“From Crap to Archaeology:” The CRM Shaping of Nineteenth

Introduction

In recent years I have developed a sideline to mywriting, exploring various dimensions related tothe rise of consulting, commercial or culturalresource management (CRM) archaeology inOntario (Ferris 1998a, 1999a, 2000a, 2002,2003, 2004, and 2007). I do believe this is animportant topic for the Ontario archaeologicalcommunity to explore, given the radical changesthat CRM archaeology has brought to the prac-tice in a relatively short period of time. So it isperhaps no surprise that I would want to explorehow nineteenth-century domestic archaeology inOntario has been shaped by CRM archaeology,integrating my personal research interests andlived experience.

But I would argue that the topic representsmore than just happy serendipity for me.Critically, nineteenth-century domestic sitearchaeology, more than any other class of site(with the possible exception of nondiagnosticlithic scatters), has in large measure been“birthed” by CRM archaeology in Ontario. Bythis I mean that the coming together of individ-ual interests, development pressures and provin-cial regulation in the 1980s changed nineteenth-century domestic sites from being dismissed byarchaeologists as irrelevant to research and somuch “recent disturbance,” to being a legitimate

part of the Ontario archaeological record, worthyof research, conservation effort and proponentexpense.

I should first clarify what it is I am referring toas “nineteenth-century domestic site archaeolo-gy.” As with most terms that have largely arisenfrom idiosyncratic labelling within CRM prac-tice, the term is a large box in which distinctclasses of archaeological sites and deposits areplaced. Certainly the term includes rural home-steads or farmsteads—rural by virtue of the land-scape when they were occupied, regardless ofwhether, when subsequently found and investi-gated, they were located in rural, suburban orurban contexts. This category includes the initialsettlers’ pioneer cabin we all imagine and seereflected in popular advertising—that log cabincarved out of the forest with little in the way ofoutbuildings or visible landscape alterations.Indeed, my subjective impression is that this isthe picture many CRM archaeologists have intheir heads as they strip topsoil looking to find asingle cellar and, if lucky, an adjacent privy.

But of course most rural domestic sites turnout to be more than the stereotype, having beenoccupied beyond the initial years of homesteador township settlement. Rural domestic sites canencompass a wide array of residences, includingsequentially occupied locales, dwellings withadditions and renovations, outbuildings, waste

Ferris The CRM Shaping of Nineteenth-Century Domestic Site Archaeology 3

“From Crap to Archaeology:” The CRM Shaping of Nineteenth-Century Domestic Site Archaeology

Neal Ferris

This paper reviews the history of CRM investigations into nineteenth-century Euro-Canadian domesticsites in southern Ontario and considers how that history has shaped the current state of the practice. Thishistory is not a lengthy one: prior to the late 1980s CRM archaeologists could and did regularly ignore nine-teenth-century materials. Instrumental in changing attitudes were the research and publications of Ian andThomas Kenyon, which went a long way towards finding a broader acceptance for this kind of site. Butwhile many nineteenth-century domestic sites are now documented and excavated every year, methods ofexcavation and analysis can often be by rote, a sort of mimicking of what “Ian would have done,” withoutconsidering whys and why-nots. In effect, the potential and value of this important archaeological andsocial historical site type has been slow to advance beyond initial acceptance of the site type in the 1980s.

areas, sewage and water drainage, near-houseactivities, laneways and gardens, fences and land-scapes, and even small commercial, industrial, orfarmstead services—sometimes neatly separatedon the ground; and sometimes not (e.g., Quark2001). This cacophony of archaeological fea-tures, deposits and depositional processes is moreconsistent with the mainstream concept of“farmstead” explored in American historicalarchaeological literature (e.g., Baugher and Klein2003; De Cunzo and Catts 1990; Doroszenko2003; Fisher 2000; Groover 2003, 2004; Peña2000; Wilson 1990; see also MacDonald1997:56-61 for an Ontario overview).

In addition, domestic residences may haveoriginated as a product of urban design or, afterinitial stages of occupation, they may have beenenveloped by village or urban growth during thenineteenth century. Likewise, domestic resi-dences were created as part of industrial orplanned settlement to become momentary ormore enduring ghettos of economic, ethnic orracial categorisation and residence (e.g., Lucas2006; Mrozowski et al. 1996; Peña and Denmon2000; Shackel 2000; Spude 2005). All of thesecontexts are iterations of “nineteenth-centurydomestic site archaeology,” whether readily evi-dent as such to the investigator during surveyand site assessment, or only after site excavationand documentary research. This, then, is the col-lection of archaeological contexts I am consider-ing in the remainder of this paper.

The Father (and Father’s Father) ofNineteenth-Century Domestic Site

Archaeology in Ontario

While a few Ontario archaeologists such as WilfJury had exhibited some research interest innineteenth-century domestic site archaeologyand pioneer life earlier in the twentieth century,a formal, broader focus on this type of site onlytruly emerged in the later 1970s and early 1980s,and then only among a handful of Ontarioarchaeologists. This pattern is generally consis-tent with the evolution of historical archaeologi-cal research in North America as a whole. Early

in the twentieth century, there tended to be afocus across the continent on sites of military,industrial, fur trade, fort, marine and architec-tural importance, as well as on material studiesand the industrial and temporal dimensions ofthose goods (e.g., Kidd 1969; Noël Hume 1969,1973, 1978; Schuyler 1978a; see also Huey 1997for a good overview of the development of his-torical archaeology in adjacent New York State).An expansion of the focus and growth in diversi-ty of historical archaeological research, and in thetheoretical and methodological underpinnings ofthe practice, only really began to appear in the1960s and 1970s (e.g., Binford 1977; Clelandand Fitting 1977; Deagan 1982; Deetz 1977;Fitting 1977; South 1977).1

Despite this intellectual maturing and reflexiveconsideration of what “historical archaeology”means, during the 1960s and 1970s the focusremained dominated by “grand scale” colonialistmanifestations in the archaeological record.Indeed, the institutional and nationalistic (as innation-founding) dimensions of historicalarchaeology in the mid-twentieth century fuelledfunding and provided much of its early researchfocus, making historical archaeology as much thedomain of government agencies such as ParksCanada and the United States National ParkService, or even more so, than of the academicworld (Deagan 1988; Klimko 2004; Schuyler1978b; Wylie 1993). This “history of our nation”focus dominated historical archaeological activi-ties in North America through much of thetwentieth century, even while intellectualadvances and self-reflexive critiques helpedadvance broader conceptual frames for the prac-tice (e.g., Cleland 2001; Deetz 1983; Funari etal. 1999; Hall and Silliman 2006; Leone andPotter 1999; Little 1994; Orser 1996, 2005).

As historical archaeology in North Americaexpanded to encompass more than the monu-mental institutional, political, military, upper-class-male and national histories, there was grow-ing interest in the remains of nineteenth-centurydomestic life—frontier, settler, pioneer, immi-grant, labourer, agricultural; all of which weregendered, ethnic, and classed. In Ontario, therewere several archaeologists advancing this interest

4 Ontario Archaeology No. 83/84, 2007

during the 1970s. For me, the two most seminalindividuals were Thomas (Tim) and IanKenyon.2

Tim Kenyon was well known in theHamilton-Niagara-Grand River area for hisinterest in all things historical. His interestincluded a strong photographic pursuit of thelandscape, architecture and people of the lowerGrand River Valley, and surveying and collectingancient and particularly post-A.D. 1600 sites inthe region, including surface scatters of nine-teenth-century ceramic, glass, brick and bone.He repeatedly returned to collect more materialfrom the various Aboriginal and non-Aboriginaldomestic sites he documented, creating sizeablecollections. He also conducted limited excava-tions of nineteenth-century sites, such as theAnthonys Mills site in Dunnville (Kenyon andKenyon 1986), and the John Croker site, also inHaldimand County (Kenyon and Faux 1981).

Ian shared many of Tim’s archaeologicalpredilections, developing early research interestsin the contact-era Neutral Iroquoian villages ofthe Hamilton-Brantford area, Late ArchaicBroadpoint sites, and nineteenth-century domes-tic site archaeology from the same area and oftenfrom the same sites Tim had found initially.Through happenstance, or brilliant foresight ofBill Fox, Ian was hired in the late 1970s to workin the Ministry of Culture and Recreation’sLondon field office. There, he pursued manylong- and short-term research projects, several ofwhich were related to nineteenth-century archae-ology. By 1980, Ian had developed two informa-tional guides for archaeologists on nineteenth-century ceramics and nineteenth-century sites(Kenyon 1980a, 1981).3 He had also conductedfieldwork on various nineteenth-century sites,including the Kitchener Gaol (Kenyon 1980b)and the Van Egmond House in Seaforth, andexpanded his search for nineteenth-century sitesbeyond the lower Grand River by surveyingalong the Sydenham and Thames Rivers (e.g.,Kenyon 1987a).

