CLAUDE CHAPDELAINE A REVIEW OF ST.

LAWRENCE IROQUOIAN ARCHAEOLOGY

A Review of the Latest Developments in
St. Lawrence Iroquoian Archaeology
Claude Chapdelaine

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is evidently to honour a true pioneer in the field of St. Lawrence
Iroquoian archaeology. It is not our intention to make an exhaustive review of the literature,
looking essentially at the last decade of the twentieth century. We will examine selected topics
that were significant to Jim Pendergast. It is within this perspective that I will concentrate my
review on ceramic variability and seriation with a regional scale. One new emerging paradigm
for the St. Lawrence Iroquoians is their cultural variability since the vast territory they occupied
along the St. Lawrence River can be divided in clusters based on key variables, basically identified
on decorated ceramic vessels, showing differences, although very subtle, that are used to construct
internal cultural boundaries within a St. Lawrence Iroquoian interaction sphere. Geopolitical
reconstruction at the end of XVth century and during the XVIth century cannot be overlooked
in this review and the disappearance of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians will be briefly re-examined.

Résumé

L’objectif de ce texte est évidemment d’honorer la mémoire d’un véritable pionnier dans le
domaine de l’archéologie des Iroquoiens du Saint-Laurent. Notre intention n’est pas de faire
une revue exhaustive de la littérature mais de se limiter plutôt à la dernière décennie. Plusieurs
sujets ont été sélectionnés car ils avaient une importance particulière aux yeux de Jim Pendergast.
Dans cette perspective, notre travail se concentrera sur la variabilité céramique et la sériation à
l’échelle régionale. La variabilité culturelle des Iroquoiens du Saint-Laurent est le nouveau
paradigme qui consiste à accepter la division de ce vaste territoire en plusieurs provinces sur la
base de plusieurs variables identifiées sur la céramique présentant des différences, quoique
souvent mineures, qui servent à définir des limites culturelles internes au sein de la sphère
d’interactions des Iroquoiens du Saint-Laurent. La reconstruction géo-politique à la fin du XVe
siècle et au cours du XVIe siècle fera aussi l’objet de notre attention dans cette revue tout
comme le phénomène de la disparition des Iroquoiens du Saint-Laurent.

Introduction

The St. Lawrence Iroquoians as a field of research has recently become slightly
less dynamic but several projects were and are still in the analysis process. A review was
provided seven years ago stressing more on the recent findings regarding the eastern St.
Lawrence Iroquoians (Chapdelaine 1995b). That synthesis was not giving much
importance either to in progress researches in Jefferson County, New York, carried out
A Passion for the Past, Papers in Honour of James F. Pendergast, edited by James V. Wright and Jean-Luc Pilon.
Archaeological Survey of Canada Mercury Series Paper No.164. Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, 2003. 77
PAPERS IN HONOUR OF JAMES F. PENDERGAST
by Engelbrecht (1995) and by the 1000 Islands Chapter of the New York State
Archaeological Association (Abel 2001; Abel and Fuerst 1999); or to the several important
discoveries and extensive diggings on Iroquoian villages in the Lake St. François region
(see Clermont and Gagné in this volume); or to José Benmouyal work on the unique
Iroquoian village known for the province of Canada that is still unpublished although a
useful detailed analysis of cultural remains has been submitted to the Quebec government.
(Benmouyal 1990); or finally to Michel Plourde and Roland Tremblay numerous
fieldwork seasons in the estuary on several presumed Iroquoian sites that were excavated
for their respective doctoral dissertation. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for their
synthesis although various publications from both researchers allow us to have a new
picture of what was going on in the St. Lawrence Estuary during the last five centuries
before Europeans arrived (Plourde 1993, 1999; Tremblay 1995, 1999). Of particular
interest is the accumulation of subsistence data indicating a late winter exploitation of
the Harp seal in the St. Lawrence Estuary (Rioux and Tremblay 1998; Plourde 1999). It
should also be mentioned the work done in Maine and Vermont with recent findings in
the Lower Richelieu and Pike Rivers that is still a promising area of investigation for St.
Lawrence Iroquoian studies (see Petersen in this volume and also Chapdelaine et al.
1995; Blais 1993; Petersen 1990; Pendergast 1989).

