Located in Dresden, Ontario, this talk will focus on past and current research into the Life of Josiah Henson and the Dawn Settlement. Josiah Henson, a National Historic Figure, came to upper Canada seeking freedom in 1830. As a co-founder of the Dawn Settlement and a conductor on the Underground Railroad, his legacy resonates across borders partially due to the influence of his autobiography as well as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The archaeological work in Dresden to date will be discussed as well as our links to a sister site in Maryland, USA.

Alicia Hawkins
Dr. Alicia Hawkins is the program coordinator for archaeology at Laurentian University. She has had the privilege of working on Huron-Wendat sites since 2006 and is a co-lead on this collaborative project to examine ceramics using a community of practice approach. Her current research projects examine past technologies and environments, frequently using a materials science approach. Archaeological methodology and quality assurance are never far from her mind. She is grateful to work with representatives of Indigenous communities, including the Huron-Wendat Nation.

Gregory Braun
Dr. Gregory Braun is currently a Research Fellow at the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research on Archaeological Ceramics at McMaster University, and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto. His research uses materials science analyses of ceramic and lithic objects in order to examine technology and materiality – the ways in which the manufacture, use, and discard of objects articulated with social and religious rituals.  While his primary focus is Iroquoian society in the lower Great Lakes region, he has also conducted research on materials from South Asia, the Mediterranean, and the Near East.  In the past, he has held various CRM positions in both the public and private sectors.

Amy St. John
Dr. Amy St. John completed her PhD in 2020 at Western University in the Department of  Anthropology. Her PhD research explored the use of innovative non-destructive micro computed  tomography (CT) technology, to examine the craft of Indigenous ceramic manufacture. Building  on expertise in micro-CT her current research includes community-initiated work with the Huron-Wendat Nation using micro-CT to study techniques and gestures used by Indigenous potters throughout Ontario and Québec. She is particularly interested in in archaeological  ceramics research that incorporates both Indigenous knowledge and materials sciences techniques to further understandings of past ways of life.

Dr. Chris Ellis is Professor Emeritus with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario and is a Research Associate with the Sustainable Archaeology Facility, Museum of Ontario Archaeology, London, Ontario

He is an archaeologist with major theoretical interests in explaining variation amongst peoples who subsisted by hunting and gathering and in improving means of extracting information about past societies from their stone tool assemblages. He has been involved in Ontario Archaeology, and more broadly, Great Lakes archaeology, for over 40 years and has focused temporally on the earliest evidence for human occupation dating in excess of 2500 years ago. He has published extensively on that work in several monographs and many papers. He is originally from Oshawa, Ontario and has an Honours BA from the University of Waterloo and an MA from McMaster, both in Anthropology, but his PhD is in archaeology from Simon Fraser University.

Paradise Park offered a unique opportunity to investigate two archaeological sites representing both Redware and White Marl occupations. The sites are separated by about 250 m in distance and 500 years in time. This research documented differences in cultural practices in the same environmental setting, and was among the first to identify large-scale environmental changes resulting from pre-Columbian land use practices. This presentation explores the data generated during five field seasons of research at the sites.

Dr. Bill Keegan is Curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Florida. Over the past 40 years he has directed research on Jamaica, Cuba, Grand Cayman, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, Turks & Caicos Islands, The Bahamas, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Grenada, and Trinidad. His publications include the Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology (Edited with C.L. Hofman and R. Rodriguez Ramos, 2013) and The Caribbean before Columbus (with C.L. Hofman, OUP 2017).