Coincidentally, the London Chapter of theOntario Archaeological Society was formed in1977 and shared space with the Ministry’sregional office. The establishment of the chapter

newsletter, Kewa, provided a ready outlet for Ianand Tim’s voracious appetite for historicalresearch, superior graphic skills, and interest innineteenth-century archaeology. In 1980, Ianand Tim initiated a popular feature called“Nineteenth Century Notes,” which consisted ofone-page information sheets on various aspectsof mostly nineteenth-century material culture.By the end of 1984, Kewa had published close tothree dozen “Nineteenth Century Notes;” Ian’sfirst two articles on nineteenth-century ceramics(Kenyon 1982, 1983); a paper that synthesizedthe multiple domestic sites that he had surface-collected and upon which he had conductedextensive historical research (Ferris and Kenyon1983); and a paper on a fully excavated domesticsite as a result of CRM work (Kenyon et al.1984). It had even published an analysis of cloth-ing buttons from various nineteenth-centurysites extensively illustrated by Tim Kenyon(Ferris 1984). Thus, Kewa helped to focus atten-tion (in at least parts of southern Ontario) onnineteenth-century archaeology, which was ofreal interest to Ian as a legitimate subject but per-haps only tolerated by others. At the same time,broader attention was being given to Ian andTim’s research, arising from their work on theproduction, distribution, use, and disposal ofnineteenth-century ceramics, and the interpreta-tive potential of ceramics as more than justchronological aids.

The ceramic chronology that first appeared asa guide for avocational and professional archae-ologists (Kenyon 1980a) was a solid piece ofresearch, developed from Ian and Tim’s work onmaterial they collected from more than 100nineteenth-century archaeological sites in south-western Ontario. It was augmented by extensiveresearch on commercial suppliers, distributors,inventories of various ceramic stocks in local drygoods stores, and the dates of the first appearancein the region of specific ceramic styles such assponged ware or ironstone. This was an essentialpiece of work that filled a void in knowledgewith an entirely made-in-Ontario analysis.

Importantly, the guide also had a brief sectionabout “social dimensions” of ceramic use. Ianand Tim were interested specifically in using


ceramics to gain insight into class and ethnic pat-terns derived from the variable representation ofexpensive and inexpensive ceramic sherds in siteassemblages, and in the relative proportions ofplates to cups and saucers and bowls. Using over100 samples, they noted meaningful differencesamong these assemblages. This focus of researchculminated in a 1982 paper (Kenyon andKenyon 1982) presented at the Philadelphiameetings of the Society for HistoricalArchaeology.4 Though never published, it wasdistributed and cited widely. It demonstrated theresearch potential of using nineteenth-centurydomestic sites to explore various questions ofarchaeological interest. In other words, it legit-imised a focus on a part of the archaeologicalrecord so often dismissed by Ontario archaeolo-gists at the time as being of little or no researchinterest.

By the mid-1980s, Ian was further refining hisceramic seriations and expanding his analysis ofsocial dimensions of nineteenth-century domes-tic life. He published this work as a series of arti-cles in the Ontario Archaeological Society’snewsletter Arch Notes (Kenyon 1985a, 1985b,1985c, 1987b, 1988a, 1988b),5 which were thencompiled, further revised and expanded (Kenyon1991). Having satisfied his wish to explorechronologies and industrial changes, he thenwrote a series of insightful articles, includingsome co-written with his wife Susan, on nine-teenth-century foodways, ceramic stocks, the dis-tribution and use of ceramics, and the decline ofrural homelots in nineteenth-century Ontario(Kenyon and Kenyon 1992, 1993; Kenyon1992, 1995).6 But critically for present discus-sion, it was the attention Ian gave to the impacton, and possibilities for, nineteenth-centurydomestic sites arising from consulting archaeolo-gy that links Ian closely to the current state ofpractice in Ontario.

Late in 1985, the Ministry of Citizenship andCulture hosted in London the first-ever gather-ing of Ontario private-sector consultant and gov-ernment archaeologists to talk about issues aris-ing from the emerging practice of CRM archae-ology. It was an important meeting in manyways, and triggered the development of technical

guidelines for consultants and the formation of aMinistry Development Review unit. A numberof papers were presented during the meetings,several of which touched on historical archaeolo-gy (e.g., Adams 1986; Stewart 1986), whileanother specifically touched on nineteenth-cen-tury CRM salvage archaeology (Mayer 1986).But it was Ian Kenyon’s (1986a) piece, provoca-tively titled “‘That Historic Crap!’ HistoricArchaeological Resource Management,” thatwould prove important in shaping the directionthat CRM archaeology would take with respectto nineteenth-century domestic sites.

In typical Ian fashion, the piece was a subtlechiding of the CRM practitioners collected inthe room for their failure to reconsider the pre-dominant, dismissive attitude towards historicalartifact scatters. Ian was specifically referring tonineteenth-century domestic sites—a ubiquitoussite type on the landscape of southern Ontario—which, he knew from his day-to-day experiencesin the Ministry, were being variably acknowl-edged, ignored or mangled in their interpretationby archaeologists. Ian’s message was intended tobe straightforward: there are legitimate researchinterests and concerns for this type of site. Theyrequire archaeologists to develop enhanced skillsfor both archival research and artifact identifica-tions otherwise not the usual forte of Ontario“prehistorians.” Ian argued:

“That Historic Crap” sometimes seems toexist in an archaeological border zone,where every nineteenth-century site wasapparently occupied by a RodneyDangerfield, because they don’t get norespect. “That Historic Crap,” or somesaltier version of this phrase, is not anuncommon refrain among archaeolo-gists… There is little question that forsome this relatively recent material is toorecent, too recent to merit anything but aperfunctory examination…

And what of the “That HistoricCrap” attitude? In part its origin seems tolie somewhere within the bowels of theDepartments of Anthropology in which


most archaeologists working in Ontariohave been trained. Somehow historicalmaterial is not always perceived to fitwithin the theoretical perspective of“anthropological archaeology.” I wasforcefully reminded of this recently. Aformer professor of mine, who had justreceived an article I had written on someaspect of nineteenth-century archaeology,was overheard to say upon its receipt:“Well, he always had tendencies in thatdirection” [emphasis in original].

Yet it seems to me this negative atti-tude represents a long out of date view-point, one smacking of antiquarianism,where somehow the oldest and the mostprimitive are what really are of relevance.Yet… it is not the antiquity or so-calledprimitiveness of a culture that is impor-tant, but understanding people them-selves, regardless of who they are, wherethey live, or when they existed. Yet I cansympathize with my former professor, forhe is an academic who is perfectly free tonarrowly select his field of interest…Those of us associated with the consultingindustry, however, have no such luxury[emphasis added].

The question which follows is this: isjustice being done to these historic sitesby those who are paid to say somethingabout them? The answer, it seems to me,is an unequivocal yes/maybe/no… I hesi-tate to make any recommendations, sincethis is just one person’s opinion…[Kenyon 1986a:41]

Ian articulated what were, in effect, meaning-ful and “reasonable” CRM guidelines for con-ducting historic site documentary and siteresearch for Stage 1 through 4 (backgroundstudy, survey, site testing, excavation) consultingpractices. He then provided an appendix of his-torical sources related to Ontario to help CRMarchaeologists conduct informed documentaryresearch when dealing with historic sites.

To my recollection, Ian’s plea for respect fornineteenth-century domestic sites, made in a roomfilled with the vast majority of Ontario’s CRMpractitioners and regulators at the time, had thedesired effect. It established a new consensus: con-sultant archaeologists would no longer walk awayfrom, fail to report on, or refuse to excavate at leastsome portion of the nineteenth-century archaeo-logical record found during CRM surveys. Indeed,when the CRM community met during the fol-lowing few years to develop what would becomethe first set of technical standards for the practiceof consulting archaeology in Ontario, some formof historical background research was identified asa standard requirement for Stage 1 backgroundstudies and for Stage 3 site-specific assessments.Likewise, the category of “European pioneer asso-ciations” was identified as a basis for determining asite’s information potential, i.e., significance, whendeciding the need to conduct Stage 4 excavations(MCTR 1993). Ian had specifically “encouraged”archaeologists to adopt all of these technical stan-dards in his 1985 conference paper (Kenyon1986a).