Ceramic Variability

The history of St. Lawrence Iroquoians has been a topic studied with great energy
and patience by Jim Pendergast. The contributions of Jim Pendergast to Iroquoian ceramic
analysis are numerous and he was considered a true specialist. Working with different
paradigms throughout his career, he finally accepted the St. Lawrence Iroquoians as a
distinct Iroquoian entity, but an identity corresponding to closely related tribes. Pendergast
also used ceramic variability to divide the vast St. Lawrence Lowlands into several
clusters.

Jim Pendergast was a very productive scholar. He underwent a most important

task by analyzing, with the attribute method, the Roebuck material composed of 5232
rimsherds. He is also responsible for integrating all the significant collections of Mr.
George Gogo. Later, in 1987, he directed a large-scale excavation at the McKeown-
Maynard site with impressive success (Pendergast 1993a, 1991). At one point in his
career, he was the single scholar who had seen most of the important St. Lawrence
Iroquoian collections.

Jim Pendergast had a strong and highly positive influence on all the scholars
studying St. Lawrence Iroquoians. His unique personality and his desire to constantly
share information with others should be mentioned as an example to follow in the pursuit

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of knowledge regarding culture history. I personally met Jim Pendergast for the first
time in the spring of 1982 at the CAA Meeting held at Hamilton. I was able to start a
very good relation with him since I was right in the middle of an analysis of the ceramic
collection from the Lanoraie site (Clermont, Chapdelaine and Barré 1983). I felt I had a
lot to learn from this man and that he was pleased to help a young new kid on the block
(that was his own expression). In the fall of 1988, when I first attend the Iroquois Research
conference in New York State with William Fenton giving us a warm welcome, I soon
learned that Jim Pendergast was THE archaeologist of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians.
During that meeting and on all occasions after, he was very helpful to me in several
ways.

My participation at this specific meeting was immediately after finishing my

doctoral dissertation on the Mandeville site located on the riverbank of the Richelieu
River and completed with the Mclvor site in Eastern Ontario, through the generous
support of Jim Wright who allowed me to study his unpublished material of a completely
excavated longhouse (Chapdelaine 1989). My research goal was to study variability
among the vast area assigned to the St. Lawrence Iroquoians and to give some material
support to the idea first published by Pendergast and Trigger in 1978 that: “There is no
evidence that these Indians constituted a single tribe or people; indeed, their far-flung
distribution makes this highly unlikely.” (Trigger and Pendergast, 1978:357)

Jim Pendergast had seen a lot of collections prior to the Mandeville collection,
which is characterized by a strong stylistic diversity. He was really impressed by this
variability distinctive of what he was accustomed to in the Upper St. Lawrence Valley,
not accounting here the 365 smoking pipes found at the Mandeville site (Chapdelaine
1992, 1989). He was certainly persuaded before his visit to Montreal that MacNeish
typology was not the best tool and the Mandeville ceramic collection was another case
to prefer the descriptive method using attributes (Wright 1967).

Regional Studies

To understand the St. Lawrence Iroquoian regional variability, a long-term project

was established in the Quebec City area. This region, based on historical accounts, was
home to a distinct Iroquoian group, the Stadaconians, considered agriculturists as well
as hunters and fisherman in the Estuary where they exploited marine resources. This
proposition of a distinct tribe based on historical grounds had very little archaeological
documentation. Several sites have been excavated over the last two decades: 1- Place
Royale, downtown Quebec City, a multi-component site with its major occupations
dating between A.D. 800 and 1200. A srnal1 Late Woodland component with diagnostic
St. Lawrence Iroquoian pottery points to the possibility that the site was a regular fishing

