Thomas E. Lee

Lee revisited the site of his 1952 discovery at Manitoulin Island, Ontario. While being a resident in Ottawa, Ontario, he had died on August 2, 1982.

In 1970, Lee excavated & researched longhouses on Pamiok Island, Ungava Bay, near Kangirsuk.

In 1964, Lee investigated the Cartier Site at Payne Lake on Quebec’s Ungava Peninsula. He thought it could be the earliest European settlement in North America. (This conclusion was extrapolated from results of carbon dating.) He found a stone landmark which Inuit tradition said had preceded their arrival in the area. Thinking it to be an artifact of Viking exploration, Lee named it “Hammer of Thor”. Some scholars believe it may be an ancient Inuit inukshuk, a type of stone landmark.

In 1960, he was commissioned to study the former 1660 Des Ormeaux battle site in Long Sault, Ontario.

Lee started working at the National Museum of Canada soon after completing graduate school. His discoveries while with them include Sheguiandah on Manitoulin Island in 1952. Public interest was raised by the finds, which included a wealth of artifacts. Lee believed he found evidence of four successive cultures. The important find contributed to passage in 1953 of legislation to protect archeological sites in Ontario. Lee returned to the site three more times with teams to undertake thorough evaluation of the artifacts and the geology.

Thomas Edward Lee (1914–1982) was an archaeologist for the National Museum of Canada in the 1950s and discovered Sheguiandah on Manitoulin Island. Public interest in the find contributed to passage in Ontario of a bill to protect archeological sites. While working with Laval University’s Centre for Northern Studies, Lee discovered the Cartier Site on the Ungava Peninsula in Quebec.

Thomas Edward Lee was born April 6, 1914 at Port Bruce, Elgin County in southwestern Ontario, Canada. At the University of Michigan and University of Toronto, he studied archaeology.