66 
conflicts and tribal changes in the basin of the St. Lawrence. The Algon- 
kians left traces of their camps in districts that were occupied by Hurons 
or other Iroquoians during historical times; conversely the Iroquoian tribes 
built villages and buried their tribal dead within what was later Algonkian 
territory. Occasionally, too, one finds in Ontario objects similar to those 
unearthed in the great mounds and earthworks erected by Indian tribes 
in Ohio and other states of Mississippi valley. In the following paper 
Mr. Wintemberg distinguishes these various remains, to guide both the 
professional archaeologist and the amateur who collects Indian ‘curios’ in his 
own neighbourhood. 
INTRODUCTION 
We have archaeological evidence of the presence of Algonkian, mound- 
building Indians and Iroquoian people in Ontario and Quebec. 
The Algonkian were probably the earliest and most widely distributed 
inhabitants of eastern Canada, but, in most cases, there are only their 
artifacts to show that they had inhabited certain areas. Our knowledge of 
their culture is derived almost entirely from a study of material collected 
from the surface of sites; only one site has so far been excavated. 
There appear to have been two periods of Algonkian occupation; one, 
seemingly the earliest, and, apparently, a pre-ceramic culture; and the 
other, later and more widely distributed. Intensive explorations of selected 
sites may show that the last should be divided into two or more different 
periods as in New York state . 1 
It is not known if the mound-building Indian occupation was con- 
temporary with or later than the Algonkian. There is ample evidence in 
the shape of mounds and graves, containing material like that in Ohio 
mounds , 2 to show that such a people once occupied Ontario and the south- 
western part of Quebec. 
Indians of the Iroquoian stock were the dominant people in eastern 
Canada when Europeans arrived, their country extending from near Quebec 
to Detroit river and from lake Erie north to Georgian bay. The archaeolo- 
gical evidence so far discovered suggests that the Neutrals, who occupied 
the western part of southern Ontario, belonged to what is called the “Western 
Group ”, 3 which, in addition to the Neutral, included the Erie, Seneca, 
Cayuga, and Conestoga or Andaste, and that the Tionontati or Tobacco 
Nation Indians, Huron, Mohawk, and Onondaga form another group, 
known as the “Eastern Group”. The culture of the last group is of the 
late pre-European and post-European stages of development; none of the 
sites is known to show evidence of earlier stages. The culture of the Neutral 
is the only one that shows what seem to the writer to be successive stages 
or periods of development, viz.: archaic, transitional, and late pre- 
European. After the dispersion of the Tionontati, Hurons, and Neutrals 
by the Five Nations, bands of the confederated tribes settled in Ontario, 
establishing villages along the north shore of lake Ontario and perhaps as 
far west as Grand river; these are referred to as Iroquois in this article. 
•See Parker, A. C.: "The Archaeological History of New York,” Part I, New York State Mas. Bull., Nos. 
235 , 236, pp. 48-50. (Albany, 1922.) 
2 See Wintemberg, W. J.: “Artifacts from Ancient Graves and Mounds in Ontario"; Trans. Roy. Soc., Canada, 
3rd ser., vol. XXII, sec. II, pp. 175-202, and 32 ills. (1928). 
2 See Skinner, Alanson: Notes on Iroquois Archaeology, Indian Notes and Monographs, Museum of the American 
Indian, Heye Foundation, New York, 1921, p. 30 et seq. 
