I’ll mostly be using the site for occasional commentary on Northwest Coast Archaeology or for interesting news items or things I find on the web. The goal is to encourage public knowledge about, and appreciation of, Northwest Coast Archaeology through examples of interesting finds and sites, or through commentaries on archaeology in the news or otherwise in the public domain.
Nothing posted to this blog qmackie.wordpress.com in any way represents the opinion or views of the University of Victoria. You can contact me via qmackie {@} gmail dot com, or please feel free to leave comments below or on any post.
Northwest Coast Archaeology 
rad blog!
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I like it 🙂
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Good day,
I’d like to request the addition of Beta Analytic’s archaeology-focused web site in the post entitled “Seward Peninsula Mastodon Tusk – “too old”, therefore Too Old.” The URL is http://www.radiocarbon.eu. I hope you will grant our request.
Thanks!
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Nice site, useful site, I shall point my students to it! Great stuff!
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Thanks for the comments on my web site and for linking it. I linked your site as well.
Under people, I suggest adding David Brauner (Oregon State) for historic archaeology, he has done prehistoric as well. Also Tom Connolly and Dennis Jenkins (OSMA), they do the best research and reporting in Oregon (personal opinion).
Suggestion: if you redo your “people” using (last name, first name) your sort would be better. People would be easier to find.
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Rudy — thanks! Glad you find it useful.
Leland — thanks to you also. I took your suggestion – it meant editing each link since the sort capabilities are nonexistent – but I agree it makes more sense and it was only laziness that kept me from editing it before. I added the names you suggeste which led me to the Oregon MNCH which has some great stuff, coming soon to this blog!
q.
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Hi Qmackie,
Thanks for visiting my post on the use of Podcasting in Archaeology at the University of Swansea.
I’ve commented on this project from an educationalist’s perspective, having zero knowledge of archaeology.
I’ve posted a couple of links to the video files/podcasts on my blog. I’d be interested in receiving your views as an archaeologist on the ‘value’ of this resource.
Maybe, as you suggested in your post to me, it would be worthwhile compiling an online database of such resources, to which archaeologists around the world could upload data local/specific to them?
All the best,
Lee.
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Quentin,
I was wondering if you had any general information about infant mortality rates in First Nations societies on the Northwest coast, as well as life expectancy. If you survived to adolescence, how long could you expect to live? Prior to European contact, how did people die? What was dental health like?
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Hi Nevin,
Hey, those are some good questions with no simple answers. I have a book at my office which I’ll try to remember to take a look at in the next few days. Populations stats are fairly hard problem in palaeo-demography though and there is often quite a bit of hand-waving.
Overall, dental health was a mixed bag. The diet was not very starchy or sugary, so dental caries was less of a problem than in many parts of the world with more sugars in the diet. However, there was a lot of sand and silt incidentally mixed in with the food, meaning even young adults typically had extremely worn cusps, to the point of smoothness, and from there you could lose teeth, have cracked enamel, and develop deep abscesses quite easily.
Well, like I said I’ll try to remember to look up some figures for you in the next few days, drop me a line or an email if you don’t hear and remind me! Or if any other readers see this and want to chip in, go right ahead.
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I have added slides from my personal collection and slided from my years as state archaeologist in oregon to my web site.
I did this in response to your comment about needing more photos of Oregon/Wsahington archaeology. Let me know what you think about the archaeological ones… though also included all of my fieldwork where I had slides to digitize.
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Thanks! I had a quick look and holy cats, you put up hundreds of photos! The slideshows load quickly and smoothly, and the sites are noted, so while detailed captions for some of the photos might be fun, fundamentally it is great. Also, its fun to get a glimpse into your other activities, the caves, and so forth.
New readers note: Dr. Leland Gilsen, former state archaeologist of Oregon, has a terrific website,
http://oregon-archaeology.com/
also linked and described here:
https://qmackie.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/leland-gilsens-archaeology-of-oregon/
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ladies, gent’s
I have in my possession a (I think) spear-head from the Chilcotin area of BC.
