Droulers-Tsiionhiakwatha National Historic Site of Canada
Backgrounder
The Droulers-Tsiihionhiakwatha site lies about 70 km upstream of Montréal on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, across from Saint-François Lake, in the municipality of Saint-Anicet. Discovered in 1994, this site represents an Iroquoian village of the mid-15th century in the heart of a region where a large number of archaeological sites have been found. It provides an exceptional glimpse into the village life of the Iroquoians of the St. Lawrence.
Droulers-Tsiihionhiakwatha is the largest pre-contact Indigenous village site discovered so far in Quebec, and ranks as a major site in terms of the scientific quality of the data it reveals. A soil with an exceptionally high alkaline pH and an underlying stony matrix have resulted in exceptional preservation of the structures marking the location of dwellings, bone objects and bone remains associated with cooking. In all, 25 structures and two middens have been found. The evidence of a remarkable material culture includes ceramic vessels, fragments of pipes, stone items, bone tools, a few ornaments of pageantry and even some delicate fish bones left over from cooking. Close to 150,000 artefacts have been taken from a fairly small area of excavation, and it is estimated that more than 7 million are still buried at the site.
The site also contains a wide and abundant variety of plant remains, including domesticated plants such as corn, beans, squash and sunflowers. Wild plants include hawthorn, American wild plum, pin cherry, wild grapes, butternut, raspberry and choke cherry. These remains include 19,294 entire seeds, seed fragments, cobs, and fruit and cotyledon fragments.
The Droulers-Tsiionhiakwatha site is the most important and best-preserved known site associated with the St. Lawrence Iroquoian people in Canada. The quality of the scientific data it contains ranks it among the major sites that document the traditional life of Iroquoians in Eastern Canada. This archaeological site contains one of the most significant collections of domesticated and wild plants recovered from an Iroquoian site in Eastern Canada.
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