Mantle Site

The "Jean-Baptiste Lainé" or Mantle Site in the town of Whitchurch–Stouffville, north-east of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is the largest and most complex ancestral Wendat-Huron village to be excavated to date in the Lower Great Lakes region. The site's southeastern access point is at the intersection of Mantle Avenue and Byers Pond Way.

Formerly thought to have been active 1500-1530, the prime period of the site has been shifted to 1587-1623, based on radiocarbon dating and Bayesian analysis. This has influenced new interpretations of migrations and population movement in the region among the Iroquoian peoples prior to the coalescence of the Wyandot.

The site
In 2002, remains of a Huron village from the late Precontact Period (i.e., immediately prior to the arrival of Europeans) was discovered during the construction of the new subdivision in Whitchurch–Stouffville along Stouffville Creek, a tributary of West Duffins Creek, on a section of Lot 33, Concession 9.

From circa 1587-1623, an estimated 1500 to 2000 people inhabited the 4.2 hectare site. The community likely consisted of persons who came from multiple smaller sites, including the Draper Site, located five kilometres south-east of Mantle in north Pickering.

In 2012, archaeologists revealed that they had discovered a forged wrought iron axehead of European origin, which had been carefully buried in a longhouse at the centre of the village site. It is believed that the axe originated from a Basque whaling station in the Strait of Belle Isle (Newfoundland and Labrador), and was traded into the interior of the continent a century before Europeans began to explore the Great Lakes region. "It is the earliest European piece of iron ever found in the North American interior."

The Mantle Site was enclosed by a three-row wooden fort-like structure (palisade) surrounding 95 longhouses, of which at least 50 were occupied at any one time. Each longhouse was approximately 20 ft wide, 20 ft high; lengths varied from 40 ft to 160 ft, with a typical length of 100 ft. They were constructed from maple or cedar saplings and covered by elm or cedar bark. The layout displays a uniquely high degree of organization (when compared, e.g., to the Draper Site), and includes an open plaza and a developed waste management system.



Maize comprised 62% of the community's diet, which translates to approximately one pound of maize per person per day, or (minimally) 1,500 pounds for the community per day. More maize may have been required for trade with the Algonquin people to the north. The community farmed 8 sqkm of land, stretching up to 5 km in every direction from the village site. For clothing up to 6,800 deer skins per year were needed, which would have required hunting in a least 40 km in every direction from the site.

A series of modeled human and animal effigy ceramic vessels were found on the site. These are similar to ones found at on contemporaneous Oneida villages in New York State, indicating the cosmopolitan nature of the community that settled the Mantle Site. The humanlike effigies are thought to be mythical cornhusk people associated with horticultural crops.

Unlike other indigenous villages in the Great Lakes region, the Mantle Site is unique "in that it represents a community that had already come together from several villages and chose to build here." During its existence, the community was the only village near the eastern Rouge trail linking Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe and north of it. Artifacts found indicate trade and interaction with distant First Nations groups to the north, east, south and west.

After two or three decades on the Mantle Site, the people abandoned the location in the first half of the sixteenth century. They likely moved five kilometres north-west to the so-called Ratcliff Site and / or the Aurora Site. In the seventeenth century, the community likely joined others to form one of the Huron tribes in the Orillia-Georgian Bay area.

Excavation and evaluation of site and artifacts
With the discovery of the Mantle Site by Lebovic Enterprises, Archaeological Services Inc. was contracted to complete an evaluation of the site's significance. A decision was made to preserve about 5% of the original Mantle Site, primarily along the bank of the creek. The site was documented and over 150,000 artifacts were removed for study and interpretation at McMaster University and the University of Toronto. Because of their national significance, the artifacts will be safeguarded by the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The archaeological site-work took three years to complete (2003–2005).