Should this specimen interest you, please contact me by e mail or phone, 604 531-4333
Frank
thank you,
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Hi frank naumann,
I just sent you an email! If you don’t get it try me: qmackie [at] gmail.com
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Frank, I am wondering if you had owned the resort CarzyBear Lodge and if so could you answer a few questions for me. The lodge is for sale and I would like some back ground info, thanks, Tim Hunter thunts19@gmail.com
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Hey Q: Just got turned on to the blog, scanned it, love it.
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Hi Mad Dog, good to hear from you. Stick around, and stick your thoughts in anytime……
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Yo Q: i too just got hip to your blog. Great reading, keep it up.
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Thanks for the note, bluesboy, I hope this site strikes a chord with you.
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Thanks Doris for directing me to this site, I will inform our school, cultural centre and our new Resource department about it.
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Welcome, Elroy / Xanius,
You may have seen I reviewed your M.A. thesis a while back!
https://qmackie.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/dspace-elroy-white-xanius-on-fishtraps/
Hope you are well and feel free to comment or chip in at any time.
Q.
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hi…great site! any info on a trail that includes a bridge across the suskwa river (hazelton, bc)? just found and photographed the bridge for a first nations sustainability project in the suskwa, and i am trying to find more info on the trail. thanks for any help!
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Hi kelly,
Sorry, no — the information in the “aboriginal bridges” post is all I have.
https://qmackie.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/aboriginal-bridges-of-northwestern-b-c/
If the First Nation has done a “Traditional Use Study” (TUS) then trails are very commonly researched and integrated into those, but the information may be confidential, so I suppose that means your access may well depend on your relationship with them. Perhaps some other readers will have a better idea.
The author of the Living Landscapes page, Brenda Guernsey, might be worth contacting but I have no idea how, other than google!
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Hey kelly, if you’re a member of the BCAPCA (or even if you’re not), ask the Executive if you can send a blanket email to all members asking for information – this way you can tap directly into a good knowledge base of archaeologists who have worked in that area and may have that gem of info you are looking for.
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Hi Kelly,
I think that there was a NWMP trail in that area – built in the 1890’s or early 1900’s. A bridge has been recorded on the Suskwa in a report in the 1990’s that was part of that historical trail. I think that the report may have been written by Eldon Yellowhorn doing CRM work with perhaps Mike Rousseau. It’s been 10 years since I read the report, so these details may be off. I is possible that the bridge did not make it into the provincial inventory since it is “too recent”, but it is in the report.
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Kelly, I just tried to look that up and my long term memory failed me. The bridge I was thinking of is on the Sustut, not the Suskwa. Sorry about that.
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Hi Quentin,
Just stumbled across your site. I echo Rudy’s comment: what a wonderful resource, but particularly for those of us doing NWC stuff from abroad with fewer direct links. I’ll be adding it to a reading list for a course I teach on North American archaeology here in Scotland.
Keep up the good work!
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Hi Jeff, thanks for you comments. I hope to be updating more regularly when I am back from the UVIC fieldschool in middle of August….
Make sure you tell your students I write most of the blog off the top of my head and not as a highly referenced and hyperscholarly exercise!
Regards, Quentin
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Here’s a message for all of the readers of this blog. This blog has recently featured the Sechelt Image and a boulder at the Museum of Vancouver which has a number of petroglyphs. I would like to update you on the circumstances of both of these. I’m writing as a member of the museum board, chair of the collections committee, and a professor of anthropology at UBC. The Museum previously had no repatriation policy but over the last two or three years the board has created one and successfully sought approval from the City of Vancouver, the owner of the collection which the Museum cares for. Our next step has been to research the piece and to meet with the Sechelt concerning repatriation of the Image. We’ve done this. The Museum board has approved repatriation to the Sechelt and this is now pending approval by the City. It is underway. In addition, for some time now, museum professional staff and the collections committee, with the assistance of UBC graduate students Chris Arnett and Emily Birky have been researching the large rock in the atrium in order to determine which is the appropriate band to consult with about its disposition. This is also underway.
My larger messages are these:
First, The Museum of Vancouver professional staff and director have both advanced and fully supported these developments. So has the board. This is under conditions of tremendous financial difficulty faced by this and all museums.