That Ian was able to make nineteenth-centurydomestic sites a legitimate part of the archaeologi-cal record for the Ontario archaeological commu-nity and among CRM practitioners arose in nosmall part from the respect that many people in thecommunity held for Ian and his work. His researchon nineteenth-century sites was well known fromhis many Kewa and Arch Notes articles, conferencepapers, and constant willingness, as a governmentarchaeologist, to help consultants and other profes-sionals and avocationals. But Ian was also knownand respected for his insightful and thoroughresearch in all time periods, and for his ency-clopaedic knowledge of all things pertaining toOntario archaeology, as well as other things bothconventional and esoteric. Phone calls and visits toIan to pick his brain were a daily occurrence at theMinistry office. Given that most of his colleagues,trained as hard-core “prehistorians,” could recog-nise Ian’s legitimate and extensive interest in thingsthey knew something about, the fact that he wasalso well-versed in things they didn’t know muchabout gave him and his “tendency” to researchnineteenth-century domestic sites additional


credibility. This kind of influence would nothave been achieved to nearly the same extent by,for example, a hard-core historical materialist,had one suddenly parachuted into the OntarioCRM community.

At no time did consultants rely more on Ian’sexpertise than when they struggled to identify his-torical artifacts or make sense of that historical“crap” in the field. Ian developed a guide for con-sultants to analyse and seriate ceramic tablewaresrecovered during survey in order to come up witha median age for a site (Kenyon 1986b). Thisceramic seriation guide, or “ceramic checklist” as itwas often called, listed all major nineteenth-centu-ry ceramic decorative types in a data table, whichthe investigating archaeologist then filled in,recording the number of sherds by decorative type.Ian then added a home-made software program tothe form, in effect a datasheet that consultantscould use to input their sherd counts, by ware anddecoration, which would then allow them to cal-culate a median date of occupation for the site inquestion. The sheet also included instructions onhow to collect a ceramic assemblage in the field,giving recommendations as to the minimum num-ber of decorated, undecorated and rim sherdsneeded to achieve accurate results with the pro-gram and to obtain a useable median age.7 Again,this was done in order to ensure a consistency inthe recovery practices CRM archaeologists used fornineteenth-century domestic sites. This toolproved to be very popular with consultants and,during the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was oftenincluded in their reports (at least in southwesternOntario). The recommendation concerning sitesignificance for such assemblages would often beguided solely by the median age of the site as cal-culated by the program.

In a very short period of time Ian saw nine-teenth-century domestic sites in Ontario go fromundocumented “historic crap,” lacking muchrespect from the broader archaeological communi-ty, to being a fully entrenched part of the archaeo-logical record, regularly documented by all archae-ologists. And all this happened right on the eve ofa dramatic increase in CRM archaeology inOntario.

Changing Archaeological Landscapes inOntario

All dimensions of archaeology have significantlychanged over the last 30 years with the rise of cul-tural resource management, an activity that com-pletely dominates the practice today (Ferris 1998a,2002). This change was not really planned for. Thearticulation of standards of practice and expecta-tions tended, therefore, to be after-the-fact duringthose rare occasions when the community couldpause and reflect on the state of the industry.Indeed, during the early CRM years, for the entirearchaeological record, “community standards” offield practice, analysis and reporting evolved most-ly from personal predilections, common assump-tions of importance and past conventional researchfoci. For example, anything with Aboriginalceramics was considered significant; lithic scatterswere considered significant if projectile points thatwere mostly from the same period were found; andanything with Fossil Hill chert (or other Palaeo-Indian attributes) required excavation. Of course,for the precontact record, personal predilectionsand variation in experience meant that not every-one could recognize Palaeo-Indian materials,points could be mis-identified, and some archaeol-ogists might readily dismiss as insignificant sitesnot of their own research domain. But notwith-standing issues of competency, views that weregenerally divergent tended to reinforce and reifythe middle-of-the-road consensus articulatedthrough a range of similar practices followed by themajority of CRM archaeologists in the province. InOntario today, there is broad recognition of thefeatures and characteristics that are required ofmost pre-contact sites to identify them as signifi-cant. They are echoed back to the practising com-munity through standards the province has codi-fied, or is in the process of codifying, in various reg-ulatory and policy standards and guidelines.

These standards evolved from the practical expe-riences of archaeologists during the previous centu-ry working with the precontact archaeologicalrecord in Ontario. At the same time, there was verylittle experience or training for future CRM practi-tioners on European and Euro-Canadian dimen-sions of the archaeological record. Nonetheless, the


Kenyons, and others in Ontario archaeology whoexhibited similar “tendencies” towards nineteenth-century domestic site archaeology, did lay thegroundwork for legitimizing this site type.Furthermore, Ian’s efforts in training many of thosepeople in the Ontario consultant community wholacked background or understanding of nine-teenth-century archaeology had the effect of gener-ating new advocates for this site type. By the timethat Ian’s 1985 conference paper was published in1986, a change was underway: at least some per-centage of the nineteenth-century domestic sitesfound by consultants across the province was start-ing to be recovered, documented, and registered.

To document this change, and to see how it isconnected to broader CRM trends, I will review

the timing and shape of those changes in Ontario.Figure 1 depicts the rise in archaeological licensesissued in Ontario, and the number of licensesissued with consultant practitioner conditions,between 1979 and 2002. It clearly shows the rise inthe number of archaeological practitioners inOntario through the 1980s and how small the con-sultant community was in the mid-1980s, whenIan was so actively advocating for better steward-ship of nineteenth-century domestic sites.

More indicative of the rise in archaeologicalCRM activity is the number of individual ProjectInformation Forms (PIFs), also known as ContractInformation Forms (CIFs), submitted by licensedarchaeologists each year (Figure 2). As a licenseecan undertake any number of projects during a


Figure 1. Archaeological licenses issued in Ontario between 1979 and 2002.

Figure 2. Number of PIFs filed by consultant archaeologists annually in Ontario (1993-2006).

year, the Ministry requires these forms in orderto track individual instances of fieldwork and thesubsequent reporting obligation the licenseeaccepts for each project. Adopted in 1993, thesteady increase in the annual number of PIFsfiled is testament to the true explosion of CRMwork, especially in the last decade, even thoughconsulting archaeology was on the rise in thedecade before the start of PIF tracking.

The real change that CRM archaeology haswrought to the archaeological landscape inOntario is reflected in a chart (Figure 3) of allarchaeological sites assigned to licensees by year inthe province on the basis of their request forBorden Block numbers. The graph in Figure 3reflects both the differential scale of work consult-ants undertake and the extent of the archaeologicalrecord that would have been lost had these sites notbeen documented before development. Clearly, forall the good and bad that comes with it, CRMarchaeology has re-made what archaeology is inOntario today.

CRM and Nineteenth-CenturyDomestic Site Archaeology

So how has nineteenth-century domestic sitearchaeology played out within the skyrocketingrise of the CRM industry that started in the mid-

1980s? A first step in answering that questionwas to figure out just how many non-Aboriginalsites generally, and nineteenth-century domesticsites specifically, exist within the overall numbersof sites documented for Ontario through the lasttwo decades. To do this I conducted a gross-scalesort of the Ontario Archaeological Sites Databasefor these site types.8 Notwithstanding problemsof a hugely variable terminology and classifica-tion (e.g., von Bitter et al. 1999), the databasedoes offer insight into the Ontario archaeologicalrecord over the last half century including, pre-sumably, the potential for discovering distinctpatterns for nineteenth-century domestic sites.

A first step was to sort out non-Aboriginalarchaeological sites from the rest of the database.This was conducted in the summer of 2004 andso represents a snapshot of the database up to theend of 2003. An accurate sorting of the site dataproved more difficult than anticipated becausean obvious term like “historic” captures manyAboriginal sites from the seventeenth throughnineteenth centuries in the database. A morerefined search was, therefore, required using anumber of specific site designations to capturenon-Aboriginal sites.9 Of course, this refinedsearch also captured a range of categories beyonddomestic sites, such as marine shipwrecks andhistoric cemeteries, as well as an odd assortmentof things like portages and wharf complexes. So


Figure 3. The changes in the number of archaeological sites registered each year in Ontario according to category of archaeologist(1990-2006).

the non-Aboriginal subset was then searchedusing more specific terms to tease out domesticsites.10 In the end, this initial sort showed that,in 2004, there were over 17,000 sites in the data-base, of which just over 2,000 appeared to benon-Aboriginal, representing 12 percent of thedocumented record (Figure 4). Within the non-Aboriginal subset, 45 percent or over 900 siteswere identified as being a domestic site of onekind or another.

To get a sense of change through time, Iqueried the database, using the same sort cate-gories, to track the year these sites were added tothe database. In doing so, I encountered someadditional limitations. First, I realised that thetotal number of sites in the OntarioArchaeological Sites Database included onlythose for which site record forms have been for-mally completed, submitted to the Ministry andincorporated into the database. This number isdifferent than the number of sites included inFigure 3, which is based on sites with assignedBorden numbers.11 A second problem encoun-tered was that 2,831 sites in the database did not,for various reasons, include year of registration intheir data field. All of these sites were removedfrom the final sort.

