Saturday, March 27, 2010

Orillia/Mt Slaven cluster probably not what we are looking for.

As noted in an earlier comment, Marg and I toured the Orillia cluster sites and I have gone over the data available to me about the sites that I am aware of. There would appear to be only one site that is described as a large village within the cluster (Calverley site on the east 1/2 of lot 6 Con 4) up near the Orchard Pk school. This site however is dated by Gary Warrick (Thesis 1990) to be in existence from 1640 - 1647 and perhaps the site of the St. Jean Baptist mission of that time. As such it does not meet the dating period for the 1610 site of the Brule/Iroquet site. While the Mt Slaven sites noted in the reports by A. Hunter and H. Hammond (c1904) near Mt Slaven creek (Mt Slaven school/Mary St area) show potential for winter camps and the numerous burials found appear to be of both Huron and Algonquin origin, without a major Huron village dating to the right time period the Orillia cluster would not appear to be the one we are looking for.
Unless and until further data is forthcoming that would alter these finds I am recommending to the chapter that we drop this cluster from our search area and move on to further investigation of one of the six remaining clusters.

2 comments:

Gibson, William said...

Is Warrick the sole commenter on the site? Are you generally relying on a single evaluation?

John Raynor said...

At this point Bill that is pretty much all I have on this site. It was explored, sketched and mapped by Hammond (c1903)and then noted by Gary Warrick in his work as being large and dating to 1640-47. It probably has a Borden # but I do not have it. I am not sure if anyone else has worked on it but would love to find more data prior to setting it aside. Perhaps Jamie or someone else can tract down the Borden # and get the data that maybe available at the Ministry - but for now, that is all I have. Perhaps and archaeological assessment was done when the school was built or the subdivision was put in but all that info remains with the Ministry.