The sixteenth century saw a sharp increase in Mississippian influences in Ontario, including various cult objects and ceremonial regalia, and even large numbers of chunkey stones of the same style that also appear at Fort Ancient. Archaeologists refer to all this as ‘Mississippianization’, and it is accompanied by strong evidence for a renewed burst of trade at least as far as Delaware culminating in, among other things, the arrival of enormous quantities of shells and shell beads derived from the mid-Atlantic seaboard from around 1610 onwards, to be piled up in Attiwandaronk tombs.