The chronological sort revealed that any focuson non-Aboriginal archaeology in Ontario didnot begin until quite late in the twentieth centu-ry (Table 1). Certainly there is an increase in sitenumbers in the 1960s and 1970s, but thisincrease is concomitant with an overall increasein the number of all sites documented, especiallyfor the 1970s, when the Ontario Heritage Actbecame law. So despite sizeable numbers in the

1960s and 1970s, the overall representation ofnon-Aboriginal sites in the database did notchange: it actually declined slightly from five tothree percent between the 1960s and 1970s. Butin the 1980s, the number of non-Aboriginal sitesincreased significantly. By the 1990s more thanone in five sites added to the database was non-Aboriginal. Table 1 also indicates that domesticsites were not (or rarely) documented prior to the1980s, with 99.5 percent of all these sites appear-ing in the database only after 1979, despite thefact that 28 percent of all sites in the databasewere recorded before 1980.

Figure 5 suggests the existence of a tantalizinglink between the simultaneous rise in non-Aboriginal archaeology and the rise in CRMpractices. The graph shows an increase in non-Aboriginal sites beginning in 1985, and sky-rocketing immediately afterwards, with domesticsites being a significant part of that initial surge.While no direct tie to CRM practices or IanKenyon’s 1985 plea can be made to this timing,it certainly suggests that this trend is a manifes-tation of the discourse around nineteenth-centu-ry domestic sites occurring at that time.

The initial sort also raised questions about therepresentativeness of domestic sites as part of allnon-Aboriginal sites in the database. While theinitial increase in non-Aboriginal sites in the late1980s resulted to a great extent from the largenumber of domestic sites being added to thedatabase, this association weakened in the 1990s,with domestic sites making up less than half ofall non-Aboriginal sites documented. The sortalso suggested that the overall number of bothnon-Aboriginal and domestic sites added to the


Figure 4. Gross sort of theOntario Archaeological SitesDatabase (OASD) for non-Aboriginal sites, conducted in2004.

database began to decline by the end of the 1990s.This is at odds with the broader trend in Figure 3,which shows a marked rise in the number of sitesassigned to licensees. Both issues, though raised bythe gross sort, could not be addressed by it.

As such, a second, more detailed review of thedatabase was conducted at the end of 2006. Thistime I chose to examine actual site record forms,selecting 25 Borden Blocks12 from southernOntario (Table 2), reviewing all site records ineach block to identify all non-Aboriginal sitesrecorded in that block by the end of 2005. I alsorecorded what kind of archaeologist registeredthose sites (i.e., consultant or non-consultant),and which of the sites were assigned a nine-teenth-century domestic site designation.

The Borden Blocks I chose all held 130 ormore sites at the end of 2006. With this selectioncriterion, I was biasing the sample in favour ofplaces where CRM activity had occurred inten-sively and over a long period of time—namely

the urban-suburban core stretching from justeast of Toronto to London in the west.13 As such,this sample encompassed the predominant expe-riences that shaped Ontario archaeology for thepast two decades, and serves as a window into thetrends caused by the rise in CRM.

For the 25 Borden Blocks examined (Table 2),just over 13 percent of all sites are non-Aboriginal. It is striking how much this part ofthe record is generated by CRM practitioners. Inover 50 percent of the blocks reviewed, CRMarchaeologists accounted for all the non-Aboriginal sites in the database and, in all buttwo blocks, they accounted for the registration ofat least 90 percent of all sites. CRM archaeologyaccounted for a remarkable 96 percent of all non-Aboriginal sites registered. Of those sites regis-tered by consultants, 91 percent were identified(either explicitly in the form, or from descrip-tions of site features) as being nineteenth-centu-ry domestic sites.14


Figure 5. Distribution of gross sort of non-Aboriginal and domestic sites by year of inclusion into the OASD.

Table 1. All archaeological sites, non-Aboriginal sites, and nineteenth-century domestic sites in the Ontario ArchaeologicalSites Database to the end of 2003 (compiled in 2004).

n sites in database n (%) non-Aboriginal n (%) domestic sites(% all sites) (% non-Aboriginal sites)

1950-59 170 7 (4%) 0 (0%)1960-69 548 27 (5%) 1 (3%)1970-79 3,486 117 (3%) 3 (2%) 1980-89 4,735 542 (11%) 197 (36%) 1990-99 4,597 1,008 (22%) 473 (47%)2000-03 1,267 226 (18%) 126 (56%) TOTAL 14,803 1,927 (13%) 800 (42%)

In this selective Borden Block examination, 13percent of all sites registered were non-Aboriginal(Figure 6). This is close to the 12 percentobtained in the general sort (Figure 4), suggest-ing that it accurately reflects the category’s repre-sentation across Ontario. However, the BordenBlock sort contradicted the general sort in thatthis non-Aboriginal “slice” of the site databaseproved to be predominantly made up of domes-tic sites (91 percent), significantly more than the45 percent suggested by the general sort.

There are likely several reasons for this dis-crepancy. Certainly the blocks selected are heavi-ly weighted to CRM activity, which results in therecording of all sites on the landscape, of whichnineteenth-century domestic residences far out-weigh non-domestic nineteenth-century sites. Aswell, when individual site records are examined,

it is clear that the gross sort did not identifymany non-Aboriginal sites as domestic becausethese sites had been designated “historic scatter.”

Lastly, a range of site types are under-repre-sented in the Borden Block sample examined forthis study that nonetheless are present in theoverall database. For instance, for Borden BlockBdGc, representing the Kingston area,15 the per-centage of domestic sites is very low (27 percent).The high overall number of non-Aboriginal sites,the high percentage documented by non-con-sultants, and the low number of domestic sites allappear to be explained by non-consultant marinearchaeological recording of shipwrecks occurringin the block. The land-based record also containsa high number of military and industrial siteswithin the city of Kingston. That many of thesenon-consultant and non-domestic sites were


Table 2. All archaeological sites, non-Aboriginal sites, and nineteenth-century domestic sites in specified site BordenBlocks in Ontario to the end of 2005 (compiled in 2006).

Borden Block # of sites in Block % non-Aboriginal % by CRM % domestic sitesby CRM

AhGx 454 7.5 94 94AiGw 350 7.1 96 92AgGx 348 3.2 100 100AjGw 328 29.0 98 91AlGt 314 19.7 97 93AfHh 297 9.4 100 86AlGu 294 27.9 91 88AiHc 292 13.0 100 87AiHb 257 10.9 93 77AfHi 247 6.5 75 92AgGs 238 16.4 92 83AlGs 233 15.0 100 94AgHb 229 7.4 100 82AfHa 226 5.3 100 92AkGw 224 25.0 96 100AiGx 196 5.6 100 91AgHh 183 10.9 95 95AkGv 176 23.3 100 93AhHa 172 9.3 75 92AlGv 171 21.1 100 97AfGx 161 3.1 80 75AhGw 154 16.9 100 81AgGu 135 14.8 100 90AlGr 131 22.9 97 97AgGw 131 6.1 75 100Total (%) — 13 96 91Total (n) 5941 791 757 688

recorded in the mid-1990s hints at one reasonfor the discrepancy in Figure 5, where there is adecline in the percentage of domestic sites mak-ing up the overall non-Aboriginal category ofsites appearing in the record.

A surprising discovery in the Borden Blocksort was the variability in the representation ofnon-Aboriginal sites among blocks, ranging from3.1 percent to 29 percent (Table 2). For manyblocks from southwestern Ontario, where overallsite numbers are high, the proportion of non-Aboriginal domestic sites is surprisingly low, evenin places along the Thames and Grand Rivers,where settlement occurred relatively early in thenineteenth century. This low value reflects eitherthe very high number of Aboriginal sites in theseareas compared to non-Aboriginal settlement,especially ubiquitous lithic scatters and find-spots, or a preoccupation with the abundantAboriginal sites present by archaeologists to theexclusion of non-Aboriginal sites, or both.Conversely, in the Greater Toronto Area east ofthe Niagara Escarpment there is a notableincrease in the percentage of non-Aboriginalsites, which suggests that the precontact use ofthe region was not as intensive and so theabsence of such a dense record affords archaeolo-gists a greater ability to focus on non-Aboriginalsites. Regardless of either actual or methodologi-cal reasons for the discrepancy, this does offer aninsight into the variable nature of the archaeo-logical landscape across southern Ontario reflect-ed in CRM practice.