Second, if you want public institutions to be responsive to important Aboriginal issues, get elected or appointed to museum committees and boards and put in the time to move things forward. As anthropologists and archaeologists, we’ve got a lot to contribute. It’s important right now as First Nations and Museums try to recreate their relations.
Bruce Miller, UBC
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I made a tracing of the petroglyph images when the rock was still in Stanley Park. I’d like to know more about the rock, its provenience and general story – how did it get to Vancouver etc. I have not prepared the tracing as an illustration as this would take weeks of work.
Don
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Hi Bruce,
Sorry for the late reply re: this excellent news, and I look forward to more updates.
Don, that is interesting. Your tracing might be valuable as a baseline of how the petroglyph may have eroded, if at all, over the years which have passed. You might want to contact Professor Miller through the Anthropology Department at UBC.
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Hi qmackie, very glad to see your blog back in action. And, I just discovered your search tool. That is awesome, a big improvement for your blog, that has probably been there for months without me noticing. Now, if only it searched the comments as well as your main post then it would be perfect.
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Hi APM,
yeah I added that recently when rebuilding the site after wordpress jerked the templates around.
I didn’t know it wouldn’t search comments. As a workaround, you can always use google search of the type
search bottlenose site:qmackie.wordpress.com
In fact, because instances of “qmackie” on the web are pretty much limited to this site, you can search for “bottlenose qmackie” and you will find comments with that string in it.
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Hi readers,
So a few days ago I added an “events” section to the righthand sidebar, on which I will post any upcoming archaeology talks or other events I hear about. I am open to posting anything from the Northwest (Oregon thru Alaska, say), so if you know of a talk, then let me know.
Also, after I posted some of the upcoming October 2010 Oregon ones, I found a summary webpage link here:
http://oregonstateparks.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/smith-rock-hosts-october-archaeology-series/
Anyway, if you have an event that is more or less archaeology related then let me know and I’ll try to post it so the 13 readers of the blog can find it, at least.
email me via qmackie @ gmail.com
q.
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Hey bud, starting a bit of a BC History project myself. At a garage sale 7 years ago, i stumbled upon a set of 4 books dated 1912 that call themselves the earliest times to the present (dating the history of BC from founding to today)… All the pictures and info contained within are out of copyright and unpublished anywhere. I’ve already uploaded almost all of the contents of book 1 into WordPress with the assistance of Staff using OCR (Optical Character recognition) … There is quite a bit of content about the Island and coastal stuff that may be of incredible insight to you.
We’ll scan all the pictures too but of course that’s very time consuming. If there are any historical photos of any particular area you’d like to see, i’m sure there’s some there if you like.
Blessings, Dan.
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Pingback: If you are a fan of archaeology. . . « Northwest Geology Field Trips
qmackie, you are sure making us SFU students hard at work. Seems like our professors love using your blog for us to write an essay about.
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Glad to be of help 😉
I’d be curious to see what the assignment is, obviously has to do with the Clovis Comet posting I think, based on the hit counter for that page… you can even track it by semester (this is the third time the assignment has been made), the tiny flicker of interest when the assignment is handed out, and the last minute surge of hits as the assignments get done. I suspect that this time the assignment is due on Thursday. It’s like an index of SFU student procrastination.
Anyway, if anyone feels like it, then email me the assignment just for fun: qmackie at gmail dot com.
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This is probably not the right place to post this but hopefully some of you will take the time to help me understand this. THANKS!
There seem to be two theories of the colonization of North and South America.
I am not an expert only someone that did not realize what a tangled web the peopling of the Americas was. What I have written below is based on information I have read on the subject. I just hope find some clarifications.
The first theory is for two migrations.
The first migration was about 14,000 years ago with a beginning population of approximately 100 people. This “wave” of long headed paleo-Indians spread through North America and South America covering every nook and cranny in an amazingly short period of time ( somewhat like the Clovis blitzkrieg theory of years past.) A very short period indeed it seems since Monte Verde is close to 14,000 years old and appears to have been inhabitated by a group of people that were very familiar with medicinal plants and other necessities and where to get them. Showing that they had not just arrived but had been established in the area for some time.
