This is the first detailed analysis of a completely excavated northern Iroquoian community, a sixteenth-century ancestral Wendat village on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The site resulted from the coalescence of multiple small villages into one well-planned and well-integrated community. Jennifer Birch and Ronald F. Williamson frame the development of this community in the context of a historical sequence of site relocations. The social processes that led to its formation, the political and economic lives of its inhabitants, and their relationships to other populations in northeastern North America are explored using multiple scales of analysis. This book is key for those interested in the history and archaeology of eastern North America, the social, political, and economic organization of Iroquoian societies, the archaeology of communities, and processes of settlement aggregation.

By Jennifer Birch and Ronald F. Williamson

Acknowledgements
List of Tables
List of Figures
Chapter 1.Understanding Northern Iroquoians
Chapter 2. The Historical Development of Ancestral Wendat Societies
Chapter 3. Situating the Mantle Site
Chapter 4. Community History
Chapter 5. The Necessities of Life
Chapter 6. Production, Consolidation, and Interregional Interaction
Chapter 7. Conclusions
Bibliography
Index
About the Authors