This variability of site representation, evenacross the relatively limited area of west-central

southern Ontario, provides another insight: it isclear that the issue of representation, which isoften flagged as a basis for writing off nine-teenth-century domestic sites (as in “we havemany of these already”), is more complex thanotherwise is intuited by consultants constrainedwithin their regionally defined perspective andexperience (see for example Lees and Noble1990; Wilson 1990). While the 688-site samplefrom this Borden Block sort is not insubstantial,as a representation of the idealised number ofdomestic sites created during the nineteenth-cen-tury in Ontario (see for example Kenyon 1995),it likely represents only a small fraction of themaximum archaeological dataset for this sitetype. Certainly it encompasses only portions ofthe nineteenth-century lived experience and set-tlement in Ontario. So perhaps although, at abroader level, the questions of representativenessand how many nineteenth-century domestic sitesare too many are important issues that historicalarchaeologists need to grapple with, I have a hardtime accepting that those issues should limit doc-umentation of this site type for much of theprovince in the foreseeable future.16

Figure 7 shows the number of all domesticsites recorded by CRM-based archaeologistsbetween 1980 and 2005 from the detailed sort. Itconfirms the startling increase in nineteenth-cen-tury domestic sites documented annually by con-sultant archaeologists beginning in 1985. It isparticularly noteworthy that the phenomenalincrease seen during 1987-1988 has not beenrepeated, despite the colossal growth in CRMsince 1990. Whether Ian Kenyon lit the fuse, or


Figure 6. Non-Aboriginalsites represented in the BordenBlock sort, 2006.

simply reflected what was happening more broad-ly, his 1985 plea heralded the arrival of a new focusof endeavour in Ontario CRM archaeology.

It is worth noting that the numbers drop offimmediately after 1988, deflating between 1989and 1994. In part, that drop may be connectedto the economic decline Ontario experiencedduring that period. It also coincides with theperiod immediately before the expansion ofarchaeological conservation requirements in var-ious land use planning and development statutes(see Ferris 1998a). The subsequent rise in num-bers beginning in 1995 likely represents both theemergence of a strong economic developmentcycle as well as the expanded role and opportuni-ty CRM archaeology has had as a result of broad-er conservation regimes coming into effect.

Despite the economic boom continuing andoverall numbers of sites documented by CRMpractitioners reaching all-time highs, there does,indeed, appear to be a tailing-off or decline in thenumber of non-Aboriginal sites being document-ed by consultants. In part, this contradictorytrend may be a reflection of the artifice men-tioned earlier—a lag in site registrations in the

Ministry’s database. In attempting to account forthat lag, the data still, however, exhibit a contrarytrend (Figure 8). For example, after eliminatingthe 2003-2005-year period from the chart(which encompasses those years with the largestnumber of sites still awaiting submission to theMinistry’s database) and the deflated numbers ofthe early 1990s economic downturn, thereremains a slight trend towards an increase in totalconsultant site number assignments for Ontarioduring the period (Figure 8a). But the same peri-od exhibits a stark decline in domestic site num-bers within the Borden Blocks examined for thisstudy (Figure 8b), which have continued to expe-rience some of the heaviest consultant activity inthe province.

Now, this pattern may still be a result of a lagin filing site records in the database, in that someconsultants may have chosen to manage everincreasing workloads that began in the late 1990sby delaying their filing of site record forms—even until now. It is also possible that the vari-ability in representativeness across the region isshaping the overall numbers: as conservationrequirements have been imposed over a broader


Figure 7. Frequency of non-Aboriginal domestic sites, by year, registered by consultants within the 25 Borden Blocks examined.

part of the southern Ontario landscape, morework is occurring in areas where domestic sitenumbers appear to be a smaller part of the over-all record that is present (e.g., more of south-western Ontario).

But I also suspect that to explain away the pat-tern as entirely an artifice is to overlook the trendsand practices within this part of the archaeologi-cal record beyond the simple compilation of sitesover the last 20 years. With a small handful ofvery notable exceptions, nineteenth-centurydomestic site archaeology remains largely aresource harvested for CRM purposes withouttriggering complementary research queries.Indeed, evidence of further reflexive thinking—inprint, anyway—following Ian Kenyon’s lead, hasbeen very limited. So the decline in raw numbersmay be part-artifice and part-consequence of the

fact that nineteenth-century domestic sitearchaeology became normalised in CRM practiceimmediately after acceptance of the site typearound 1986, with little change, subsequently, invaluations or refinements in approaches to thesite type. The impact of the needs of nineteenth-century domestic site archaeology on consult-ants, or lack thereof, once the community movedaway from viewing this part of the record as“crap,” is reviewed next.

Beyond “Historic Crap”

In some part due to Ian Kenyon’s efforts, theOntario CRM archaeological community joinedwith much of the rest of the Northeast by the late1980s in accepting that some segment of the


Figure 8. Number of sitesregistered per year between1995 and 2002 and trendlines. This compares all sitesfrom Ontario (a), to all non-Aboriginal sites from theBorden Block examination(b).

nineteenth-century domestic sites encounteredduring survey was a resource worthy of docu-mentation and conservation. However, it wouldbe wrong to imply that the entire communityhad fully embraced Ian’s clarion call, or under-stood it. For many, these were sites to documentonly because someone else (Ian, other Ministryarchaeologists or colleagues with similar tenden-cies) said it should be done—any research con-sideration could be left to Ian and his ilk. Forsome consultants, then, material description,determination of age, and perhaps associatingthe location with documented occupants, werethe sole research needs for such sites.

Early attempts to determine how best to iden-tify, evaluate and document nineteenth-centurydomestic sites in CRM contexts were extremelysubjective, based mostly on significantly variableand differing levels of personal knowledge, andoccasionally backed by a nod to Noël Hume,South, Deetz, or consultation with Ian Kenyon.Indeed, as a Ministry archaeologist reviewingconsultant work at the time, I often heard some-thing like “because Ian does/does not think it isimportant” as a rationalisation for why a site orexcavation methodology was or was not going tobe used in a particular circumstance.

The work by Ian and other Ontario archaeolo-gists with similar tendencies established a “univer-sal” in terms of methodological expectations forthese plough-disturbed scatters of ceramics, glass,brick and nails. This expectation was to find them,count the sherds, then strip them of topsoil to finda single keyhole-shaped cellar (to be partially exca-vated), maybe a privy or well, and that’s about it.In other words, whatever happened to be the logicand happenstance of investigating and excavatingthese sites in southern Ontario in the mid-to-late1980s—arising from specific research designs,idiosyncratic approaches, or salvage expediencies—quickly became the standardised and only method-ology to apply to all such sites.

My own experiences as a government archae-ologist anecdotally suggested that there was littleconsideration of the site formation processesshaping nineteenth-century domestic site settle-ment patterns, or of the significant variation andinternal differences that could be encountered

from site to site, or even across a single site.Rather there was just this sense of needing togather ceramics, pipes, window glass, buttonsand coins,17 maybe some faunal remains, andanything else “personal” or unusual to inform thesite analysis. That these and other artifact classesmay have been differentially distributed across asite, or that any such differentiation may revealnuances of occupation, function or occupantagency, were rarely imagined or considered wor-thy enough to note.

As a result, it was not uncommon in the firstdecade, after beginning to document this resourcein CRM, to encounter reports detailing the dis-covery of thin surface ceramic scatters ofcreamware, pearlware and porcelain ceramics(i.e., early nineteenth- or even late eighteenth-century sites), which were then subjected to thesame excavation strategies used for a dense mid-nineteenth-century scatter: a surface collection ofartifacts followed by topsoil stripping. When,invariably, these early, diffuse scatters failed toreveal sub-surface features, it would be fair to saythat only a few thought about what that meant(for example, the scatter originated from smaller,poorer, short-term shanty residences or otherdwellings where a cellar may not have been used).

Likewise, the practice of stripping topsoil away(as well as any distinct depositional data containedin that layer of the site) from the densest surfaceconcentration of artifacts from later sites may havetypically yielded a cellar, but rarely a privy pit, orother features or exterior function areas that mayhave existed more than the 5-10 metres exposedbeyond the edge of the cellar pit. Only a few CRMarchaeologists questioned or experimented withwhat quickly became a rote excavation methodolo-gy for all nineteenth-century domestic sites, at leastuntil one of Ian’s kind, Eva MacDonald (1997),presented meaningful data challenging that prac-tice. That study led to many CRM archaeologistschoosing to modify practice by hand-excavating atleast a sample of plough-zone deposits for somedomestic sites prior to topsoil stripping.

Rote practices also characterised much of thehistorical research carried out for such sites in thefirst decade, despite Ian’s 1985 plea for thorougharchival surveys.18 Early determinations of where


to survey for nineteenth-century sites frequentlyextended only to a quick check of published his-torical county atlases, which usually meant thatall that was being identified were late and long-lived nineteenth-century site locations, typicallythe kind of site often written-off from furtherconservation interest as being too recent.

Site-specific historical research was often limit-ed to copying the relevant page from the abstractbook in the county land registry office. Moredetailed historical documentation for some prac-titioners, such as the compilation of assessmentroll or census data, intuitively fell on the otherside of the line that exists in CRM, dividing“necessary” documentation and analysis fromextra-curricular research. Likewise, historicalresearch for domestic sites tended to be doneonly after they were excavated. The sense wasthat historical research (i.e., identifying the occu-pants) was something only necessary for the pur-pose of incorporating some names into the exca-vation report. While this may be appropriate insome circumstances, any potential for the histor-ical data to contribute to informing field method-ologies was assumed to be unimportant if siteswere to be excavated by rote.

