Unravelling identities on archaeological borderlands: Late Woodland Western Basin and Ontario Iroquoian Traditions in the Lower Great Lakes region

Abstract

Borders, boundaries, frontiers, and borderlands are complex things and processes which have become important foci in social sciences over the last two decades. Using archaeological border theory, grounded in anthropological border theory, which focuses on the cultural dimensions of borders, the nature and function of borders and boundaries in the archaeological record of societies indigenous to the Lower Great Lakes can be explored. An archaeological border theory examines how notions of identity, ethnicity, and material culture interplay with borders, allowing for more complex interpretations of archaeological materials and sites. Applying this theory to archaeological evidence from the interaction zones, or borderlands, between archaeologically defined Late Woodland traditions illustrates how these concepts can lead to more complete understandings of the way people lived in the past. Examining borders in the past allows social scientists to recognize their historically situated, fluid nature and will lead to greater consideration of the socially constructed nature of borders in the present.

The cosmopolitan borderland: western Ethiopiac. AD 600–1800

“…Borderworlds are not purely social constructs, as they are often regarded in the social sciences (e.g. St John & Ferris 2019), but rather a combination of ecologies, geographies and the materialisation of human action.…”