A human pipe effigy, it appears to offer a tantalizing glimpse at the faces of the people of the site. At the Mantle site archaeologists have discovered 200,000 artifacts, LiveScience takes a look at a selection of them in this photo gallery.
This selection also offers a tantalizing glimpse at the faces of the people of the site.
This selection also offers a tantalizing glimpse at the faces of the people of the site.
An effigy face imprinted in pottery. This practice is associated with the Iroqouis of New York state, its presence at Mantle suggests that the inhabitants had extensive contact with them.
This pipe effigy shows a tattooed man. Despite its small size the artist paid careful attention to detail.
The tattooed man's face.
A woodpecker pipe effigy, about 5 cm across. When you smoke the pipe do you become the woodpecker? That's one idea behind artifacts like this.
An owl effigy that would have been part of a pipe. The people of Mantle, and indeed all First Nations, held these effigies in high regard. When a pipe broke care was taken to maintain the effigy until it could be carefully deposited.
A complete pot, with line decoration, discovered on site.
Held together by an unknown substance, this tiny artifact has archaeologists puzzled as to its use and the meaning of the notching.
An antler comb found at the Mantle site.
A stone axe, made of chloride schist. The people of Mantle would have cleared the land using axes like these.
A ceramic coronet pipe with metal insert found on site.
This iron object, believed to be part of an axe, was found buried beneath either a longhouse or plaza. It, along with two copper beads also found on site, are the earliest European artifacts ever found in the Great Lakes region.
An X-ray of the iron artifact revealed a maker's mark stamped on it. Research reveals that 16th century Basque artifacts, from a province in northern Spain, have the same mark.
The black pigments used to decorate these sherds are a type of bone black pigment which has a high calcium content (~10-12% for both sherds).
A model of a longhouse at the Royal Ontario Museum. The Mantle site has 98 of them. Built of wood, a material that does not preserve well archaeologically, the houses at Mantle were between 80 to 100 feet long and were as wide as they were tall. At Mantle two of the longhouses are substantially larger than 100 feet and would likely have been used for public ceremonies.
The inside of the longhouse, goods were kept and fires made. An extended family would have lived in them. When a man married a woman he moved in with her family.