Ironically, another unreflexive practice adopt-ed in CRM arose quickly in the late 1980s inpart from the very capacity-building training andtools that Ian Kenyon developed for consultantarchaeologists. Notably, Ian’s ceramic checklisttended to confirm, at least for some archaeolo-gists, that significance for nineteenth-centurydomestic sites could be universally determinedby site age.

Now it must be said that Ian’s own statedintent behind the ceramic checklist was to getconsultants to collect and order ceramic data in amanner that would allow Ian to use and interpretthat data. But the median dates calculated by theprogram Ian provided were soon being used todetermine whether or not to write off sites fromfurther conservation efforts. This tended to reifyan informal, subjective assumption that domesticsites would no longer be considered significant iftheir cut-off date fell around or later than1850.19 This assumption was problematic whenused with Ian’s checklist, since the longer date

ranges of mid-to-late ceramic wares tended toinfluence the median date generated by thechecklist. Also, it was not uncommon to seesome CRM archaeologists classify all whitewareas granite-ware or ironstone, allowing for a morerecent assessment of age. Indeed, even though itsfirst appearance in Ontario is much earlier,“ironstone” became and continues to be a sort ofcode word in CRM meaning “insignificant,” as itis assumed, generally, to denote “late nineteenthcentury” and, therefore, a site of no concern. Inother words, if you want to walk away from anineteenth-century site, make sure you pick upsome ironstone.

Of course extensive research has been under-taken identifying the pitfalls of relying on simpleceramic sherd counts to achieve age calculations,due to things like heirloom and use-life patterns,and patterns of ceramic use and disposal (e.g.,Adams 2003; Beaudry et al. 1983; LeeDecker1994; Majewski and O’Brien 1987; Monks1999; Spencer-Wood and Heberling 1987). Infairness, it has been well over a decade since I lastsaw someone use one of those ceramic checklistsand Ian’s date calculations to determine the ageof a site. But the popularity of the program toprovide a convenient, and conveniently unreflex-ive, median age for a nineteenth-century domes-tic site based on its ceramic sherd assemblage ispart of the broader CRM approach to these sitesthat emerged in the first decade after their accept-ance as part of the archaeological record. This isan approach that can still be found employed inOntario today, and belies any notion that nine-teenth-century domestic site archaeology hasadvanced much beyond that initial basic accept-ance of the site type in the mid-1980s.

Lastly, it is also worth pointing out that noteveryone embraced the inclusion of nineteenth-century domestic sites into the canon of Ontarioarchaeology or accepted that this site type hadintrinsic research importance. Some even decriedthe requirement to investigate such sites. I recall,a decade later, one archaeologist who had attend-ed that 1985 meeting in London objecting vocif-erously to consultants being “allowed” to docu-ment and excavate nineteenth-century sites,claiming the practice was nothing but a financial


boondoggle for consultants, who knew they werecharging developers to harvest a plentiful sitetype of absolutely no interest to archaeologicalresearch.

While such criticisms underscore the fact thatmany CRM practitioners were primarily trained as“prehistorians,” and that a few of them retained anon-CRM prejudice against the part of the recordthat fell outside the orbit of their personal researchinterests, there is an uncomfortable kernel of truthin the criticism, at least as reflected in the practicesfollowed by some in the CRM community. Mypersonal experience and exposure to the “oral his-tories” of consultant crews over the last twodecades serve to recall occasions when nineteenth-century domestic sites were misidentified as late,intentionally ignored in the field, or excavatedpurely to generate income.

CRM-related oral histories can typically beoverstated, out of context, and favour minoritytendencies, but practices and attitudes reflectedin these tales also suggest another reason for thedecline in overall numbers of domestic sites iden-tified in Ontario over the last decade. Whethercynically or earnestly motivated, this indifferenceto, or lack of understanding of, nineteenth cen-tury domestic sites may be contributing to adecline in site documentation, representing akind of self-censoring by practitioners of this partof the database, leading to a heightened selec-tiveness in the field of non-Aboriginal sites wor-thy of documentation.

In other words, the pattern of nineteenth-cen-tury domestic site management in CRM thatemerged during the 1990s was a reflection ofhow it initially came to be recognised as impor-tant: a case of a few convincing many. I don’twant to generalise here and suggest a foot-drag-ging kind of compliance. Rather, Ontario CRMarchaeologists, as a community mostly of prehis-torians, created an emphasis on nineteenth-cen-tury domestic sites as part of their practice, but,nonetheless, collectively lacked the critical capac-ity to really explore why this emphasis cameabout, or even what the broader aim should befor investigating this kind of site type. As a result,after acceptance, there was a quick, unreflexivemove into rote practices.20

Of course, rote practices can reflect both amature expertise and consensual understandingof the site type as well as the reification of per-sonal opinions and unreflexive assumptions ofvalue. Furthermore, in the case of nineteenth-century domestic site archaeology, I would argueboth realities constrain and shape the directionthe practice is taking. The next question, then, ishow and where these twin, contradictory realitiesare playing out in the community today?

Moving Towards A CRM Practice ofHistorical Archaeology?

Even as CRM practices adopted a host of unre-flexive approaches to nineteenth-century domes-tic site archaeology in the 1990s, the longer termimplications of the efforts people like Ian madein the 1980s began to show in the attitudes andinterests among some of the archaeological com-munity. Capacity and critical reflexivity areincreasing (certainly to a level and range not seenduring Ian’s heyday), even while pre-1980s atti-tudes towards this site type persist. Despite lim-ited achievements of the last 20 years and trou-bling evidence of a decline in site documenta-tion, there are indications that increased domes-tic site “tendencies” are moving the practice awayfrom the logic of “because Ian said so.”

An important snapshot of the attitudes in CRMpractice was taken in 1995-1997, when theMinistry of Culture began collecting data for revis-ing and expanding the archaeological technicalguidelines for consultant archaeologists inOntario.21 The intent of the Ministry data collec-tion exercise was to solicit feedback to a question-naire mailed out in 1996, which covered a rangeof topics from property and site-specific assess-ment methodologies, valuations of site heritagevalue, excavation and preservation strategies, andanalysis and report writing. The feedback wouldbe used to map out broad, consensual under-standings of methodological standards of prac-tice. Just under 60 percent of the 107 individualswho received the questionnaire responded.22

Compiled responses were published between1998-2000 by the Ministry through an


Archaeology Unit newsletter developed for thepurpose (Ferris 1998b, 1999b, 1999c, 2000b).

A number of questions focussed on the archae-ology of nineteenth-century sites. Responsesshowed variability and some ambivalence towardsthis site type. But the consensual attitudes from thecompiled results also reflected acceptance and adepth of consideration for the needs of this sitetype that went beyond the rote practices of the day.

Specific questions included exploring the basisfor determining significance for domestic sites.Specifically, respondents were asked about cut-off dates—whether they considered a duration orage of domestic site occupation to be “too” recentto be significant (Question B3). Just under 70percent of respondents acknowledged using cut-offs some or all of the time, although 60 percentof those responses also acknowledged that con-text could change their perception of the signifi-cance of a site. Typically, a later site might be sig-nificant in parts of the province where initial set-tlement was late, or where the site was associatedwith an important historical event or person.Specific cut-off dates preferred by respondentsvaried greatly (Figure 9). Whereas 21 percent ofresponses favoured 1850, and 19 percentfavoured a twentieth-century date for cut-off, themajority of respondents (53 percent) favoured an1880 or later cut-off date (Ferris 1999b:6-7).This preference undermined the viability of the1850 date, which was so commonly cited in thefirst decade after 1986 as the basis for determin-ing what was, and wasn’t, significant.

Similar variability, and a similar lack of generalsupport for an 1850 cut-off date, was reflected inresponses to specific examples respondents wereasked to evaluate for significance (Ferris1999b:12). Of the six examples presented, only apost-1890 landfill was accepted by the majority ofrespondents as being not significant (Figure 10).Of the three domestic site examples (with 20-, 50-and 100-year occupation, respectively), only one,a site with over 100 years of occupation pre-dating1930, failed to receive support from a majority ofrespondents for acceptance as significant. If “yes”and “unsure” responses are combined, even thissite may be considered significant by a majorityof people (a sort of “only if ” where site specific

context would warrant excavation). But despitethe willingness to accept later nineteenth-centu-ry sites as important, the ambivalence towardspost-1850 deposits remained in evidence, with25 percent of respondents only willing to accepta 20-year occupation between 1850 and 1880 assignificant depending on site specifics, while 22percent of respondents were willing to write offan over-50-year occupation pre-dating 1880.