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station over several centuries. The presence of few smoking pipes supports this
proposition (Clermont and Chapdelaine 1992); 2- Masson site is the only known single
component village located near Deschambault. It is a small village composed of 5 possible
longhouses with a low density of artefacts, although 14 vessels with corn-ear motifs
have been found. This corn-ear motif is definitely associated with the latest St. Lawrence
Iroquoian occupations in the Quebec City area (Benmouyal 1990); 3- the Cap Tourmente
lowlands east of Quebec City were the area of investigation selected in 1989. Several
Middle and Late Woodland sites were documented over 5 years of fieldwork. A series of
small Iroquoian camps were located on the lower terraces (Chapdelaine 1993a). The
location of a small hamlet and its large-scale excavation had permitted the recovery of a
good ceramic collection. After its analysis, it was thus proposed that the area was regularly
visited by transhumant Iroquoians en route toward the Estuary to exploit marine resources
(Chapdelaine 1993b).

While digging at the Royarnois site, the small hamlet with traces of 3 longhouses,
we had the visit of Jim Pendergast. He had the chance of looking at our ceramic sample
and he was a little bit upset by what we were willing to call St. Lawrence Iroquoian
pottery. Jim was facing a distinct regional style with various combinations of attributes
that he was tempted to consider as Algonquian imitation. He then asks me if I ever
considered the possibility that the Stadaconians were Algonquians and that Jacques Cartier
was wrong. Of course he was not serious and he changed his mind after looking at the
Deschambault or Masson Site collection. I remember a letter from Jim telling me how
impressed he was by that collection and how similar to Roebuck the pots were. In fact,
the late Eastern St. Lawrence Iroquoian phase, dated between A.D. 1450 and 1550, is
not well represented at Place Royale and Cap Tourmente but it is present in the estuary
where Roland Tremblay (1995) and Michel Plourde (1999) have been establishing an
Iroquoian presence on several sites. At the Royarnois site, the Late St. Lawrence Iroquoian
phase is represented by small amounts of rimsherds and the presence of two highly
distinctive Huron-like rimsherds supports a XVIth or early XVIIth occupation of the
site.

It could be argued that before the late appearance of highly diagnostic St. Lawrence
Iroquoian attributes, the groups inhabiting the Quebec City area and eastward were not
influenced much by the “western” St. Lawrence Iroquoian interaction sphere. Could
they be Algonquians imitating southern ceramic trends during the XIIIth and XIVth
centuries? Consequently, the arrival of St. Lawrence Iroquoians could thus be a late
phenomenon that coincide with the distinct style assigned to them and the related adaptive
system based on agriculture and village life. Every cultural change during Late Woodland
is much later in the Quebec City area. We wi1l come back later on this subject with an
interpretation of the Masson village site at Deschambault.

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Ceramic Variability and Seriation

Regarding ceramic variability and seriation, Pendergast had the strong conviction
that similarity was the reflection of time and space and he applied the seriation method
to build a regional sequence. One problem was to determine the attributes with the
strongest chronological significance. Not satisfied with his sequence, he invested more
in radiocarbon dating but the results were equivocal (Pendergast 1993a; see also Wright
1985). Ceramic variability, ceramic attributes and seriation were among the major
preoccupations of Jim Pendergast. He had a commanding view of the problem and in a
recent paper, published in 1996, entitled “Problem Orientation for St. Lawrence Iroquoian
Archaeological Research” he discussed what he called small problems and big problems.
Among the small problems he presents the need to consider “several minor attributes
that can serve to distinguish St. Lawrence Iroquoian pottery from similar-looking non-
St. Lawrence Iroquoian pottery.” (Pendergast 1996:53). He had become the advocate of
a particularistic approach although he was accused during his career of having a generalist
approach! A rimsherd found in the Tadoussac area has all the stylistic characteristics of
a St. Lawrence Iroquoian rimsherd but was considered by Pendergast to be an imitation
(Chapdelaine 1995a; Wright 1982:199, fig. 2). Pendergast also considered a similar St.
Lawrence Iroquoian vessel found in the Lac Temiscouata area to be an Algonquian
imitation (see Tremblay in this volume). The big problems he identified were the “paucity
of New Archaeological Data”, “Calibrated Radiocarbon Dating” and the
“Onontchataronon Algonquin Band” a subject on which he recently published two articles
(Pendergast 1999a, 1999b).

