With few exceptions prehistoric trade was closely associated with religious beliefs and the trade objects are generally recovered from graves as objects intended to accompany the spirit of the dead to the afterlife. Powdered red ochre and a specially prepared green clay are also common occurrences in graves of this period. As can be seen in the illustration, the red ochre still adheres to a number of the artifacts which were recovered from cemeteries in the Picton area, eastern Lake Ontario.
The shell pendants and beads are manufactured from conch shell which would have originally come from the Gulf of Mexico nearly 1,000 miles to the south. The three small shell beads in the centre were made from shells from the Atlantic coast. The large pendant to the left had been broken and subsequently repaired by drilling a series of lashing holes. The native copper celts and awls are made from Lake Superior copper. For reasons that will never be known the celts generally occur in pairs. The object with a label is a short, cylindrical copper bead.
Trade in these objects almost certainly involved many hand-to-hand transactions rather than actual trading parties traversing the enormous areas involved.
Courtesy: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada
