The Neutrals were an Iroquoian nation of North American native people who lived near the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Their own name for themselves has been lost, but they were called Attawandaron by the Hurons, meaning "people of a slightly different language". The name Neutral was applied to them by the French because they tried to be neutral between the warring Huron and Iroquois peoples. During the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois conquered and absorbed the Neutral tribe in the year 1651. Their territory was almost entirely within southern Ontario, save for three or four villages to the east, across the Niagara River in New York State; their western border was about Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River, their southern limit the north shore of Lake Erie, and the northern limit approximately a line drawn between modern Oakville, Ontario on the shore of Lake Ontario west to near Grand Bend, Ontario on the shore of Lake Huron. They possessed about forty villages in a highly productive agricultural, mostly treed region. The Southwold Earthworks near St. Thomas, Ontario contains the remains of a Neutral village and is a National Historic Site of Canada. The Museum of Ontario Archaeology in London, Ontario is located adjacent to the site of another 500-year-old Neutral village. This village, designated as the "Lawson Prehistoric Iroquoian Village", has been under study since the early 1900s. Much of the village, including its palisades and long houses, has been reconstructed and a large collection of Neutral artifacts recovered there is displayed in the museum.
