Coalescent Communities: Settlement Aggregation and Social Integration in Iroquoian Ontario

Abstract

This paper explores processes of settlement aggregation among ancestral Huron-Wendat populations in south-central Ontario, Canada. During the fifteenth century A.D., numerous small communities came together, forming large, fortified village aggregates. In order to understand these processes a multiscalar analytical approach was combined with a conceptual framework emphasizing cross-cultural perspectives on coalescent societies, the archaeology of communities, and historical trajectories of societal change. Regional settlement data are presented to illustrate the movement and increasing size of settlements. In order to determine how individual coalescent communities were formed and maintained, a single village relocation sequence is examined in detail. This sequence illustrates how people constructed, inhabited, and negotiated domestic and public spaces in these new community aggregates. Detailed analyses of the occupational histories of these sites point to the creation of new community-based identities, corporate decision-making structures, and increasing social integration over time. The results of this study demonstrate that while settlement aggregation can be documented at the regional level, only detailed intrasite analyses can identify the small-scale changes in practice that reflect the lived experience of coalescence.

Radiocarbon dating the pace of monument construction and village aggregation at Garden Patch: A ceremonial center on the Florida Gulf Coast

“…Many explanations for aggregation in other regions and time periods do not pertain to the Middle Woodland period on the Gulf coastal plain (e.g., Bandy, 2004;Birch, 2012). A total population increase for the region has not been demonstrated.…”

Site size hierarchy in middle-range societies

“…The first example is early post contact Iroquoian in the Great Lakes Region of North America-a case with exceptionally rich archaeological data and literary sources (Birch, 2012;Engelbrecht, 2003;Kerber, 2007;Morgan, 1962Morgan, [1851; Ritchie et al, 1961;Snow, 1994;Tooker, 1985;Trigger, 1976;Warrick, 2008). At the time of first contact, the Northern Iroquoians comprised a number of distinct groups: the Huron confederacy; Petuns and Neutral of southern Ontario; the St. Laurence Iroquois of Quebec; the Eerie in Northern Ohio; and the Five Nations in upstate New York (Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayuga, Onondagas, and Senecas).…”

“…The size of the resulting villages in wartime is influenced by the size of the aggregating groups. Moreover, the adoption of migrants from outside the region-coalescence-can also impact the number, size, and ethnic composition of villages (Birch, 2012;Kowalewski, 2006). Recognizing escalations in violence that correspond to periods of aggregation requires attention to several other lines of evidence, such as evidence of trauma on human remains, evidence of torture, and defensive architecture like palisades and ditches (Keeley, 1996;Nielsen and Walker, 2009).…”

Interpreting Iroquoian site structure through geophysical prospection and soil chemistry: Insights from a coalescent community in Ontario, Canada

“…Important to the present study is that coalescence encourages changes in the built environment that promote community integration. Coalescent communities often involve the addition of plazas, courtyards, dance grounds, and other public spaces which help to facilitate integrative cultural practices which brought together large crosssections of local populations (Adler and Wilshusen, 1990;Birch, 2012Birch, , 2013Lipe and Hegmon, 1989).…”

“…1). Here, one well-studied ancestral Wendat community relocation sequence, including the Draper, Spang, and Mantle sites, has provided significant insights into how a process of coalescence transformed a collection of villages into a formative nation who would go on to join the Wendat (Huron) confederacy by the time of direct European contact (Birch, 2012;Williamson, 2013a, 2013b;Williamson, 2014).…”