The creek would have provided plentiful fresh water and the hill rising to the northwest protection from the wind.
Most of the 500 native settlements identified between Orillia and Midland are Huron, but the Algonquin territory to the north and east merged with the Huron lands in the Orillia area.
The Hurons grew crops such as corn and beans and tended to be more sedentary than the Algonquins.
Hurons typically placed their dead on scaffolds and later buried the bones following Feasts of the Dead in large pits called ossuaries.
Algonquins, a more nomadic people, were more likely to bury their dead in individual graves. Two bone pits were also uncovered on the site. The first was found in 1870 at the base of a pine tree and the other, containing 10 skeletons, was exposed in 1902 when a lot on Mary Street was being levelled.
The combination of individual graves and bone pits could mean Hurons and Algonquins occupied the same site at different times or the burial customs were blending through the association of the two allied nations.
“There would have been cross-cultural influences,” says John Raynor, an avocational archaeologist from Midland.
“Just like we eat Chinese food and enjoy pizza today.”
Raynor agrees with Hunter the site would have been more typical of the Algonquin people who lived in low areas closer to lakeshores while the Huron preferred high plateaux for their settlements.
The Algonquin built small altars on top of each grave containing a carved figure of the deceased.
