1
Port Frankscirca 1946-1947
Port Franks, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Musuem of Ontario Archaeology
2
One of the annual rituals that Amos developed involved excursions to the Port Franks area to fish or duck hunt. Once he was old enough, Wilf accompanied Amos. It was during one of these trips that they started to pay closer attention to the large quantities of artifacts that lay exposed on the surface of the sand dunes there. An outcrop at Kettle Point is geologically unique since massive quantities of high quality chert are contained within a small formation jutting outinto Lake Huron. This "silica reef" was first professionally studied by two of Wilf's associates at the University of Western Ontario. Wilf undertook detailed investigations at a series of camps and flint workshops in the dunes around Port Franks in 1946, 1947 and 1948.
3
Flint beds at Port Frankscirca 1946-1947
Port Franks, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Museum of Ontario Archaeology
4
Upon returning from their honeymoon in April 1948, Wilf took Elsie out for her first experience at excavating a prehistoric archaeological site, the Crawford village in Bosanquet Township, Lambton County. Wilf had learned about this Iroquoian village from the landowner, who had visited Wilf when he was working in Port Franks. This excavation would prove to be significant as Wilf and Elsie's first joint archaeological project in Southwestern Ontario and for demonstrating the western extent of sites now known to date to the Middle Ontario Iroquoian period (1300-1350 A.D.).5
Burley site, on the Ausable River near Port Frankscirca 1947-1950
Port Franks, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Museum of Ontario Archaeology
6
Wilf at Burley sitecirca 1947-1950
Port Franks, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Museum of Ontario Archaeology
7
Wilf had anticipated that someday a major site would be discovered along the Ausable River and this was proven correct in April 1950 when construction along the river exposed an important site. "We were richly rewarded by the finding of archaeological evidence that pre-dates any known culture focus in the Province of Ontario. The site, too, was of exceedingly great interest as three human occupational strata were discovered, superimposed one upon the other, the oldest being at a depth of 8 1/2 feet below sod level" (Wilfrid Jury, in UWO President's Report 1949-1950).8
Excavation at Burley sitecirca 1947-1950
Port Franks, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Museum of Ontario Archaeology
9
Excavation at Burley sitecirca 1947-1950
Port Franks, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Museum of Ontario Archaeology
10
Those three stratified layers on the Burley site had been deposited during what archaeologists now know to be the Initial Woodland period (900 B.C. - 500 A.D.), the Middle Ontario Iroquoian period (1300-1350, contemporaneous with the Crawford site) and the Late Ontario Iroquoian period (prehistoric Neutral stage circa 1400-1500 A.D.). The lowest level yielded pottery totally unfamiliar to Wilf and his interpretation of it as characteristic of the Initial Woodland Period was based on the expert opinion of Dr. James B. Griffin, then Director of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. Also at that time (1950) American anthropologists were developing a radical new method for dating sites, and samples of wood charcoal from Burley yielded the first radiocarbon date for a Canadian site. |
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