One perspective to study ceramic variability and build a seriation is to restrain our
efforts to a local sequence, a cluster, to favour the understanding of single community
and to follow it through time (Timmins and Staeck 1999). If variability is linked to
regular and intensive contacts between communities of a small area, it could be predicted
that some regional particularities will emerge and that they could have an impact on the
cultural identity of these communities. The maintenance of these regional characteristics
could very well become chronological markers as well. Variability is linked to different
but related stages in the making of an artefact. Ceramic vessels have been over used but
since this class of objects represents the bulk of all Late Woodland sites, we are facing a
vicious circle. Technological attributes are not often studied and variability might be
explained as the result of differently skilled potters. Choice of clay, selection of temper,
etc. are related to the potter and to his or her group if several members of the community
conduct this activity at the same time. Although autarchy is often considered a pre-
condition of craft production in egalitarian societies, very little is known of the Iroquoian
organization of production. The famous description by Father Sagard (1976:99) of the

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Huron women being responsible for pottery making might be a late phenomenon, XVIth
century, or not representative of all Iroquoian groups.

The impact of a group on a potter, either from the same longhouse or lineage
within the village, can be evaluated at the technological, morphological and stylistic
levels of pottery production. Variability can thus be studied at the longhouse level (see
Wright 1974 for a good example), between longhouses of the same village and between
villages of the same local or regional sequence if an identity, meaning homogeneity,
emerges from each village. Ceramic variability must consider middens as well since
they could very well be the product of several longhouses or lineages and they should
express a higher diversity of attributes than single longhouses. Assuming that each village
is inhabited by several lineages of more than one clan, the building of any regional
seriation must take into account the variability of each community.

The impact of a group on the potter or potters can thus be very strong, forcing the
craftsmen to reproduce systematically the most popular elements, or the impact might
be weak, allowing a more diversified production along a general stylistic approach.

Geopolitics and the Disappearance of St. Lawrence Iroquoians

The disappearance of the interaction sphere known as St. Lawrence Iroquoians,

which was composed of several related tribes is definitely a never-ending debate in
archaeology as for the History of Canada. The answer lies in the hands of archaeologists
but the hard facts are very rare. Indeed, it is not clear how many tribes participated in the
St. Lawrence Interaction sphere. It is also very difficult to support the idea that at one
point in time there was a confederation similar to the type known for XVIIth century
Huronia. It is however possible to recognize, on a general level, four provinces that may
be culturally looked at as tribes or community networks with a geographic proximity as
a logical standpoint (Figure 1). The names given to each area or province are based on
their relevance to historical names and places when possible. The northern province is
called “Canada”, the central one around Lake Saint-Pierre is called “Maisouna”, the
south-western one covering a huge area is called “Hochelaga” but it could be divided in
several clusters, and the last province is known as “Jefferson County Iroquoians” but
also comprises sites in the St. Lawrence County.

Regarding the causes of this total abandonment of the St. Lawrence Valley following
the dissolution of the villages and tribes, the role of the first Europeans with their trade
and viruses seems to be the second act of this whole drama with a first act preceding the
arrival of Europeans (Pendergast 1993b; Jamieson 1990). Endemic wars between
Iroquoian groups, not excluding war between members of the St. Lawrence Iroquoian

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FIGURE 1. St. Lawrence Iroquoian provinces and their gradual dispersal. (The numbers are
indicative of the relative chronological sequence)
1. Dispersal of the Jefferson County Iroquoians
2. Dispersal of the Hochelaga province
3. Population movements from the Hochelaga and Maisouna provinces toward the Canada
province

sphere, seem to be the major cause and the suggestion of a negative effect of a climatic
cold known as the Little Ice Age cannot be supported by any data and should not be
considered a prime factor in this cultural phenomena.

