The "Jean-Baptiste Lainé" or Mantle Site in the town of Whitchurch–Stouffville, north-east of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is the largest and most complex ancestral Wendat (Huron) village to be excavated to date in the Lower Great Lakes region.Toronto Museum Project, Dunsmere Pipe . An exhaustive archaeological study of the Mantle Site is provided by Jennifer Birch, " Coalescent Communities in Iroquoian Ontario," unpublished PhD Thesis, McMaster University, Hamilton, 2010. The site's southeastern access point is at the intersection of Mantle Avenue and Byers Pond Way.
Formerly thought to have been active 1500-1530, the prime period of the site has been shifted to 1587-1623, based on radiocarbon dating and Bayesian analysis. This has influenced new interpretations of migrations and population movement in the region among the Iroquoian peoples prior to the coalescence of the Wendat.
The site In 2002, remains of a Wendat village from the late Precontact Period (i.e., immediately prior to the arrival of Europeans) was discovered during the construction of the new subdivision in Whitchurch–Stouffville along Stouffville Creek, a tributary of West Duffins Creek, on a section of Lot 33, Concession 9.Compare Archaeological Services Inc.'s "The Mantle Site Plan" with Google satellite view; compare also the 1878 map of the Township of Markham, Illustrated historical atlas of the county of York and the township of West Gwillimbury & town of Bradford in the county of Simcoe, Ont (Toronto: Miles & Co., 1878); the house "foundation" and "disturbed area" on the Mantle Site Map are the farmstead and mill of Sam. Byer, Lot 33, Concession 9; see also Google street view. The archaeological community was already aware of First Nations artifacts on Lot 33, Concession 9; in A.F. Hunter, List of York County Sites (1910; available at Museum of Civilization), A.J. Clark writes: "Markham Twp. York Co. Village Site Lot 33 Con. 9 ... Site is south of the village of Stouffville. Wilmot Brown of Stouffville (Sept. 15-1906) is authority for statement that his father remembered an Embankment all around this site which enclosed about three (3) acres. Pottery, arrowheads and pipe of 'belt' pattern." Clark was working on the site around 1925.
From circa 1587-1623, an estimated 1500 to 2000 people inhabited the site. The community likely consisted of persons who came from multiple smaller sites, including the Draper Site, located five kilometres south-east of Mantle in north Pickering.Keith Bolender, "Million pieces turned up ," Stouffville Tribune, August 24, 1978; also Draper, Encyclopedia of Prehistory, vol. 3 (Springer, 2002), p. 352. The specific location of the Draper Site is on parts of lots 29 and 30, Concession VIII, Pickering Township; see V.A. Konrad, W.A. Ross, and I. Bowman, North Pickering Archaeology (June 1974), 78. They may have spent an interim period at the Spang Site in Pickering; cf. Jacqueline Carter, Spang: A Sixteenth Century Huron Village Site, Pickering, Ontario, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, 1981.
In 2012, archaeologists revealed that they had discovered a forged wrought iron axehead of European origin, which had been carefully buried in a longhouse at the centre of the village site. It is believed that the axe originated from a Basque whaling station in the Strait of Belle Isle (Newfoundland and Labrador), and was traded into the interior of the continent a century before Europeans began to explore the Great Lakes region.See documentary film, "Curse of the Axe, (History Television.ca), 128 min. See also Patrick Cain, "Vanished Huron village in Whitchurch-Stouffville held baffling mystery," Global News, July 6, 2012; "Ancient axe found could rewrite Canada's history," Global News, July 10, 2012; Mary Ormsby, "How did Huron-Wendat get 'cursed' European axe a century before European contact?," Toronto Star, July 7, 2012; Owen Jarus, "An 'Indiana Jones' moment: Cosmopolitan village dug up. Big, complex 'New York City' of 500 years ago uncovered by archaeologists in Canada," NBC News, July 10, 2012. "It is the earliest European piece of iron ever found in the North American interior.""Curse of the Axe on History," Northernstars.ca, the Canadian Movie Database, July 6, 2012; Mike Finnerty, "Interview: The Curse of the Axe, with R.F. Williamson and L. Lainé" (audio), CBC The Current, July 9, 2012 (23:59 minutes); cf. also Wilhelm Murg, "How did a Spanish Axe wind up in Toronto 100 years before Europeans?," Indian Country: Today Media.com (July 9, 2012).
The Mantle Site was enclosed by a three-row wooden fort-like structure (palisade) surrounding 95 longhouses, of which at least 50 were occupied at any one time. Each longhouse was approximately wide, high; lengths varied from to , with a typical length of . They were constructed from maple or cedar saplings and covered by elm or cedar bark. The layout displays a uniquely high degree of organization (when compared, e.g., to the Draper Site), and includes an open plaza and a developed waste management system.Archaeological Services Inc., "The Mantle Site". See also artist's reconstruction of longhouse interior; R.F. Williamson and A. Clish, "The Mantle Site: Urban Planning in Sixteenth Century Ontario," presented at the Canadian Archaeological Association, Toronto, 2006.
