Taming the Waterways: The Europeanization of Southern Québec's Riverside Landscapes During the 16th–18th Centuries

Abstract

Abstract The arrival of Europeans in the New World effected the interaction of 2 temperate biogeographical eco-zones: the Palaearctic and Nearctic. Alfred Crosby has hypothesized that the success of the Europeans as imperialists was due, in part, to the ability of their introduced biota to bring about the collapse of the indigenous populations and local ecosystems, leading to the formation of Neo-European eco-spaces. Through a comparison of paleontological and environmental archaeological data from southern Québec, Canada, we examined Crosby's ecological imperialism model and assessed the biological impact of colonialism on the physical landscape during the 16th to early 18th centuries. The Intendant's Palace site in Québec City is employed as a case study and diachronically contextualized with data from contemporaneous sites in the region. The Europeanization of the landscape as a result of settlement construction, subsistence, and commodification was evidenced through signs of deforestation as well as the arrival of socioeconomic taxa. The biological transfer of European species did not appear to herald the collapse of local ecosystems but rather the establishment of an ecological melting pot along the early colonial waterways of southern Québec.