Finally, nine percent of respondents preferred“floating” to fixed cut-off dates,23 while 21 per-cent of all respondents rejected cut-offs entirely.Most of the latter respondents said that historicalresearch had to be conducted to inform a deter-mination of significance for all nineteenth- andtwentieth-century sites.

Many respondents criticised the logic behindaccepting1850 as a cut-off date, while otherrespondents (who did support an 1850 or earliercut-off date) criticised those in the practice thatwanted post-1850 sites treated as significant(Ferris 1999b:6). To me, and others in theMinistry, the substantial number of respondentswho rejected 1850 as a cut-off date was a sur-prise. It contradicted our general impression thata mid-century cut-off was favoured by the major-ity of consultants working on these kinds of sites,based on those consultant reports we receivedand reviewed every day.

My own view as to why this discrepancybetween what we saw in reports and the question-naire results was that the responses encompassedmore than the opinions of project decision-makers.They also included responses from individualswith expertise in historical archaeology, and morejunior company staff, whose attitudes towardsnineteenth-century archaeology were formed afterthis part of the record was accepted into the canonof Ontario archaeology. In other words, the appar-ent incongruity between consultants’ preferencefor an 1850 cut-off date and the questionnaireresults was a manifestation of an increasing expert-ise and expanding capacity within the community,with the effect that decision-making about thatpart of the record was beginning to be revised inthe late 1990s.

This neatly summarizes those two contradicto-ry directions I referred to earlier—an increasing


expertise for this part of the record and the main-tenance of unreflexive personal subjectivities.These opposing tendencies, I think, are shapingthe way CRM archaeology approaches nine-teenth-century domestic site archaeology. Theyare also reflected in a consideration of who didand did not respond to the significance determi-nation examples for both Aboriginal lithic scattersand non-Aboriginal sites in the questionnaire.Notably, there were seven more responses to thenon-Aboriginal examples than to the Aboriginalexamples. The reason for this difference (Ferris1999b:12) was that a handful of people describedthemselves as “historical” archaeologists. Thosewho did respond chose not to comment on thelithic examples because they felt they did nothave enough expertise or experience to offer a

valuation of those sites. On the other hand, onlyone individual declined to comment on the his-toric site examples for the reason that theirexpertise was on the precontact record.

Thus, by the late 1990s, there were individualsin the CRM community that could formallyrecognise and identify themselves as historicalarchaeologists, to an extent that they did not feelthey needed to be generalists or self-taughtexperts on all parts of the archaeological record.This reflects a change in the professional demo-graphic of the community. A decade earlier, therewere also CRM archaeologists who were self-taught or formally trained as historical archaeol-ogists, but this specialty was incidental to being abroadly-based Ontario archaeologist at a timewhen (prior to 1985) few historic sites were


Figure 9. Distribution ofresponses to the question of apreferred cut-off date used todetermine domestic site signif-icance-insignificance. Fromthe consultant questionnaireon standards of practice forStage 3 and Stage 4 activities,conducted by the Ministry inthe late 1990s. Taken fromFerris (1999b).

Figure 10. Distribution ofresponses to significance or nosignificance for various histor-ical site examples. From theconsultant questionnaire onstandards of practice for Stage3 and Stage 4 activities, con-ducted by the Ministry in thelate 1990s. Taken from Ferris(1999b).

being documented in CRM. So, by the mid-1990s, there was a segment of the consultingcommunity that could articulate a depth ofknowledge of historic sites and offer an informedcontrast to the continuing status quo of the rotepractices that had initially emerged a decade ear-lier. This contrast was enough to be measurablein the questionnaire responses, both with respectto site significance determinations, and in othersections of the questionnaire responses governingexcavation strategies, historical research, and arti-fact analysis.

The push-pull of this increasing expertise, onthe one hand, and tradition of unreflexiveapproaches, on the other, continues to shape cur-rent standards of practice, and has been articulat-ed in the final draft of the standards and guide-lines for consultants (2006). For example, thedraft establishes a cut-off date for non-Aboriginaldomestic sites of heritage value at 1870,24 ineffect, a simple “update” of 1850 through theacknowledgement of the passing of 20 years sincethe archaeological community first accepted thissite type into the canon of Ontario archaeology.There is, however, allowance for a later cut-offdate for sites in parts of the province where set-tlement (either of the region or of the communi-ty represented at the site) was later than 1870. Itis also recognised that late nineteenth- and twen-tieth-century sites can, on the basis of profes-sional judgement, be found to be of value, pro-vided that informed background research sup-ports the judgement. In short, a consultant canargue for protection or excavation of later(including twentieth-century) sites, an unheard-of-concept of value for land-based archaeologytwo decades previously.

I suspect that, in most situations, this refine-ment will mostly mean the excavation clock hassimply been moved forward to 1870. But otherchanges in the draft standards and guidelines willadvance CRM practices by affirming site-specificland use and historical research as something tobe done in determining value and mitigationmethodologies (i.e., Stage 3). Pre-1830 domesticsites are now specifically identified as requiringhand excavation. And, for the first time, detailedartifact analysis standards have been defined for

the entire archaeological record, including thematerial remains of domestic sites. While thesespecific changes to standards mostly representmodest, incremental change, they also provideopportunities to approach the conservation ofnineteenth-century domestic sites more reflexive-ly by that small but growing group of CRMarchaeologists with particular expertise and abili-ty to evaluate, more critically, methodologies andconservation designs. These efforts will, in turn,advance CRM practices more generally withrespect to the conservation and management ofnineteenth-century sites and will encourage theabandonment of past tendencies to approach thispart of the archaeological record as the unreflex-ive harvesting of stuff that is not quite crap.

Final Comments

I think it is fair to say that when the standards andguidelines are formally implemented, or, as appearsto be the case already, they are informally adoptedby the majority of practitioners, CRM approachesto nineteenth-century domestic site archaeologywill begin to move away from the previous think-ing that shaped the unreflexive, rote approachesthat some in the consulting industry still apply tothis part of the archaeological record. At the veryleast, predominant approaches will adjust untilthey level off and become rote again.

What is distinct about domestic site archaeol-ogy is the rapid growth in expertise—or growthin the numbers of decision-making CRMarchaeologists with this expertise. While I amsure it is completely unrelated to Ian Kenyon’svery untimely death in 1997, it has taken thebetter part of the last two decades to advance andbuild on Ian’s ground-breaking work during the1980s with respect to nineteenth-century domes-tic site archaeology (e.g., Doroszenko 2003;MacDonald 1997, 2004; Morrison 1991; Quark2001; Williamson et al. 1996; see also an ever-burgeoning body of CRM reports on nine-teenth-century domestic sites that detail morethan the rote harvest of material). Amazingly, Ianachieved the initial florescence in the investiga-tion of this site type by dint of good scholarship,


research, mentoring and training alone, in the1980s, when no regulation or standard requiredconsultants to pay attention to such sites andgeneral attitudes were not otherwise predisposedto embrace them.

Given the growing expertise and maturity inthe subset of the Ontario archaeological commu-nity afflicted with the same “tendencies” thataffected Ian, I remain hopeful that the recent lit-erature coming from this group, and “best prac-tices” reflected in their daily decisions, will leadto Ontario-oriented research on non-Aboriginaldomestic sites that will engage with this databaseand the broader research trends in the field.What is needed, clearly, is work that is reflexiveof operating assumptions and tendencies thatlimit. Moreover, such work critically informsCRM strategies, ensuring that documentation ofthis end of the archaeological record is indeed acontribution and not simply a harvested andexploited resource.

Acknowledgements. I thank Eva MacDonald andDena Doroszenko for pulling together the confer-ence session this paper was written for, and forencouraging me to scrape the time together to con-vert that conference talk into a formal paper. I alsothank Rob von Bitter for all his help in allowingme to access the Ministry’s archaeological sitesdatabase for this study. Of course, any flaws incompilation, analysis or presentation, are entirelymy own. Likewise, I acknowledge all the effort mycolleagues in the Ministry of Culture and in theCRM private sector put in towards ensuring theCRM practice in Ontario achieves as much as itdoes. Nonetheless, the opinions I have offered hereare entirely my own and do not reflect either theviews of these colleagues or of my former employ-er. Lastly I acknowledge the life-long debt I owe toIan Kenyon (Figure 11), who was a truly remark-able individual, my friend, and one of the mostimportant, unheralded influences on the currentand future shape of Ontario archaeology to comeout of those heady first few decades after the birthof CRM in Ontario.


Figure 11. Ian and me, many years ago.