What most archaeologists believed is that the St. Lawrence Iroquoians disappeared
in different phases. It is thus a complex scenario with the possibility of various interacting
causes and relocation of several villages within a century. It is this task that Pendergast
started in his study of the Jefferson County Iroquoians, believing that they were the first

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to abandon their ancestral territory (Pendergast 1985). The geopolitics of the four different
clusters of this Upper St. Lawrence Valley sector has been a subject of two recent analyses
of ceramic collections of unequal value from different sites with few excavations (see
Abel 2001; Abel and Fuerst 1999; Engelbrecht 1995). The results are interesting but the
lack of extensive excavations and their related material culture is a major handicap to
subscribe to the suggestive propositions.

This whole region is still waiting a long-term program of field investigation.

Nonetheless the serious handicap of the data, two elements will be considered here. The
first is the unanimity of the different scholars to consider the four clusters located in
Jefferson County to be dynamic and related to distinct village sequences. The second
element referred to chronology. It is very difficult to distinguish between the regional
and/or the chronological sensibility of various attributes. It is believed that the popularity
of dentate stamping and possibly cord-wrapped stamping is indicative of an early St.
Lawrence Iroquoian phase. I have no argument to contradict this possibility of using
these two techniques as chronological indicators in the Upper St. Lawrence Valley but
they were still in use and popular at the Mandeville site and in other sites in the Quebec
City area during the last phase, which dates approximately between A.D. 1450 and 1600.

Within this seriation problem, it is worth mentioning the absence of the corn-ear
motif, which is considered a very late motif elsewhere along the St. Lawrence River.
Could this motif, as well as reed punctates making a stylized human face (triangle) and
the ladder motif were strong cultural markers and in different regions a chronological
marker as well. It is very dangerous to tackle this problem with ceramic vessels alone
and with few attributes but most sites are not very diversified in other cultural remains.
It is a vicious circle and most of our interpretations overstress the capacities of ceramic
data to tell the whole story. Nevertheless, the absence of corn-ear motif in several Jefferson
County clusters is a good argument to suggest their relocation elsewhere in the County
or with other Iroquoian groups east, west or northeast of their homeland. If we accept
this scenario, the Jefferson County Iroquoians were the first to leave their villages and
some of these possible population movements were taking place during the XVth century,
well before the arrival of Europeans.

In a tentative scenario, the fate of the distinctive clusters is different. It is believed

that some groups went to the Hurons who moved along the Upper Trent River Valley
during the XVIth century to join other tribes in Huronia (Abel 2001; Ramsden 1990)
while others merged with St. Lawrence Iroquoians of the Prescott Cluster (Abel 2001)
and with the Iroquois to the south (Engelbrecht 1995). Based on these propositions, the
Jefferson County Iroquoians had been at war with different groups (Figure 1). Under the

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FIGURE 2. A complete Iroquoian vessel with the corn-ear motif and

rimsherd fragment of distinct ceramic vessels with the corn-ear mo-
tif from the Masson site near Deschambault.

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pressure of two superpowers, the Hurons and the Iroquois, they decided to left their
home and their socio-political dissolution was complete.

Regarding the Hochelaga province and its numerous villages analyzed by

Pendergast along the north shore of the St. Lawrence river between Prescott and Montreal,
its abandon during the XVIth century might also be gradual. The ceramic seriation, the
basic tool for ordering sites into a local village sequence, is still a problem. In fact, the
years between A.D. 1450 and 1600 correspond to the establishment of a highly visible
style and it is difficult to order chronologically the sites with the available attributes or
with the ceramics collections at band. The McIvor, Glenbrook and Dawson sites are
certainly among the latest sites in their respective local sequence as well as the McKeown-
Maynard site with the discovery of an iron nail transformed into an awl (Wright and
Wright 1990). The communities of this large area maintained a strong network and the
sharing of various cultural traits is evident. For our purpose, the corn-ear motif may
have been invented in this area and should have been a clear cultural marker as well as
other types of behavior. It is difficult to propose a scenario in distinct phases for this area
although we know for sure that Hochelaga was inhabited in October 1535 and that
Iroquoians were still living on the Montreal Island in 1541. Were they the remnants of
the already abandoned Hochelaga province resulting from large-scale warfare between
their Summerstown and Prescott Clusters neighbours and the same superpowers that
seemed to be responsible for the earlier disappearance of the Jefferson county Iroquoians?

