Repatriation Overview and Events
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1807/142580
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Item Open Access Maize, fish and deer: Investigating dietary stable isotopes among ancestral Huron-Wendat villages, as documented from tooth samples(Society for American Archaeology, 2016) Pfeiffer, Susan; Sealy, Judith C.; Williamson, Ronald F.; Needs-Howarth, Suzanne; Lesage, LouisFollowing the entry of Zea mays to northeast North America, Northern Iroquoian populations expanded their numbers and range. Isotopic values from bone collagen have shown fluctuations in reliance on this dietary staple. With permission of the Huron-Wendat Nation of Wendake, Quebec, we measured d13Cenamel, d13Cdentine and d15Ndentine from 167 permanent teeth, retained before reburial of their ancestral skeletons, and d13Ccollagen and d15Ncollagen from adhering bone (n = 53). Enamel values encapsulate diet from ca. 1.5 to 4 years of age; dentine values reflect later childhood. Teeth are from 16 ancestral Huron-Wendat sites in southern Ontario. Isotopic values show consistent reliance on maize from early fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, with higher reliance in the seventeenth century—the time of contact with Europeans and disruptive changes. We show a difference between the diets of children and adults; children consumed more maize and less animal protein. White- tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) did not exploit maize fields, reflecting hunters’ exploitation of distant regions. New values from fish species (n = 21) are pooled with prior data, demonstrating diverse C and N stable isotope patterns. American eel (Anguilla rostrata) is particularly variable. Dietary protein sources were variable compared to the stability of maize: a reliable source of carbohydrate food energy across four centuries.Item Open Access Stable dietary isotopes and mtDNA from Woodland period southern Ontario people: results from a tooth sampling protocol(2014) Pfeiffer, Susan; Williamson, Ronald F.; Sealy, Judith C.; Smith, David G.; Snow, Meradeth H.Bioarchaeological research must balance scholarly commitment to the generation of new knowledge, descendants’ interests in their collective past, and the now common practice of rapid re-interment of excavated human remains. This paper documents the first results of a negotiated protocol built on the retention of one tooth per archaeologically derived skeleton, teeth that can then be used for destructive testing associated with ancient DNA and stable isotope investigations. Seven archaeological sites dating from the 13th to 16th centuries provided 53 teeth, 10 of which were subdivided between DNA and isotope labs. All tooth roots yielded haplogroup results, and five provided more detailed sequence results. Stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen document heavy reliance on maize among all individuals, as well as reliance on a diverse range of fish. This work establishes baseline mtDNA information for Northern Iroquoians, and confirms the value of using dental tissues for dietary reconstruction. Particularly when human remains are fragmentary or co-mingled, this approach holds promise for ongoing incorporation of bioarchaeology into reconstructions of past peoples’ lives.Item Open Access Student research papers on collections to be repatriated(2014) Bathurst, RhondaItem Embargo Palaeodemography and Late Iroquoian ossuary samples(Ontario Archaeological Society, 1988) Sutton, Richard E.While Late Iroquoian ossuaries are considered to be reliable samples for palaeodemographic analysis, the ethnohistoric and archaeological records indicate that ossuaries were subject to many of the same biases as other types of burial. Our present limited knowledge of Late Iroquoian burial practices in general, and of the Huron in particular, suggests that these varied through time and space and were not limited to interment in ossuaries.Item Embargo The long road to collaboration: A history of ASI relationships with Indigenous communities with a focus on the Huron-Wendat Nation(Ontario Archaeological Society, 2021-05) Williamson, Ron; MacDonald, Rob; Cooper, Martin; Lesage, Louis; Pfeiffer, SusanItem Embargo Evidence from ossuaries: the effect of contact on the health of Iroquoians(1994) Pfeiffer, Susan; Fairgrieve, Scott