These paleo-Indians then suddenly (I am not sure what the experts mean by suddenly…twenty years? two hundred? two thousand?) disappeared all over both continents about 6000 years ago and were replaced by more round headed Mongoloid type (or modern) Indians.
(Another confusing thing to me is the advent of the bow & arrow. The story is the theoretical second migration brought the bow & arrow with them 6000 years ago yet the bow & arrow didn’t make an appearance until 2000 years ago. Somehow the numbers do not add up. Could it have been possible the bow & arrow were invented here totally separate from any outside interference?)
I have to wonder how the second migration managed to exterminate an established population of people (I do not know how many of the original people there would have been but I would guess close to two million and probably more) who had spread over two massive continents and adapted to every kind of environment imaginable nearly over night. This again sounds like the out dated Clovis blitzkrieg and the alleged massive extermination of a large and establish population in a short period of time. Except we are talking other humans not mega fauna.
The two parted second theory.
Either the paleo-Indians carried the Mongolid DNA which would eventually produce the typical round head or the plasticity of the skull changed to accommodate environment, climate, diet or a combination of the above. Both of these seem as difficult to fathom as the suggestion of a recent migration wiping out an older establish population.
Yet if the below theory is correct…
The gene pool of a large interbreeding population is more stable than the gene pool of a small isolated population. In another words a genetic variation has far greater consequences in small or isolated populations than in large ones. If this is true then the small original population of 100 individuals that entered the New World roughly 14,000 years ago would be far more likely to produce variations in the expanding population than say if the original founding population was 10,000. This being the case the changes in the population as it grew and expanded into new and different environments would be supported by this theory.
In reading up on this I have found for ever paper supporting one theory there is another disclaiming it. The only clear result I can see is that there is absolutely no agreement what so ever.
The one migration with plasticity in the skull shape to explain the changes in skull form over time or multiple migrations to explain it has not just been tossed around for the New World. It seems that the same issues have been mauled to death for the origin of the Australians 45/50 thousand years ago, Africa 100,000 or so years ago, and even the “sudden” appearance of modern man (Homo erectus) 30/35 thousand years ago.
Until about 6000 years ago nearly all modern humans were long headed or causcoid in shape. Caucasoid not meaning white as European ( since many “dark races” have Caucasoid shaped skulls) but as in Caucasus Mountains where the first “type” skull was found. Actually until around 6000 years ago there was no blue eyed blond Nordic “type” as the genes for that were not in existence before then. Mongoloid as we recognize them today appeared about the same time as the blue eyed gene although the genetics for the modern Mongoloid could have been in existence for much longer.
This being said it would have been impossible for either round headed Mongoloids or fair haired Frenchmen to have arrived in the New World 14,000 years ago. Even at 6000 years ago they would have had to done the Clovis blitzkrieg “thing” in order to arrive all over the New World at about the same time as their first appeared in the human record.
What is really confusing for me is the seemingly repeated questions of single or multiple migrations over a wide span of time and locations and the supposed faster than a speeding bullet travel times of these ancient and pedestrian people. Were they really in that big of a hurry?? All of this rushing around (on foot no less no jet planes or Amtrak for these ancient people) seems unbelievable to me.
And why if anthropologists and geneticists have been studying the remains of ancient humans for decades do they still conflict in their research? It seems if they have the same data, skulls, genetic material, etc. They should at least roughly fall in line with each other.
Again I want to make myself perfectly clear, I am not an expert in anthropology, archaeology, or any other “ology”. I was curious about the many various theories of the colonization of the Americas and by whom and when. I had no idea that in fact no one really knows much even with the reams of paper that were used in putting forward the many theories on it.
All I am looking for is a bit of unbiased clarification from parties that do not have an agenda but are just seeking the truth.
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Saw this in the paper today. Its nice to see something positive come out of a tragedy.
http://www.theprovince.com/technology/students+restore+artifacts+Chase/6178090/story.html
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Hi qmackie,
I have nominated you for a 7×7 Link Award for your great blog.
Please feel no obligation to do anything with this award other than to know my high regard for your blog.