Succeeding development
Most of the site is now used as a storm water pond; the homes on the south-west corner of Lost Pond Crescent also occupy part of the village site. See "Did you know: Mantle Site (interview with Dr. Jennifer Birch," Rogers TV Videos First Local (2:14 minutes; accessed July 18, 2012); Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Communicating with Aboriginal Peoples: The Municipal Role (Presentation, London, ON, 2007); compare Slide 5 (aerial photograph identifying the Mantle Site, looking south) with Google satellite view and location of storm water pond. "In York Region, such a fate for an Iroquoian village is common. Builders here accept salvage archeology as a normal part of the development process, but still opt to remove sites rather than build around them. 'It's an economic decision.'" Development leaving history in a box, by M. Adler, Stouffville Sun-Tribune, August 23, 2003, p. 3. The Toronto Star quotes David Donnelly, lawyer for the Huron-Wendat Nation, on new provincial guidelines for consultation expected January 1, 2011: "The developers will invite the First Nations in for a chat and then, nine times out of ten, development will just go ahead" First Nation Battles for History in Court, Sept. 10, 2010. In the area immediately north of the village site, the creek had been damned by early European pioneers (Boyer's (Byer's) Pond), which in turn powered Boyer's Mill (edge the Mantle village site); cf. Jean Barkey et al., Stouffville 1877–1977 (Stouffville, 1977), pp. 122, 127. A small cemetery found outside the village walls has been preserved and protected in accordance with the provincial cemeteries act and in consultation with First Nations.

The consequent development of the west side of the creek in the Fieldgate River Ridge subdivision around James Ratcliff Avenue was delayed significantly. The expected village ossuary, a mass grave with an expected 300 to 400 skeletal remains, has not been yet been located. The Town of Whitchurch–Stouffville is planning further housing development immediately south of the Mantle Site in the town's Phase Two development plan.

In 2004, First Nations peoples visited the site and performed ceremonies. The Mantle Site (among others) is mentioned in the 2007 provincial inquiry into the Ipperwash Crisis; the report highlights the importance of ancestral burial sites to First Nations people, explains why they often become flashpoints for occupation (a need to protect them from further desecration), and recommends consultation with First Nations regarding the disposition of a site.

Recognition and legacy
Consequently in 2007, the Town Council of Whitchurch–Stouffville recognized the Mantle Site as "one of the most significant Huron ancestral villages in Southern Ontario," and committed itself to work with the Huron to "assign aboriginal names to watercourses, streets and trails in and around the Mantle Site and elsewhere in the municipality."

In 2011, the York Region District School Board announced that it would name the new school to be built adjacent to the site the "Wendat Village Public School."

In Summer 2011, Wendat ceremonies were held at the site, and it was renamed the "Jean-Baptiste Lainé" Site in honour of a decorated Second World War Huron-Wendat veteran.

In 2017 Ontario Heritage Trust installed historic provincial plaques about the Jean-Baptiste Lainé Site near the Wendat Village Public School, recounting the history and significance of the site, the evidence of the wide trading network, and the relation of this 16th-century ancestral community to the rise of the Huron-Wendat people. The plaque is in English, French, and Wendat, an Iroquoian language.

Dating
Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and short-lived botanical material late in the second decade of the twenty-first century and Bayesian analysis has resulted in a re-dating of the Mantle Site to a fairly precise time period, to wit 1587-1623 (with 95.4% probability). This analysis has also resulted in the redating of the related Draper and Spang sites, with conclusions about the speed of change among the region's indigenous peoples in this period.

Wendat people today
The Huron (Wendat) are considered one of the peoples of the larger Iroquoian cultural and language family. The Huron-Wendat Nation is a First Nation whose community and reserves today are located at Wendake, Quebec. The Huron, and other local First Nation peoples, have urged towns and developers in York Region to preserve indigenous sites so that they may "worship at the places where [their] ancestors are buried." The discovery of a sixteenth-century European axe at Mantle is also of political importance for the Wendat First Nation, for its current negotiations with federal and provincial governments.

Film and television
In 2012, a two-hour documentary film on the Mantle Wendat-Huron Village Site, Curse of the Axe, was produced by yap films in association with Shaw Media, and narrated by Robbie Robertson.