Coalescent Communities: Settlement Aggregation and Social Integration in Iroquoian Ontario

Abstract

AbstractThis paper explores processes of settlement aggregation among ancestral Huron-Wendat populations in south-central Ontario, Canada. During the fifteenth century A.D., numerous small communities came together, forming large, fortified village aggregates. In order to understand these processes a multiscalar analytical approach was combined with a conceptual framework emphasizing cross-cultural perspectives on coalescent societies, the archaeology of communities, and historical trajectories of societal change. Regional settlement data are presented to illustrate the movement and increasing size of settlements. In order to determine how individual coalescent communities were formed and maintained, a single village relocation sequence is examined in detail. This sequence illustrates how people constructed, inhabited, and negotiated domestic and public spaces in these new community aggregates. Detailed analyses of the occupational histories of these sites point to the creation of new community-based identities, corporate decision-making structures, and increasing social integration over time. The results of this study demonstrate that while settlement aggregation can be documented at the regional level, only detailed intrasite analyses can identify the small-scale changes in practice that reflect the lived experience of coalescence.