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12 - The Canadian Champion, Friday, May 1, 1998 Precision Paralegal Services LET US SAVE YOU TIME, MONEY AND FRUSTRATION SPECIALIZING IN DEB V ELCOVLW & SMALL CLAIMS OTHER SERVICES AVAILABLE " LANDLORDTENANT • PROCESS SERVING • TRAFFIC TICKETS • PARDONS -0 Phone: (905) 875-1904 " INCORPORATIONS • UNCONTESTED DIVORCES " SKIP TRACING AVAILABLE • AND MORE... Fax: (905) 875-9964 Rise and fall of Iroquoian culture unearthed locally Mel Brown examines an artifact. I e.. the Sleep Factory r- i By KAREN SMITH The Champion hat's being called a landmark achievement for provincial native archaeological research was revealed in Milton last week. Dr. Bill Finlayson, director-general of the London Museum of Archaeology, released a 1,500-page book featuring 28 years of intensive research into the lives of aboriginal people who lived in Halton almost 1,000 years ago. The study, unprecedented elsewhere in Ontario and rare in Canada, revealed 50 aboriginal villages, the largest covering 12 acres, with many of them heavily fortified by timber stockades. The nine sites excavated by Dr. Finlayson so far are located from Speyside in north Halton to Flamborough in Hamilton-Wentworth - within a 20-km radius of the Crawford Lake Conservation Area, where his work began in 1973. More than 250,000 artifacts, many illus- trated in Dr. Finlayson's four-volume book 'Iroquoian Peoples of the Land of Rocks and Water', have been collected. The artifacts reveal a detailed picture of the daily lives of Iroquoian-speaking peo- ple occupying villages of up to 3,000 inhabitants, Dr. Finlayson said. They also show their cultural evolution. Dr. Finlayson's study of decorated pot- tery fragments or 'badges' from the vil- lages enabled him to identify decoration styles distinctive for each village. He also traced alliances between villages by identi- fying the pottery badges, enabling him to sketch out the early political history of the region. The archaeologist said he believes about 110 village sites are still to be found in Halton, and his work will go on. "It's important that we continue to learn about our past," Dr. Finlayson said at the Crawford Lake Conservation Area book release attended by about 100 people. "If you stay in one area for a long time you leam more." This type of long-term, detailed work, is rare in Canadian archaeology, said Dr. James Write, curator emeritus of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. He said Dr. Finlayson's book has "ele- vated Iroquoian archaeology to a new and exciting level of scholarship" and predict- ed his work will "serve generations of scholars and students as a solid data plat- form from which to launch a wide range of inquiries into past human behaviour." Dr. Finlayson, the Lawson professor of archaeology at the University of Western Ontario and holder of the only endowed chair of archaeology in Canada, recog- nized Milton resident Mel Brown for his years of legwork in seeking out sites and ligging for artifacts. Although aboriginal people have lived in this part of Canada for more than 11,000 years, Dr. Finlayson's work focused on 1000 AD to the mid- 1600s. At that time, about 70,000 aboriginals were living in Ontario as part of two great confederacies, the archaeologist said. But soon they were decimated by dis- ease and warfare, leaving southern Ontario sparsely populated for more than 150 years until resettlement occurred in the late 1700s by aboriginals from other areas and non-aboriginal settlers. The book, published by the London Museum of Archaeology as part of the University of Western Ontario, is being issued in a first edition of 200 primarily for sale to libraries, museums and other scholars. a à BUNK REDS 1 1 F U T 0):NIS] 1 D AY B E:E 1 :0[)S]