Abstract

Limited but tantalizing historical accounts and a century of intensive archaeological. investigation provide a wealth of information for reconstructing the cultural evolution of the Iroquoian group that occupied the southernmost region of Ontario. The nature of Neutral Iroquoian society in existence when Champlain, Daillon, Brébeuf, and Chaumonot were in southern Ontario differs significantly from the earlier phases of Neutral development. The environmental and cultural influences that moulded and re-shaped Neutral culture during the centuries before their dispersal between 1647 and 1651 will be examined, and a revised periodization of Neutral history, based on a range of cultural traits, will be presented.