Find out more here: http://wp.me/p1R4lY-2gJ
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Hi qmackie – I have been researching for a post on the Douglas Treaties, and happily came across your wonderful blog! There is tons of great stuff here, and I think I’m going to need to sit down one day to root through it all! Keep it up!
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Hmm is anyone else experiencing problems with
the pictures on this blog loading? I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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Homer, I am having no trouble with pictures loading – thought I would answer since qmackie is in the field and won’t be able to respond quickly
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Hey there qmackie! I’ve been following your blog from Arizona for quite some time and have recently returned to the great PacNW…roots of my archaeology days. I’ve been doing GIS for nearly 20 years now and have a consulting firm as well. Would you be able to add a link for http://www.mapdoggis.com to your list? I love the lidar article. I’ve been doing a bit of 3D laser scanning and plan to offer that technology very soon. Thanks!
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Hi Michelle — done. Maybe you can back to the Northwest, skills in hand. q.
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I don’t know who to write to on a very extrodiany find in my yard. I found an artifact of 8,000 – 10,000 years old. I got it assesed through an Archeology Branch in NEBC and am very interested in findinging more information on the cost of this rock. I spent many years working in Environmental Monitoring and found this object in my own back yard just recently. I would really like some feedback on this item. AmyAnn Gauthier
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A living spruce aborglyph featuring a carved face of T’alh (wild woman of the forest) was recently discovered 55 km inland from the head of Toba Inlet. It was found during a clearcut logging operation by Klahoose. Details of the context are emerging. The fate of this CMT is unknown at this time…stunning pictures to follow. See the Klahoose press release here…http://klahoose.org/cultural-modified-tree-discovery/
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How does one upload pics?
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Hi pibn,
Thanks for the tip. I’ve seen some pictures and agree it is stunning. Only I can upload pictures to this site. If you send them to me qmackie@gmail I’d consider that, but I’d want to be sure that it is ok to Klahoose Nation, that is, there may be restrictions on viewing this of which I am not aware…..
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Oddly enough, we found an arborglyph last week in the Nimpkish Valley, about 60 km from the mouth of the Nimpkish River. The arborglyph is also a carved face, possibly a portrait, finely carved in cedar with tree lobe growth suggesting an age at least 100 years old. Another cedar nearby was being prepared for a similar carving and the locale a likely trapping and/or fishing camp. The features were found during an archaeological inventory initiated and funded by the ‘Namgis Nation. I’ll try and send some photos…
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That makes 3 in 6 weeks! Another was found on the Central Coast this fall.
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Didn’t Bruce Ball record one somewhere around Tumbler Ridge in the 80s?
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I’ve spent some time updating all the links in the sidebar, including “Northwest People” which had became a veritable broken-link farm. A few well known folks are not on there mainly because they don’t have a web page – so the message is get one.
Anyway, the sidebar should be a safe place to visit again. Send me any obvious missing links.
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Q, Happy new year. Many many thanks for keeping this blog happening in 2014!
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Hey. Good blog. I was wondering if you know the provenance on http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/6154234.jpg — that’s the photo you use in the 2009 piece on Keatley Creek. I’m looking for something along those lines that can be used in an Open Educational Resource (i.e.: without any copyright restrictions, in the Creative Commons). What do you reckon?
Cheers.
John.
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Hi Q, so glad to have found your blog. Also glad to know you’re still around and educating some 17 years after I took undergrad courses with you (god we’re old!).
Looking forward to getting back in the know, so to speak.
–Amber
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Hello qmackie,
Thanks for the refs to our placer mining/gold rush toponymy map(s). In addition the project launched abt 2001 has spawned 3 papers and another (examining our archaeological activity) is in the works. Copies of the maps from the original run stored in my Texas Creek workshop/office.
Michael Kennedy
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Hi Michael, thanks for visiting. If you have any links you’d like me to post or if you’d like to comment on the post you’re more than welcome of course, otherwise, join the great lurking unwashed!
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Hi,
We live on Gabriola Island, and would like to see the Mouse Woman petroglyph. I’ve heard it’s near the Community Hall. Can you give me directions?
Thanks!
Jan
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