Abstract

This paper details a landscape archaeology approach explaining the transition from Middle Woodland to Princess Point to Early Ontario Iroquoian settlement systems in southern Ontario circa A.D. 500-1200. This cultural transition zone is manifest both temporally and spatially, representing a zone of ideological and social 'boundaries' demonstrated by landscape analyses. The argument is made that a gender group, of which women were the large majority, was instrumental in the selection of settlement locations during the Princess Point period - a period of significant horticultural and settlement transition. This is reflected in the archaeological record through operational and cognised modelling of the interrelationships between gender, mobility, subsistence and settlement patterning through space and time. The result of this research provides archaeological evidence, supported by ethnographic accounts, of a gendered view of the landscape.