There are oral traditions that recount the history of the alliance of the Haudenosaunee, or the League of the Iroquois, but how its formation is manifested in the archaeological record is much more difficult to discern. The Footer site, occupied sometime between A.D. 1300 and 1500, may offer some clues to the processes that were occurring during this time period. The site is located in the Bristol Hills area near Canandaigua, New York, an area traditionally thought to be the homeland of the Seneca Nation.
Footer is one of several prehistoric Iroquois sites in this area that was identified by amateur archaeologist Alton J. Parker in the 1950s. He began excavating the site in 1958, and continued for three years, at which point the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences (now the Rochester Museum and Science Center) became involved. Subsequently the Lewis Henry Morgan Chapter of the New York State Archaeological Association, of which Parker was an active member, joined the dig.
Summary. Read full text in American Archaeology, Summer 2015 | Vol. 19 No. 2
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