Heritage Inventories and Tourism
In the past decade local communities have become increasingly aware of the social and economic benefits of study and preservation of the past. Communities of all kinds are interested in promoting their history for tourism, educating their youth about the past and protecting heritage resources for the future. TMHC helps communities recognize and inventory important heritage resources and prepare plans for their promotion and protection.
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.