Pendergast recognized first through detailed analysis the influence of Huron style
on St. Lawrence Iroquoian pottery (1981) and it became useful for most reconstruction
of cultural dynamics. In this perspective, it is worth signalling that this Huron influence
is more evident on the latest sites of each local sequence of the Hochelaga province. The
absence of this Huron influence, mainly visible on medium or low collars with simple
design and particular types of castellation, is a key characteristic of the Mandeville
community, the latest known site of the Maisouna province. Other cultural elements
such as frequency of high collars with castellation, overhanging castellation, reed
punctates with human design, human face in a diamond shape under a castellation, ladder
motifs, etc., and the high frequency of effigy pipes indicate without a doubt that the
Mandeville site is at least contemporaneous to the Dawson site. It was argued that the
Montreal Island was a cultural boundary between the Hochelaga and Maisouna provinces.
In this regard, the small St. Lawrence Iroquoian cabin site near Missisquoi Bay on the
Pike River (Bilodeau site) is culturally linked to the Hochelaga province with the presence
of corn-ear motifs on several vessels (Blais 1993), which are totally absent at the
Mandeville site. This Bilodeau site is a fishing camp but could it be related to a Lake
Champlain cluster (Pendergast 1989) or part of seasonal cycle of Iroquoians coming
from the Montreal area? More data are needed to choose between the two options.

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FIGURE 3. Selected ceramic vessels with reed punctate decoration (upper two rows) and the
Roebuck low collar type (lower row) from the Masson site near Deschambault.

Following the trail of the corn-ear motif in the Quebec City area, the extensive
excavation of the Royarnois site (1300 m2, a small hamlet, had not permitted the recovery
of a single corn-ear motif. The same negative result has been obtained at Place Royale
downtown Quebec City where a large portion of the site has been excavated (Clermont

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and Chapdelaine 1992) and in all the excavations carried out on the Islands of the estuary
(Tremblay 1993, 1995). On all these sites where several ceramic vessels are decorated
with the highly distinctive St. Lawrence Iroquoian late phase style, the absence of the
corn-ear motif is established as well as the maintenance, although in minority, of the
dentate and cord-wrapped stick techniques. One eroded rimsherd from a small fishing
camp on a lower terrace of the Cap Tourmente Lowlands has been found with this
distinctive motif (Chapdelaine 1993a:92, Fig. 3j) and a well-preserved rimsherd with a
corn-ear motif was recovered at the Pointe à Crapaud site east of Tadoussac in a large
scale excavation in 1994 (Plourde 1999:21 ). Besides these two isolated finds, the only
site of the Quebec City area with a substantial presence of the corn-ear motif is the
Masson site near Deschambault (Benmouyal 1990).

