Archeology and Ancestral Heritage in South-Western Ontario
In this talk, Dr. Ferris will begin with an introduction to archeology, how it is studied, and how it can help us understand the earliest settlers of South-Western Ontario. Focusing on the last 1000 years, particularly near the forks of the Thames or the Deshkan Ziibi, Neal will introduce us to the ancestral heritage and material culture of this region. Neal will also discuss the Lawson site as the largest settlement in the region until the 1820’s. Finally, he will discuss the people living in this region and their earliest contacts with Europeans and their Colonial ambitions.
Dr. Neal Ferris holds the Lawson Chair of Canadian Archaeology and is cross-appointed between the Department of Anthropology and the Museum of Ontario Archaeology. His research focusses on the archaeology of the last 1000 years related to both the Indigenous and Industrial Eras, including the contemporary practice of archaeology in society today. He particularly focuses on archaeology from Ontario, Northeastern North America, and the Caribbean.
His research interests focus on three main themes that, at least in his head, all overlap and braid together into broader interconnections through the research he does himself, in collaboration with others, and through supervision of student-led research:
1) The archaeology as trans-generational histories of lived human experiences interpreted through the materiality of craft, settlement-subsistence, social organization, interaction, and identity, as reflected across the Late Woodland part of the Indigenous Era, and through the Industrial Era in southern Ontario, Northeastern North America, and the Caribbean.
2) Archaeology as contemporary social practice and praxis, including the Statecraft of policy, regulation and bureaucratic administration; the ethics and identity of the archaeological community; and the commercialization of practice through Archaeological Heritage Management (AHM).
3) Those two research themes also overlap in work exploring the contemporary uses and consumption of archaeological information and of the material record, and the shifting of archaeological sensibilities away from archaeologist-centric agendas to finding research fulfillment while being “in the service of” those larger social values that come to bear over the archaeological heritage today..
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