Monthly Archives: May 2010

More on Comox Harbour Fishtraps

Posted on May 12, 2010 | 10 comments

Fishtrap stakes delineating chevron patterns in the intertidal zone of Comox Harbour. Photo credit: Greene 2010.

I posted once before some time ago on the incredible fishtrap complexes in Comox Harbour on eastern Vancouver Island, highlighting Megan Caldwell’s M.A. thesis (downloadable) on the topic, and mentioning in passing that primacy of investigation should perhaps go to Nancy Greene, who has been mapping and dating these features for about a decade.  I was glad to find the other day that Nancy Greene has a 2010 downloadable poster on the topic (link starts a 4 meg PDF)  from an academic conference: WARP, the Wetland Archaeological Research Project, which itself has a nifty new website.

These Comox Harbour fishtraps are one of the wonders of B.C. Archaeology and it is highly welcome to see some more of Greene’s reconstructions and mapping.

Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in alaska, anthropology, Archaeology, First Nations, history, Northwest Coast, Technology, underwater archaeology, Vancouver Island

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Russian Plastic Tlingit Warrior Models. And more!

Posted on May 11, 2010 | 12 comments

Model of a Tlingit warrior. Source: http://www.modelsculpt.org, click for original page.

Well, there’s another headline I never thought I’d write!  Don’t ask me how I found it but these Russian guys have a passion for modelling human figures and one of their subjects is a Tlingit warrior.  It’s actually pretty impressive, with slat armour faithfully rendered, a wooden helmet and the circular gorget or throat protector. Scroll around on that forum for more images of the model.  We’ve looked at Tlingit slat armour on this site once before, as well.  The narrow slit between the helmet and the gorget or collar might seem exaggerated, but it agrees with this picture (also perhaps exaggerated) and this drawing, both apparently from Russian sources.

But there was an ancillary benefit to looking through this Russian-language forum: one of the participants has scanned some amazing pages of Tlingit art and artifacts from a Russian book, stuff I had never seen before that perhaps has its origins in colonial Russian Alaska.

Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in alaska, anthropology, Archaeology, history, Northwest Coast

Tagged , , , , ,

How to Make a Petroglyph

Posted on May 10, 2010 | 26 comments

Replica sandstone petroglyph made by Christine Stathers. Photo credit: Stathers.

I’ve often said the graduate student work is the backbone of the archaeological discipline in British Columbia.  Today I get to report on more student work – but this time its a fascinating study done by an undergraduate student at Camosun College here in Victoria.  The student, Christine Stathers, did an experimental archaeology project for her Anthropology 240 course, and she kindly agreed that I could post some of the results here.  The results are highly informative for our interpretation of petroglyphs, I think.

Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Archaeology, Miscellaneous, Northwest Coast, Teaching, Technology, Uncategorized, Vancouver Island

Tagged , , , , , ,

UVIC Archaeology Field School

Posted on May 9, 2010 | 3 comments

I hear through the grapevine that the 2010 University of Victoria Field School in Archaeology still has a couple of spaces available.  The project, in conjunction with Parks Canada and with the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, will run July 5 to August 13 or so in the southern Gulf Islands.  Students will take Anthropology 343 and 344 at UVIC and there will be a camp fee, to cover the costs of running the project and a camp on a Gulf Island for four weeks – one of the unferried ones: Portland Island.  There is more information about the course at the University of Victoria Anthropology Web site, including a PDF application form you can download.  The course will be taught by Dr. Duncan McLaren, who can be reached at dsmclaren {{at}} gmail dot com for more information.  Other UVIC faculty* and Parks Canada archaeologists will be taking part as well, as well as First Nations apprentices.  This particular course will be focused on skills needed in Cultural Resource Management jobs, as well as the cultural history of the Salish Sea and other related topics.  If you know someone who might be interested, or have students looking for a pretty good  fieldschool, consider circulating this information soon, as I hear the field school needs to finalize its numbers soon and there will be a second look at applications received.

*since this is my personal web site and is not affiliated with my day job, you’ll have to click the links to find out who that might be.

3 Comments

Posted in Archaeology, Northwest Coast, Teaching, Uncategorized

Tagged ,

Mystery Pipe

Posted on May 8, 2010 | 5 comments

Mystery panel pipe. 12 inches long by 4 inches high.

I got contacted the other day by someone who was handling the estate of an elderly art collector.  The entire collection is African with one exception, the panel pipe shown above, and with more pictures below.  The person is looking for some basic information about these pipes and I suppose they will be charged with its disposition.  They contacted me thinking I might know something about them because I have posted about such pipes before, but of course I am just an archaeologist and  make posts about a lot of things of which I am largely ignorant.

Mystery panel pipe, detail.

I’ve given them contact information for someone who actually does know but in the meantime they said it would be ok to post these pictures here and see what the readers have to say.

Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in First Nations, Haida Gwaii, Miscellaneous

Tagged , , , ,

More on the Sea-to-Sky Cultural Journey

Posted on May 7, 2010 | 4 comments

Sign at the Horsehoe bay kiosk. Source: tad McIlwraith flickr.com account.

