Thousands of Southern Ontario Artifacts to be safeguarded by the Museum
May 1, 2011Thousands of artifacts from three archaeological sites in southern Ontario will now be available to Canadians thanks to the coordination of Dr. Ronald Williamson, founder of Archaeological Services Inc., Ontario’s largest archaeological consulting firm.
The three archaeological sites are: a Palaeo-Indian campsite (the Mount Albion West Site near Hamilton) dating from the earliest stage of human settlement in southern Ontario; the former residence of a major Loyalist military leader and Indian agent (the Butler Site near Niagara-on-the-Lake); and a surprisingly large Huron village (the Mantle Site in Whitchurch-Stouffville, north-east of Toronto) occupied just before the arrival of Europeans.
These artifacts—which include worked stone tools, pottery and other pre-contact Aboriginal artifacts, military buttons and fragments of the fine china used by the upper classes of early Ontario—will now be available to museums, scholars, First Nations and communities across Canada.
Dr. Williamson supervised excavation of all three sites, which he considers the most nationally significant of the hundreds he has excavated in Ontario.
“It’s an extraordinary wealth of artifacts,” said Jean-Luc Pilon, Curator of Ontario Archaeology at the Museum of Civilization. “It’s exciting that they will be widely available to help Canadians gain a fuller understanding of Ontario’s rich legacy.”
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