The archaeological site at Killarney Bay, on the northeast side of Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada, has attracted and mystified archaeologists for decades. The quantities of copper artifacts, exotic cherts, and long-distance trade goods all highlight the importance of the site during its time of occupation. Yet researchers have struggled to date the site or assign it to a particular cultural tradition, since the artifacts and mortuary components do not precisely match those of other sites and assemblages in the Upper Great Lakes. The history of archaeological investigation at Killarney Bay stretches across parts of three centuries and involves field schools from universities in two countries (Laurentian University in Canada and the University of Michigan in the United States). This volume pulls together the results from all prior research at the site and represents the first comprehensive report ever published on the excavations and finds at Killarney Bay. Heavily illustrated.
 

David Brose earned his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1968, as a student of James B. Griffin and James E. Fitting, and he has investigated archaeological sites in North America and Europe for decades. In his work, The Archaeology of Summer Island: Changing Settlement Systems in Northern Lake Michigan (1970), he interpreted some aspects of region’s prehistory based on his analysis of the material culture, economic adaptation, and social organization of the site.

Patrick Julig is professor of anthropology at Laurentian University and has excavated archaeological sites in Ontario, Canada, for more than 30 years. His published works include The Cummins Site Complex and PaleoIndian Occupations in the Northwestern Lake Superior Region (1995) and The Sheguiandah Site: Archaeological, geological and palaeobotanical studies at a Paleoindian site on Manitoulin Island, Ontario (ed., 2002).

John O’Shea is professor of anthropology and curator of Great Lakes archaeology at the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. Recent volumes on Great Lakes archaeology include Ships and Shipwrecks of the Au Sable Shores Region of Western Lake Huron (2004) and Caribou Hunting in the Upper Great Lakes (2015).