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Walton's Tutela Heights project under question By Jim Windle/Ilse Kraemer BRANT COUNTY - The moving forward with construction of a new Walton International sub-development planned for Tutela Heights known as Riverbed Homes has retired archaeologist Ilse Kraemer concerned. Kraemer is one of the most respected archaeologists of Brant County and has surveyed or mapped almost every square foot of Brant County over several decades of work, even since retirement, and knows the Tutela Heights development area intimately. She has mapped more than 1000 sites, mostly in Brant County and Mississauga. According to numerous news reports, Walton International is the Canadian face of off-shore Chinese investors buying up thousands of acres of prime farmland across Canada, much of it in Brant County, to be turned into housing developments, many for off-shore investors. Wealthy Chinese are running out of real estate in which to invest in in their own country and are now investing in Canadian soil. In the case of Tutela Heights, almost every plot listed in their plans are already claimed by mainland China nationals. Walton makes the connection between these off-shore investors and Canadian real estate brokers. Once the lot is sold off to a Chinese investor, it is up to Walton to resell it, and at huge profits to Canadian home owners. Some would say that archaeological surveying -which is required by law is sometimes lax, and seen as a mere inconvenience by housing developers. Kraemer is concerned that the "official" archaeological surveying on that plot of land may have been strategically done to avoid areas of known Tutelo occupations and gravesites. In her own cursory studies on the land in question, she has accumulated numerous silver articles as well as pre-Tutelo tools and arrow heads. Kraemer is aware of where burial sites are and has concern for Six Nations that these sites may be desecrated during construction if not located by ASI. "I saw where they were digging and it was in exactly the wrong places," she says. Archaeological Services Inc., is conducting the current survey and, according to Six Nation's Elected Council's Joanne Thomas, "There was an archaeological assessment done on Riverbed. Right now they are trying to complete the stage four work." A phase four dig is required if significant finds point to a further, more complete study. It includes the extensive excavation of a certain area where significant finds from Phase 3 test holes reveal something of substance. Construction and even infrastructure work cannot begin until this Phase 4 process is complete. This is relatively good news for Kraemer who knows and respects Ron Williamson who heads up ASI, but she would like to go over the assessment with him, since she has extensive information that might be shared. Ron Williamson told Two Tow Times, "During our work for the Brantford Archaeological Management Plan I spent quite a great deal of time with her (Kraemer) recording all of her site information from this and adjacent properties and looking at her collection of material from those sites." "We are nearing completion of the Stage 4 work of numerous sites on the property including all of those she had marked on her maps (and additional ones)," Williamson says. Laurier University Professor of Archaeology, Gary Warrick, has also done a lot of historical research on the Tutelo village site, and agrees that the Tutelo site is significant. Warrick, a former field archaeologist before taking a teaching position, is well aware of the realities of his field when confronted with big money developers. "It's too bad but there are some archaeological services companies who are paid very well not to find anything," says Warrick. "There are people within my field that don't like me saying that but it's true." An ad published in the Two Row Times paid for by Walton states, "To date no longhouses have been found and no ceremonial or burial sites have been identified." But Kraemer contends that, at the time of the Tutelo occupation of Tutela Heights, they did not live in longhouses but rather in cabins and so evidence of longhouses would not appear, except for the one ceremonial longhouse. More importantly, she knows where burial sites are and encourages the Phase 4 survey to find and protect the burials. Warrick agrees. Kraemer has mapped every archaeological find she and her husband, now deceased, have found in the Brantford-Brant area exactly where she believes there are significant finds to be avoided or dug. Her life's work in southwestern Ontario is catalogued on a map of more than 1000 sites, most of which have never been excavated or properly surveyed. On her own master map, site #94 is the Tu