By: MIGHTYmacro
Image: MIGHTYmacro ⧉
Subject: McMaster Sustainable Archaeology ⧉
License: Copyright, All Rights Reserved

Uploaded: 31 Jul 2017
Last Updated: 31 Jul 2017

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These ceramic rim sherds are from Uren (AfHd-3), a village site in Norwich Township, Oxford County, Ontario. The Uren site was investigated in 1920 by W. J. Wintemberg and in 1977 by Milt Wright and has thus been part of the archaeological firmament in this province for a century. These rim sherds stem from the 1977 excavations and appear to derive from the same vessel or pot, although they to do not all neatly cross-mend. While many archaeologists today eschew its approach and although it has seen modifications, a culture historical framework for much of southern Ontario’s recent archaeological past was devised by J. V. Wright as The Ontario Iroquois Tradition in 1966. Discussions of the Uren site have typically been framed within this scheme. There are some discrepancies between researchers in terms of the age and even affiliations of the site. It has been considered to date to about AD 1250 by some researchers, which, putatively, would pertain to the Glen Meyer (c. AD 1000-1300) ‘branch’ of the Early Ontario Iroquois stage of the Ontario Iroquois Tradition. Others have, instead, considered the Uren site to date around AD 1300 or even later. In fact, it has become the ‘type site’ for the subsequent Uren (c. AD 1300-1330) ‘substage’ of the Middle Ontario Iroquois stage of the Ontario Iroquois Tradition. Regardless, at the time the original vessel was manufactured, in this part of the Late Woodland period, maize (Zea mays) was becoming a staple part of people’s diets in southern Ontario and longhouse villages were becoming larger and longer longhouses were being built. Socio-political changes were occurring and it has been suggested that matrilineal descent and matrilocal residence were being formalised and perhaps clans were coalescing at this time. One way to describe the rim sherds is through the typological technique developed by Richard S. MacNeish in his 1952 Iroquois Pottery Types. While not all archaeologists in Ontario follow this typology, the original vessel of which these sherds formed parts would likely be regarded as a variant of the ‘Ontario Oblique’ type, with diagonal decorations around the rim. The sherds are catalogued as 784 and 876 (2-pieces previously ‘mended’ with glue) and 783. They are decorated with bands of what seem to be partially wiped-over simple linear impressions or stamps (as opposed to incisions), and display what appears to be an appliqué rim fillet creating a shelf-like contour or ledge just below the lip. Ceramic vessels such as these are in the extreme minority within ceramic assemblages of the period, but other similar examples are known from Wintemberg’s 1920 work at Uren, from Bill Fox’s work at Pergentile in Hamilton and from Milt Wright’s work at Gunby in Hamilton. A small incipient pointed castellation is visible on the 784 and 876 cross-mend. These rim sherds derive from a known context at the site: Feature 10 in excavation square 250-155. Feature 10, which is a pit feature, produced close to 500 other artefacts including ceramics, lithics, faunal bone and archaeobotanical remains. Thank you to Bill Fox of Trent University for additional notes. If you have further information about these sherds or have seen similar specimens, please get in touch with [email protected].