Monthly Archives: September 2010

Bella Coola Lichen

Posted on September 18, 2010 | 4 comments

A gravestone with lichen growth. Source: designscience.com

I was reading the charming Bella Coola Blog the other day and came across an interesting post discussing how lichen had been used to date glacial features in the area.  So-called lichenometry is a well-established dating technique which relies on the principle that lichen grows in roughly circular patterns, and that there is a linear relationship between the diameter of the circle and the age of the lichen patch.  Now, such patches can be many hundreds of years old.  So for an event where rock is newly exposed and then lichen grows on it, the lichen will give a minimum date on when the bare rock was first available as a lichen environment.  Anytime you have a bare rock and a dating technique for when the rock became bare, the archaeology antennae rise.

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Posted in Archaeology, history, Northwest Coast, Technology

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Two upcoming events in Vancouver and Victoria

Posted on September 18, 2010 | 1 comment

1936 Field Trip by the Vancouver Natural History Society to Musqueam. Source: Vancouver Public Library. VPL Accession Number: 19483

In Vancouver this Sunday, September 19 at 1.00 there is a guided walk of the Ancient Salmon Stream and Musqueam Village, starting at Jericho Beach (details here) with Victor Guerin, “a cultural/linguistic consultant and historian, a member of the Musqueam First Nation and a speaker of the Musqueam dialect of the Central Coast Salish language Halkomelem. He has been learning about his people’s culture and history his entire life, including some 16 years of consultation and documentation with family elders and 4 years formal training in the Musqueam language with linguistic analysts at UBC.”

This talk/walk is one in a series from the False Creek Watershed Society, most of which look like they hold promise for an interesting conversation between historical ecology, traditional knowledge, and landscape development.  It would be good to see connections built or strengthened between restoration groups and archaeologists, who share many of the same values.  You can see the other talks and walks they sponsor here – two of them are actually today, Saturday September 18th.  OK, go to those as well!

The other upcoming event is the  Archaeology Society of B.C. monthly public lecture in Victoria, which is on Tuesday 21 September.  This month’s speaker is Grant Keddie from the Royal B.C. Museum.

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Posted in Archaeology, history, Lower Mainland, Northwest Coast, Uncategorized, Vancouver Island

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In-SHUCK-ch Cedar Bark Stripping Gallery

Posted on September 17, 2010 | 2 comments

Pulling a cedar bark strip. The scarred face will heal in a highly characteristic way. Source: In-SHUCK-ch live.com (click)

I came across a nice set of 18 pictures of members of the In-SHUCK-ch First Nation stripping cedar bark for use in traditional manufactures, especially basketry, cordage, matting, and clothing.  This nation is on the lower Fraser in the general Lillooet-Harrison Lake area.  It’s true you have to turn your head sideways on a lot of the pictures, but at the same time you would have to crane your head way back if you were stripping bark, so that’s ok.  Continue reading →

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Posted in anthropology, Archaeology, Northwest Interior, pics

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VicNews: Rebirth through Reburial

Posted on September 16, 2010 | 2 comments

Burial cairn on Race Rocks. Source: RaceRocks.com

While I was away over the summer the local free paper, the Victoria News, did a (to my mind)   high quality series on reburial and respect in Songhees and Esquimalt communities (cache). The three articles by Lisa Weighton include comments from numerous aboriginal spiritual and political leaders, and sensitively describes how Straits Salish faith asserts that the dead are always with the living.  The dead do not conveniently depart to some other place, but continue in a world alongside and intersecting the world of the living.

Hence ancestral remains are not something belonging to a past which can be “gotten over” but are very much part of the present world.  Laying a person to rest, or back to rest after disturbance, requires food, clothing and prayer.  I don’t pretend to understand the concept well, but I have been to some such ceremonies and the power of the moment is impossible to deny.  In my limited experience the article fairly represents the spiritual and emotional needs that must be met under the sad circumstance of disturbing the dead.  It is incumbent on archaeologists and all citizens to not only work to minimize disturbance of the dead but to respect traditional practices.  It has been impressed on me that such practices are meant to protect us, the living, First Nations or not, as well as to give comfort and respect to the dead.  This should now be considered absolutely part of mainstream archaeology.

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Posted in anthropology, Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, First Nations, Vancouver Island

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More ice patch archaeology bork bork bork

Posted on September 15, 2010 | 9 comments

3400 year old shoe from a Norwegian ice patch. Source: Reuters.

It’s interesting to see some ice patch archaeology emerging in Norway now.   Reuters has a good story and short video about some cool finds from 1800 metres above sea level in the Jotunheimen Mountains, which lie northeast of Bergen.  The most spectacular find is the 3,400 year old leather shoe, shown above.

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Posted in Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, Technology

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“From the Islander” blog

Posted on September 14, 2010 | 2 comments

Screenshot of "From the Islander" blog

The Hallmark Society sponsored a nice blog called “From the Islander” through the summer of 2010.  This is a retrospective set of commentaries about excerpts from the weekend newspaper insert “The Islander”, which used to be published in the Victoria Daily Colonist and the Victoria Times-Colonist.  There’s not any archaeology that I have seen, and surprisingly (or not) there is no coverage of First Nations, but all the same it is an interesting read if you have a shine for Vancouver Island history, and a well-done, informative blog.  Apparently the Hallmark Society (or the blogger, who goes by wpbradley and was their summer student intern) has digitized a fair bit of The Islander and indexed it here – though full text is not available for the most part.

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Posted in history, Vancouver Island

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Back! Almost…

Posted on September 13, 2010 | 7 comments

Landing craft picking up the last of the UVIC-GINPR archaeology fieldschool from Princess Bay on Portland Island.

OK, enough late summer lounging: I think it is time to be making a few posts on this blog.  I can’t guarantee super-reliable service but will try to drag up some interesting links for the perusal of my seven readers.  While I was gone, WordPress unexpectedly changed the “theme” (template) of this blog and in the process destroyed a bunch of drafts I had made, which might be just as well overall, though annoying nonetheless.  I’m going to start by answering a few, but probably not all, of the comments people have left in the last month.

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Posted in Miscellaneous

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