The Dorchester Site is a 15th century
Iroquoian site, just east of Dorchester, Ont., overlooking the Thames River. Long known to local people
and archaeologists alike, the site was fully excavated by TMHC in 2004.
Professional archaeologists and university students together discovered not one but two exquisitely preserved palisaded villages. Hearths and ash pits in houses and
some enormous garbage features suggested that Aboriginal peoples hunted and fished along the Thames River. Probably they also grew crops in the sandy
soils around their villages. Residential development at the Dorchester Site illustrates that we are all still attracted to the same features of the landscape that drew peoples of the past.
The Thames and its surroundings remain a focus for
habitation after all these years.
Corporate Experience
During the first two years of business, TMHC has been involved in over 100 projects. Many of these were Stage 1 and 2 assessments for subdivisions, parks, pipelines, highway expansions, aggregate pits, and pumping stations. The largest of these involved the survey of a 1500 acre study area for a wind power generation project near Kingsbridge in Huron County.
TMHC also conducted 25 Stage 3 and 4 assessments, including the excavation of three Late Paleoindian camps in Brantford, Ontario, two small Early-Middle Archaic camps on the Nith River, an early 19th century squatter's homestead on the property of Isaac Carling (son of famed brewer Thomas Carling), and a historic portage route on the French River. Our projects varied in scale from small site excavations to the documentation of a large, multiple occupation Iroquoian village.
Our project history includes consultation and negotiation of the cultural heritage aspects of a First Nations land claim with the Federal Government, the relocation of aboriginal burials and a historic cemetery, the preparation of teaching documents and heritage values maps for a local First Nation, the evaluation of one of the first examples of row housing in an early industrial centre, and the development and design of an educational website on Iroquoian archaeology in London, Ontario.