This dissertation explores the origins and development of Northern Iroquoian village life in present-day southern Ontario, from the first appearance of durable domestic architecture in the 10th century A.D., to the formation of large villages and towns in the 15th century A.D. Twenty-five extensively excavated village sites are analyzed in terms of the configuration of exterior and interior space, with a view to placing the social construction of community at the centre of the problem of early village development. Metric and space-syntax measures of the configuration of outdoor space reveal coordinated developments in the scale of houses and villages, their built-densities, and the structure of exterior accessibility networks, that involved the emergence of a “local-to-global” pattern of order with village growth. Such a pattern, I argue, was experientially consonant with a sequential hierarchy of daily social encounters and interactions that was related to the development of factional groups. Within the longhouse, a similarly “nested” pattern of spatial order and associated social identities emerged early in the history of village development, but was elaborated and ritualized during the later 13th century as the longhouse became the primary body through which political alliances involving village coalescence were negotiated. I suggest that the progressive extensification of collective social groups associated with longhouse expansions and village coalescences involved the development of “conjoint” personhood and power in a context of predominantly mutualistic village economies and enduring egalitarian ideals. The ritualization of domestic space during this process reveals that the continual production and extension of social group identities – such as the matrilineage – was contingent upon “social work” accomplished through an ongoing generative engagement with the built environment.

This dissertation explores the origins and development of Northern Iroquoian village life in present-day southern Ontario, from the first appearance of durable domestic architecture in the 10th century A.D., to the formation of large villages and towns in the 15th century A.D. Twenty-five extensively excavated village sites are analyzed in terms of the configuration of exterior and interior space, with a view to placing the social construction of community at the centre of the problem of early village development. Metric and space-syntax measures of the configuration of outdoor space reveal coordinated developments in the scale of houses and villages, their built-densities, and the structure of exterior accessibility networks, that involved the emergence of a “local-to-global” pattern of order with village growth. Such a pattern, I argue, was experientially consonant with a sequential hierarchy of daily social encounters and interactions that was related to the development of factional groups. Within the longhouse, a similarly “nested” pattern of spatial order and associated social identities emerged early in the history of village development, but was elaborated and ritualized during the later 13th century as the longhouse became the primary body through which political alliances involving village coalescence were negotiated. I suggest that the progressive extensification of collective social groups associated with longhouse expansions and village coalescences involved the development of “conjoint” personhood and power in a context of predominantly mutualistic village economies and enduring egalitarian ideals. The ritualization of domestic space during this process reveals that the continual production and extension of social group identities – such as the matrilineage – was contingent upon “social work” accomplished through an ongoing generative engagement with the built environment.