A month or two ago I commented on the Squamish and Lil’wat Cultural Journey website, which explores oral history and place names in the traditional territory of these two southwestern British Columbia First Nations.  I was really happy to see that Douglas College Anthropologist (and occasional commenter here) Dr. Tad McIlwraith has carried the review much further.  He’s even taken it into the field, so to speak, by documenting and discussing the actual cultural centre itself, and also the roadside kiosks which bring Squamish and Lil’wat histories to the travelling public.

Tad’s review has two parts.

Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in anthropology, Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, First Nations, history, Lower Mainland, Northwest Coast, pics, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , ,

William Alexander’s Watercolours of Vancouver’s Voyage

Posted on May 6, 2010 | 16 comments

Village of the Friendly Indians near Bute's Canal. Watercolour by William Alexander. Source: University of Illinois.

Yesterday I posted an engraved  view of  a village near the entrance to Bute Inlet, the view seen in 1792 during the voyage of Captain Vancouver.  Much as with the earlier posts on John Webber (1, 2, 3), there are multiple versions of these scenes.  The above shows a watercolour rendering made by William Alexander, a well known artist and draughtsman of the late 18th century.  It seems his series of works on the NW Coast was not done from life but was a commissioned finalization of the drawings of William Daniell, who was actually on Vancouver’s voyages, and perhaps other artists/oficer’s sketches.  At least that is the story I’ve been able to winkle out, starting from a position of sheer ignorance.  Nicely, though, Alexander’s watercolours from the Vancouver Voyage series, covering Alaska, the Northwest Coast and some views of California and Chile, are all available online through the Newberry Library at the University of Illinois.  These renderings were not familiar to me and perhaps not to you, either.

Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in alaska, Archaeology, California, First Nations, history, Northwest Coast, pics, Vancouver Island

Tagged , , , , ,

Houses on Stilts

Posted on May 4, 2010 | 35 comments

"Village of the Friendly Indians at the Entrance of Bute's Canal", 1792. Click for zoomable version.

The above image shows a seemingly improbable Kwiakah Kwakwaka’wakw Village (EDIT: probably Homathko Coast Salish Village) at the entrance to Bute Inlet, as drawn in 1792 by a member of Captain Vancouver’s expedition.  With the houses scattered up a steep hillside, the top one apparently partially cantilevered out, it does not fit the average archaeologist’s mental model of a typical Northwest Coast village.  The setting would undoubtedly have some defensive advantages, at least for those at the top.  I know of another image of a steeply-tiered village site which is apparently not strictly a defensive site.  Hard to live on the side of such a steep hill, you might think.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have photographs of such a village?  Aha.

Continue reading →

35 Comments

Posted in alaska, anthropology, Archaeology, First Nations, history, Northwest Coast

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Basket Conservation at the Langley Centennial Museum

Posted on May 3, 2010 | 1 comment

N'laka'pamux Basket undergoing conservation treatment. Source: LangleyMueum.org

I know I occasionally grumble about how regional, publicly funded museums in B.C. are almost devoid of archaeological and aboriginal substance, especially on the web.  A happy exception to this is the Langley Centennial Museum near Vancouver, which has an unusual and interesting virtual exhibit of N’laka’pamux basketry.  The museum is in the possession of a large collection of these baskets, made by an interesting historical figure from the Yale-Lytton area of the Fraser River: one Kathleen Pearson. The exhibit consists of a number of pages, including a short essay (5 pages) which is strangely not clearly linked, based around Boas et al.’s 1928 Bureau of American Ethnology Publication.  The museum goes beyond the historical frame by discussing recent named weavers such as Mary Ann James, and the continuing tradition of N’laka’pamux basket making.

It is really great to see a relatively small museum explicitly recognizing that the world didn’t begin in 1846 and going beyond the story of white settlers as if they were a self contained pod of culture beamed down from Queen Victoria’s forehead.  The other thing  I particularly like about this small web exhibit is that the museum highlights the activities of another group of unsung heroes in the world of heritage conservation: the conservators who restore, stabilize and protect the artifacts entrusted to museums.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in anthropology, Archaeology, archives, Cultural Resource Management, First Nations, history, Lower Mainland, Northwest Interior, Northwest Coast, Technology

Tagged , , , , , ,

Fish Bones at Portland State University

Posted on May 2, 2010 | 7 comments

Maxillae of the Great Sculpin. Source: PSU

OK, I have written more exciting headlines in my life.  But as I noted before, zooarchaeologists – the specialists in identifying and interpreting animal remains – are some of the unsung heroes of archaeology.  The discipline requires encyclopedic knowledge of hundreds of animal skeletons,  the ability to relate even small fragments from archaeological contexts back to whole specimens of known species, and a thorough understanding of both culture and ecology – all this in addition to the normal skill set of a typical archaeologist.  Master all this, and your reward is to be called “Bone Guy” (or worse) for the rest of your professional life.

Anyway, it is welcome to find another online guide to some common archaeological animal remains from the Northwest.  While I know it is a bit too much information for many readers of this web site, it is important to share the link and information, since considerable time and effort was put into this admittedly niche set of illustrated fish bones, and archaeologists need to be aware of it.

Continue reading →

7 Comments

Posted in Archaeology, Northwest Interior, Northwest Coast, pics

Tagged , , , , ,