Notes

1 This is also reflected by the emergence of major historicalarchaeology organizations, such as the Society for HistoricalArchaeology and the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology,both of which formed in 1967, and regionally by the Councilfor Northeast Historical Archaeology, which formed in 1972.2 I want to acknowledge at the outset that what I’m offeringhere is a highly personal take on the rise and current trend innineteenth-century domestic site archaeology in Ontario. It isa reflection of my perspective, which is to say, like all histo-ries, it is subjective and relative, and I am sure others woulddisagree about particulars. By emphasising Tim and IanKenyon, I don’t mean to slight the role of many otherOntario archaeologists in advancing research on nineteenth-century domestic site archaeology. The superb work by manyin Parks Canada, for example, during the 1960s-1980s hey-day of their material specialists, Research Bulletins, multiplepublication series, and specialised historical archaeologists,was critical to advancing nineteenth-century archaeology.However, the focus here is on the relationship between therise of nineteenth-century domestic archaeology, and the riseof CRM archaeology in Ontario. From that perspective Iassert that the Kenyons, especially embodied in Ian’s work,were the primary agent in advancing nineteenth-centurydomestic site archaeology as a legitimate focus of CRM effortand proponent-cost in Ontario.3 These guides were for the Regional office’s AvocationalConservation Officer Program (ACOP), developed primarilyto help avocational archaeologists document and monitorarchaeological sites in the areas they were working. However,Ian’s guides, particularly his ceramics guide, proved very pop-ular with all archaeologists, and were a frequently requested,and cited, document.4 This paper of the Kenyons was written when these kinds ofsocio-economic dimensions to nineteenth-century domesticarchaeology were cutting edge topics in historical archaeolo-gy (e.g., Miller 1980). While Ian and Tim’s work neverreceived broad exposure, it was clear that Ian, in particular,was fully engaged in—and contributing to—this field.5 Ian did not have the time or patience for submitting hiswork to more scholarly outlets, and wasn’t interested in self-promotion. Rather, he wanted the work to be used byarchaeologists so that there would be a consistent identifica-tion and analysis of ceramics across the province. I recall himapologising for not submitting these articles to the LondonChapter of the OAS’s newsletter Kewa, saying he was hopingto reach a wider Ontario audience by putting them in ArchNotes, in order to achieve the consistency he was looking for.When I suggested he should publish them in a more formaljournal, he just rolled his eyes.6 All these efforts, in Ian’s mind, ultimately would have beenpieced together into a manuscript book addressing all aspects ofnineteenth-century domestic life and foodways as constructedfrom both archaeological and historical data. Certainly it issomething he talked about fairly regularly between 1980 and1995. Sadly, though close to having the “guts of the thing” inhand by 1995, he died before it could come to fruition.

7 The concern on Ian’s part here was the widespread practiceat the time of field crews only picking up individual “sam-ples” of decorated sherds (one red sherd, one blue one, onewhite one…).8 I acknowledge and gratefully thank Rob von Bitter, theMinistry’s data co-ordinator, for all his help in pulling togeth-er the information used in this paper, and in helping menegotiate through the arcane rites and rituals associated withdata searches of that database.9 Terms used to search the database for all non-Aboriginal sitesincluded *18th*C*, *19th*C*, *20th*C*, *Euro*Canadian*,*European*, and Historic. The resulting tally was then reviewedto excise Aboriginal sites or duplicated sites from the total.10 Terms used to search the non-Aboriginal subset of sitesincluded *homestead*, *domestic*, *farmstead*, *residence*,*log*, and *household*.11 Robert von Bitter (pers. comm., 2007) reports that thereare just under 4,000 individual site forms that have not yetbeen received by the Ministry from licensees across theprovince and since the 1970s. This includes over 2000 for theperiod 2003-2005.12 This term refers to the fact that entire province is griddedinto geographic site registration blocks of equal size. Whensites are registered the archaeologist determines the exactlocation and which Borden Block the location falls into. Thesite is then assigned a number, sequentially the next unusednumber for the Borden Block designation (see von Bitter etal. 1999 for a further discussion).13 Based on annual consultant PIF numbers, this region gen-erally encompasses about 70-75% of all CRM activity in theprovince.14 Non-domestic sites included things like barns, mills,churches, cemeteries, factories, as well as a number of “find-spot” locations of historic material (e.g., coin, gunflint, etc.). 15 In conducting the examination of all site record formsfrom selected Borden Blocks, I had originally included a fewblocks from outside the south west-central part of theprovince in order to “sample” other areas, which is why Icompiled the results from BdGc. I rejected the strategy aftercompiling three additional blocks when I found I could notget large enough samples to adequately represent those num-bers in the study.16 In the detailed Borden Block sort, I attempted to examinepatterns of site significance through time. While it was notpossible to determine in every case, for many sites the inves-tigator’s recommendation for further work or no furtherwork, or Stage 3 or 4 work conducted on the site, were allnoted on the form, allowing for a majority of sites to be clas-sified as significant or not significant. No real coherent trendwas found through time. Between 1986 and 2005, by five-year blocks, the number of sites identified as significant con-sistently fell between 56 percent and 58 percent of all siteswhere significance could be determined. 17 These categories of artifacts having all been subjected tosome kind of at least chronological analysis and publishedbroadly in North American historical archaeology by thatpoint in time.


18 In that article (Kenyon 1986a:42), Ian has asked “What’sat 77 Grenville Street?” That address had been the homethrough the latter twentieth century of the ProvincialArchives; Ian’s point being if you are a CRM archaeologistencountering nineteenth-century sites, you should know this.19 There was no objective basis for arriving at this date. Butafter-the-fact rationalisations included that, by this time,European settlement (in the south) was largely past the sec-ond generation for many families (i.e., there could be no fur-ther interest or research questions to ask of later generations),or that rural settlement had become established (i.e., there-fore history had arrived at the contemporary), or that sites ofthis age and later were now ubiquitous on the landscape,negating the significance for any single example (an argumentI’ve also heard and seen used by historically-trained archaeol-ogists to write off dense surface lithic scatters). 20 While this paper is on the role of CRM and nineteenth-century domestic site archaeology, I don’t believe this site typeis somehow more susceptible to unreflective consultant prac-tices than any other (though see Joseph [2004] for a similardiscussion about the stagnation in CRM historic archaeolo-gy). A similar argument could made for plough disturbedlithic scatters, for example, where little consideration of siteformation, site activity areas away from high debitage counts,or sampling approaches are incorporated into the blanketapproach of screening one metre topsoil units until flakecounts drop below 10-15. In effect, the industry has to strug-gle daily with very normative, unreflexive tendencies and thereifying of rote practices, since once established, thesebecome “standards” of both business efficiencies and contrib-utory documentation of research (see for example, Ferris1998a, 2000a and 2007 for a further discussion of thesebroader dimensions of CRM in Ontario). 21 The anticipated outcome of this effort, which began asearly as 1995 with another Ministry-sponsored consultantworkshop in London, is to be a set of comprehensive stan-dards and guidelines for consultant archaeologists. As of thiswriting, the final draft is stuck within the catch-all of “underdevelopment internally.” 22 All licensees who, at the time, held any kind of consulting-related license, were sent the questionnaire, as were all otherarchaeologists involved in CRM activities (governmentarchaeologists, unlicensed field directors, etc.) as well as anumber of avocational and academic archaeologists.23 A floating cut-off date would move forward through timewith the present. Half of the respondents who favoured afloating date preferred 50 years, a quarter favoured 100 years,and a quarter favoured 150 years. 24 The adoption of 1870, rather than 1880, which hadreceived a majority preference from questionnaire respon-dents, reflects the fact that consensual standards were feltonly to be achieved through a “super” majority of 65 percentof respondents. While other standards, so defined, were sub-ject to revision during the broader consultations on the draftstandards and guidelines, and issues around the use of cut-offs were raised, the 1870 date remained.

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Neal FerrisDepartment of Anthropology SSC 3421University of Western Ontario1151 Richmond StreetLondon, Ontario, Canada N6A [email protected]

Cet article examine l’histoire des investigations des sites domestiques euro-canadiens du XIXe siècleau sud de l’Ontario par les firmes de gestion des ressources culturelles, et considère la façon dont cettehistoire a formée les pratiques courantes dans ce domaine. Cette histoire n’est pas très longue : avantla fin des années 1980s, les archéologues des firmes de gestion des ressources culturelles pouvaientignorer les vestiges du XIXe siècle et le faisait souvent. Ces attitudes ont changés grâce aux contribu-tions de Ian et Thomas Kenyon. Leurs recherches et leurs publications ont emportés une plus grandeacceptation pour ce genre de site. Par contre, même si un grand nombre de sites domestiques du XIXesiècle sont maintenant documenté et fouillé à chaque année, les méthodes d’excavation et d’analysesont souvent pratiquées machinalement, imitant ce qu’Ian aurait fait, sans questionnement. En effet,l’avancement du potentiel et de la valeur de ce type de site archéologique et socio-historique fut lentau-delà de l’acceptation initiale de ce type de site dans les années 1980s.

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