When Samuel de Champlain first travelled along the Ottawa River in 1613, he met people along its shores who came to be known as the Algonquin. They call themselves Anishnabe and they still live throughout the area and in particular in the communities of Golden Lake and Kitigan Zibi.

Archaeologists quite often use pottery, manufactured from local clays as a way of identifying the ethnicity of the makers. However, in the Ottawa Valley, this is not as easy as we would like it to be. This is in part due to the fact that the Algonquin or Anishnabe were quite good friends with their neighbours to the west, the Huron or Wendat. The lifestyles of these two peoples were quite different. The Huron tended to be agriculturalists who lived in large villages while the Algonquin relocated seasonally to take advantage of a wide variety of fish, bird and mammal species, as well as various wild plants and fruits. The pottery dating to the last few centuries before contact that has been found in the Ottawa area, such as the specimens to the left, is invariably quite similar if not identical to Huron or other Iroquoian pot types. In fact, it appears that the Anishnabe did not manufacture ceramics themselves, but rather acquired pots from their neighbours.

The smoking of tobacco and other dried plant substances is quite ancient in Ontario. Tobacco seeds have been preserved on Iroquoian (this term relates to a number of groups which spoke any one of several related languages of the Iroquoian language family; it is not the name of any one group in particular) sites that are several centuries old in southern Ontario. Tobacco smoking could have everyday uses, as well as ceremonial functions. These ceramic pipes, also dating to the late precontact period, are of Iroquoian styles. Were they simply copies of Iroquoian styles? Could they have been traded from the neighbours of the Anishnabe or were they left by Iroquoian people travelling through the area? These questions can only be answered through the controlled excavation of sites containing such artifacts.