The Masson site has been excavated within a salvage operation and several hundreds
of square meters were shovelled to the subsoil. The site is located 1.2 km away from the
St. Lawrence River on a sandy terrace 30 meters above sea level. The conservation on
this well-drained terrace was very poor and the regular ploughing of the land affected
the features such as postmolds, pits and hearths. A total of 5 possible longhouses have
been identified as well as the absence of a palisade. The limits of the village are unknown
but it is believed to be a small village (Benmouyal 1990). The artefact density was quite
low although a total of 21,000 objects have been recovered. It comprises more than
14,000 body sherds, 107 fragments of smoking pipes, one gaming disk, 17 juvenile
vessels, 83 ceramic vessels, 4500 fragments of lithic debitage, 165 lithic tools (mostly
scrapers and utilized flakes), 1067 bone wastes and 7 bone tools. Surprisingly, l4 vessels
were decorated with the corn-ear motif (Figure 2), which is very contrasting to the other
known sites of the area. This significant amount of vessels with corn-ear motif is even
more puzzling since this type of decorated vessel is absent in the Maisouna province.
The homogeneity of the ceramic production at the Masson site with the use of reed
punctates below castellation and the presence of the Roebuck low collar type (Figure 2),
a remark made by Pendergast when he had the opportunity of examining the collection,
suggests a community that was living in this village for a short period of time. It is
tempting to suggest that this community or an important segment of its population was
intrusive in the area. Their origin should certainly be the Hochelaga province where the
corn-ear motif was popular.

It is not our intention to make a strong point here concerning the intrusive nature
of the Masson community but the majority of chipping tools are in quartz (141/154 =
91,6%: 20/28 bifaces, 88/90 end scrapers, 33/36 used flakes, Benmouyal 1990:114) and
45% of the debitage is made of quartz (Benmouyal 1990:108), a behaviour contrary to
all the Iroquoian lithic assemblages of the Quebec City area where the chert in green,
grey, and black varieties is predominant. It seems that the inhabitants of the Masson site

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were newcomers in the area and upon their arrival in the area they were not able to
acquire large quantities of the chert well distributed on both sides of the St. Lawrence
River. It is thus proposed that the Masson site is a very late intrusive village community
in the Quebec City area. Since no European object has been found, the site might be
prehistoric or abandoned prior to the visit of Jacques Cartier. If this chronological
reasoning stands, it has serious implication on the abandonment of villages in the
Hochelaga province. The process may have started well before the first visit of Jacques
Cartier in 1535 and the apparent state of war was indeed a true one. The single corn-ear
decorated vessel found in the Estuary may have been obtained through trade between
members of the Masson site and the already established Iroquoian communities that was
exploiting on a regular basis the marine resources of the Estuary.

Conclusion

To conclude, Jim Pendergast was well aware of these different scenarios to explain
the disappearance of St. Lawrence Iroquoians (Pendergast 1993b) as well as the problem
of ceramic variability in establishing a seriation. He played with some attributes, for
which he thought had ethnic sensibility, and invoked stylistic permutation at the Glenbrook
Village Site (Pendergast 1981), a very late St. Lawrence Iroquoian village in its
chronological sequence. This attempt was a higher level of analysis that is still promising
but not yet convincing. He was impressed by the “... extreme conservatism of the
[Roebuck] potters as regards their use of decorative motifs.” (1973:3), and at the same
time he was able to recognize a Huron influence on several sites, an influence that was a
key attribute to put his seriation in order. The need of new archaeological data from
well-controlled excavation is indeed a big problem and if I have one wish, it is to see the
McKeown-Maynard Site Report be fully published as soon as possible (Pendergast 1990).
This will be a very good way to honour our friend, Jim Pendergast.

References

Abel, T. J.
2001 The Clay ton Cluster: Cultural Dynamics of a Late Prehistoric Village Sequence in the
Upper St. Lawrence Valley. Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, State Univer-
sity of New York at Albany.

Abel, T. J. and D. N. Fuerst

1999 The Prehistory of the Saint Lawrence Headwaters Region. Archaeology of Eastern North
America 27:1-52.

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Benmouyal, J.
1990 Un village iroquoien à Deschambault. Report submitted to the ministère des Affaires
culturelles du Québec.

Blais, J.
1993 The Bilodeau Site Near Missisquoi Bay: Postmolds, Fishbones and Corn-Ear Motifs. In
Essays in Saint Lawrence Iroquoian Archaeology, edited by J.F. Pendergast and C. Chapdelaine,
pp.75-85. Occasional Papers in Northeastern Archaeology 8, Copetown Press, Dundas, On-
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