A Middle Woodland archaeological culture of the boreal western Great Lakes, spanning southern Quebec, southern/northwestern Ontario, and east-central Manitoba in Canada together with northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the US. First-pottery-using people of Ontario north of the Trent-Severn Waterway; built large round ceremonial burial mounds (notably at the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung/Manitou Mounds complex on the Rainy River) and maintained exchange ties into the Hopewell interaction sphere (Adena/Hopewell copper, obsidian, and shell reaching the region).
In the archaeologist K. C. A. Dawson's model, gradually succeeded from roughly AD 500-900 by the Blackduck tradition, framed as a distinct incoming population (associated with ancestral Ojibwe) that spread through northern Minnesota, southern Manitoba, and northwestern Ontario as the northern climate moderated; late Laurel sites show some blending with Blackduck/Selkirk traits.
Standard regional synthesis situating the Laurel/Middle Woodland complex within the full Ontario archaeological sequence.
By the archaeologist (J. V. Wright) who defined the Laurel tradition and the Middle Woodland period; foundational regional overview.