Maize comprised 62% of the community's diet, which translates to approximately one pound of maize per person per day, or (minimally) 1,500 pounds for the community per day. More maize may have been required for trade with the Algonquin people to the north. The community farmed of land, stretching up to in every direction from the village site.Mike Finnerty, "Interview: The Curse of the Axe, with R.F Williamson and L. Lainé" (audio), CBC The Current, July 9, 2012 (23:59 minutes). For clothing up to 6,800 deer skins per year were needed, which would have required hunting in a least in every direction from the site.R. Williamson, cited in Owen Jarus, "An 'Indiana Jones' moment: Cosmopolitan village dug up. Big, complex 'New York City' of 500 years ago uncovered by archaeologists in Canada," NBC News, July 10, 2012; also R. Williamson, "From Mastodons to Mantle: Preserving the Aboriginal Past of York Region," public lecture, Stouffville, ON, Feb. 25, 2011, where Williamson notes up to 6,800 hides per year.
A series of modeled human and animal effigy ceramic vessels were found on the site. These are similar to ones found at on contemporaneous Oneida villages in New York State, indicating the cosmopolitan nature of the community that settled the Mantle Site.Williamson and Clish, The Mantle Site: Urban Planning in Sixteenth Century Ontario; for images, see the Toronto Museum Project, Dunsmere Pipe , and Archaeological Services Inc., "The Mantle Site." The humanlike effigies are thought to be mythical cornhusk people associated with horticultural crops.R.F. Williamson, "What will be has always been: The past and presence of northern Iroquoians," in The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, ed. T.R. Pauketat (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2012), p. 281.
Unlike other indigenous villages in the Great Lakes region, the Mantle Site is unique "in that it represents a community that had already come together from several villages and chose to build here."Hannelore Volpe (with reference to Dr. R.F. Williamson), Stouffville's Archeological Treasure , Stouffville Sun-Tribune, March 29, 2007, p. 14. During its existence, the community was the only village near the eastern Rouge trail linking Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe and north of it. Artifacts found indicate trade and interaction with distant First Nations groups to the north, east, south and west.R.F. Williamson in interview with Mike Finnerty, "Interview: 'The Curse of the Axe,'" (audio), CBC The Current, July 9, 2012 (23:59 minutes).
After two or three decades on the Mantle Site, the people abandoned the location in the first half of the seventeenth century. They likely moved five kilometres north-west to the so-called Ratcliff Site and / or the Aurora Site.See List of archaeological sites in Whitchurch–Stouffville. In the seventeenth century, the community likely joined others to form one of the Huron tribes in the Orillia-Georgian Bay area.Archaeological Services Inc., "The Mantle Site "; see also the following illustrations: "Late Period (AD 1400 – European Contact)," and "Late Period Village", Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), plates 11 and 12.
Excavation and evaluation of site and artifacts With the discovery of the Mantle Site by Lebovic Enterprises, Archaeological Services Inc. was contracted to complete an evaluation of the site's significance. A decision was made to preserve about 5% of the original Mantle Site, primarily along the bank of the creek. The site was documented and over 150,000 artifacts were removed for study and interpretation at McMaster University and the University of Toronto. Because of their national significance,Lead archeologist, Dr. Ronald F. Williamson, noted that the excavation was one of "the most nationally significant of the hundreds he has excavated in Ontario" (Canadian War Museum, "Thousands of Southern Ontario artifacts to be safeguarded by the museum," Kudos! [Spring 2011]). the artifacts will be safeguarded by the Canadian Museum of Civilization.Canadian Museum of Civilization Newsletter, "Digging up the Past," June 2011. The archaeological site-work took three years to complete (2003–2005).Archaeological Services Inc., Mantle Site ; Toronto Museum Project, Dunsmere Pipe ; Gail Swainson, "U of T Basements Hold Thousands of Remains", Toronto Star, September 3, 2010.
Succeeding development Most of the site is now used as a storm water pond; the homes on the south-west corner of Lost Pond Crescent also occupy part of the village site.See "Did you know: Mantle Site (interview with Dr. Jennifer Birch," Rogers TV Videos First Local (2:14 minutes; accessed July 18, 2012); Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Communicating with Aboriginal Peoples: The Municipal Role (Presentation, London, ON, 2007); compare Slide 5 (aerial photograph identifying the Mantle Site, looking south) with Google satellite view and location of storm water pond. "In York Region, such a fate for an Iroquoian village is common. Builders here accept salvage archeology as a normal part of the development process, but still opt to remove sites rather than build around them. 'It's an economic decision.'" Development leaving history in a box, by M. Adler, Stouffville Sun-Tribune, August 23, 2003, p. 3. The Toronto Star quotes David Donnelly, lawyer for the Huron-Wendat Nation, on new provincial guidelines for consultation expected January 1, 2011: "The developers will invite the First Nations in for a chat and then, nine times out of ten, development will just go ahead" First Nation Battles for History in Court, Sept. 10, 2010. In the area immediately north of the village site, the creek had been damned by early European pioneers (Boyer's (Byer's) Pond), which in turn powered Boyer's Mill (edge the Mantle village site); cf. Jean Barkey et al., Stouffville 1877–1977 (Stouffville, 1977), pp. 122, 127. A small cemetery found outside the village walls has been preserved and protected in accordance with the provincial cemeteries act and in consultation with First Nations.Ron Williamson and Chief Kris Nahrgang, First Nations History in Southern Ontario – South East Region, presentation, slide 10.