactions, situating Keffer within a broader context of 29 archaeological sites along the Don and Upper Rouge River drainages. Featuring 48 tables of data and 228 full-colour maps, The Keffer Site lays a foundation for future research, offering multiple interpretations and fostering a shared understanding of the complex histories that continue to shape this region now recognized as the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) of southern Ontario. Rhonda Bathurst, PhD, Executive Director, The Museum of Ontario Archaeology.

This volume presents an analysis and interpretation of the Keffer site settlement patterns. The Keffer site, an early 16th century Huron-Wendat/Anishinabek village, was fully excavated as a CRM project almost 50 years ago under the direction of the senior author. This publication provides a detailed investigation of the site from a settlement pattern approach, covering ancillary structures (sweat baths), houses and palisades, settlement layout, and regional context. Data is laid out in a series of tables, graphs, and over 200 full-colour house and site plans. The Keffer site along with 28 other sites in the Don and Upper Rouge drainages in the Toronto region, dating to the late 15th and 16th century, are arranged chronologically in regional sequences, based on settlement duration, population, and occupational histories of individual sites. It offers the most current history of Huron-Wendat/Anishinabek interaction on the north shore of Lake Ontario ca. 1475-1550. This book will become one of the classic references for future research on the Indigenous landscape of 15th and 16th century southern Ontario. Gary Warrick, PhD, Wilfrid Laurier University, Professor of Contemporary Studies (retired).

This volume reports on the extensive settlement data from the Keffer site including detailed descriptions of longhouses, sweat baths, and ancillary structures including likely Anishinabek wigwams. An early chapter provides a history of investigation of the site and summaries of the numerous significant studies carried out by other scholars. The high-quality figures and tables will facilitate use by students and researchers for their own comparative purposes. However, this volume is far more than a site report. Comparisons are made between the Draper and Keffer sites, two contemporaneous sixteenth century coalescent villages located in the central north shore of Lake Ontario. Re-evaluation of existing data by the authors situates these sites in a rapidly evolving social and political landscape. Much is accomplished with this volume, not the least of which is laying the groundwork for future research. Anyone perusing this book will be struck by the myriad possibilities for future archaeological research in the province of Ontario and beyond. William Engelbrecht, PhD, Buffalo State College, Professor of Anthropology (retired).

The Draper site, excavated in 1975 and 1978, remains the largest and most significant Iroquoian site subject to salvage excavation in southern Ontario. In this innovative study, Dr. William D. Finlayson reviews more than 40 publications, theses, articles, and unpublished reports as a prelude to the site. This includes presentation of a new sequence of expansions of the village, new perspectives on the use of defensive strategies in the planning of the village, and the presence of menstrual houses. Draper is used to define a specialized type of coalescent village, the Frontier Coalescent Village. This study provides new insights into the coalescence of at least five smaller villages, some from Duffin Creek and some from further afield at Draper, and the special mechanisms which made this possible and sustainable.

On a broader scale, the Draper site is situated among the almost 50 Iroquoian sites currently known on the Duffin Creek. A major conclusion of this study is that this drainage was occupied by one or more communities of Iroquoians who were not Huron-Wendat, but rather a community of Iroquoians ultimately contemporary with the Huron-Wendat confederacy which occupied Huronia in the 17th century. The use of Michi Saagiig oral histories provides new evidence in support of the migration theory for the occupation of south-central Ontario by Iroquoians in the latter part of the first millennium A.D. Comparisons are drawn to the Iroquoian occupation of the Crawford Lake area where there was also a long occupation by Iroquoians, at least one community of which were also not Huron-Wendat. The study also elaborates on the Ontario Woodland Tradition as an organization concept to replace the Ontario Iroquois Tradition.

Between 1975 and 1978, one of the most significant Iroquoian sites in North America was excavated north of Toronto under the direction of William D. Finlayson…It was the largest Iroquoian site to be fully excavated. It was also the first time computer-assisted recording was used to map and manage the information on more than 170,000 analyzable artifacts, plus data points for the thousands of features, from a site 4.25 hectares in extent – truly a monumental undertaking…For the first time, we could see how an Iroquoian community grew and changed over time…An initial report on this massive project was published in the National Museums of Canada Mercury Series in 1985. In itself, this was an amazing accomplishment…Now, some thirty-five years later Finlayson has published a new volume summarizing the Draper site more completely and placing it within the context of other Iroquoian and Algonquian sites in southwest Ontario. Taken together, the Draper project – Finlayson’s two outstanding reports as well as the dozens of specialized studies, theses, and dissertations this project has enabled – remains one of the most valuable archaeological records of northern Iroquoian people yet produced… James W. Bradley, PhD, Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Director Emeritus.

It is about time that the Anishinaabeg are part of this narrative and are being incorporated into the story of Ontario. This is good and wonderful progress, and as a Storyteller and knowledge Keeper for my people, it tells me that archaeologists are finally listening. I believe that archaeologists, working within their scientific frameworks, are able to find out certain things. However, they are not able to know the whole story with science alone. For example, archaeologists can’t be entirely sure about who the ancient ones were in terms of their ethnicity/culture…It really is interesting to me that finally somebody is doing this kind of work. I admire Dr. Finlayson for publishing this volume and for being able to think like this: that he has listened to my work, that he has talked to me, and that he is able to pick up on something that is probably quite foreign to him. That he has not dismissed Anishinaabeg in his work and that our history is taken into account. This is all I can ask for, so that in the end we may come to a different conclusion about the history of Ontario. Our stories may vary slightly, but there should not be huge discrepancies in coming to understand the truths of the past. Our stories should be able to match the science and vice versa. It’s an exciting approach, to me. You’ve got to take in the oral story, you’ve got to take in the nuances of the culture, and you also have to listen to the language. Gidigaa Migizi, Michi Saagiig Nation, Knowledge Keeper.

It has been said that there are qualities in wholes that are not apparent in the parts. Nothing could be truer with respect to archaeology. The people of the past, like us, lived in communities but ventured beyond these to acquire food, socialize, trade, fight, and, frankly, for any number of other reasons. If we are to pay witness to these behaviours, we must examine the archaeological record from a variety of scales. The present volume offers us an opportunity to look beyond the Draper site palisades to other sites in the immediate area, to those of the Duffin Creek drainage and beyond. The added benefit in this is that a considerable amount of information that was heretofore more or less inaccessible in the so-called grey literature of unpublished reports and manuscripts, is made readily available to present and future researchers. There is much work yet to be done, both with respect to classifying and interpreting the data recovered from the excavation of the Pickering Airport Lands and comprehending how it all fits within the wider landscape of the people of the past of these lands we now call Ontario. The present volume takes a tremendous step forward in this direction and should further serve to inspire others to make similar contributions. Joyce M. Wright, PhD, A.H.B.I. Associates Inc., CEO.