A05_P01

Indigenous Dynamics and the Early North American Fur Trade: Results from AMS Dating Iroquoian Villages in southern Ontario, Canada

Conger M¹

¹University Of Georgia, Athens, United States

Formally established in the 1580s, the North American fur trade quickly became an important point of articulation between Indigenous and European societies and economies. While direct trade was mostly confined to the north Atlantic coast, increased demand for small mammal pelts prompted “down-the-line” changes in Indigenous landscape and resource use far inland. The Tionontate, an Iroquoian group living northwest of Lake Ontario, are thought to have formed in the 1580s in response to the fur trade. In this poster I present new date estimates, derived from AMS dating and Bayesian Chronological modeling, for Sidey-Mackay and McQueen-McConnell, two of the earliest (assumed ca. AD 1580-1600) Tionontate villages. I employ multiple sampling and modeling strategies which have been developed to overcome mid-sixteenth century calibration curve plateaus and wiggles, and to take advantage of the short-lived nature of Iroquoian village sites. This includes the use of unidentified wood charcoal as terminus post quem, and site Phase duration constraints. Results, while not entirely independent, indicate that the two sites were occupied up to 70 years prior to the formal inception of the fur trade, during a period of increased regional conflict and political consolidation. This suggests that Indigenous North Americans were involved with the down-the-line effects of seasonal and coastal European-Indigenous trade much earlier than previously thought, and situates that involvement within a dynamic Indigenous sociopolitical landscape. Further, this research underscores the importance of absolute dating on Indigenous sites believed to date to the early colonial era in North America.