Category Archives: Archaeology

ASBC Victoria talk: Tuesday May 20, Michelle Puckett on Quadra Is. Clam Gardens

Posted on May 19, 2014 | Leave a comment
Gwaii Haanas clam garden.

Clam garden in southern Haida Gwaii.  Note the rock wall forming the flat terrace feature.

Transforming the Beach, Transforming our Thinking: Ancient Clam Gardens of Northern Quadra Island, BC.

Michelle Puckett (presenter) and Amy Groesbeck, Dana Lepofsky, Anne Salomon, Kirsten Rowell, Nicole Smith and Sue Formosa

Tuesday, May 20th, 7:30pm at the University of Victoria, Cornett Building, Room B129.  All welcome, free.

SFU graduate student Michelle Puckett (formerly UVIC’s own) is giving the May ASBC Victoria talk – “clam gardens”.  These intertidal features have taken NW Coast archaeology by storm over the last 15 years or so.  Each one is a deliberate alteration of the beach in order to enhance shellfish productivity.  Hundreds of these are now known, and as archaeologists’ eyes become more tuned to this site type I expect hundreds more to be recorded.  Being, in effect, a kind of mariculture or aquaculture, these are important not only to our understanding of long term histories on the coast (they challenge the anthropological type “hunter-gatherer”) but they will also become important in land claims, I am sure. Click below to read the abstract and bio for this talk.

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Posted in Archaeology, fieldwork, Northwest Coast, Technology, Vancouver Island

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Visit to the UNBC Fieldschool on Calvert Island

Posted on May 14, 2014 | 5 comments
Deep unit at ElTa-4, Calvert Island.

Deep unit at Luxvbalis, EjTa-4, Calvert Island.

This blog’s world headquarters has temporarily moved out to the central coast, where yours truly is tagging along with Dr. Duncan McLaren and his team working on the early period archaeology and landscape history of the Hakai area.  The project is sponsored in very generous style by the Hakai Beach Institute, which also funds and facilitates a variety of research on the cultural and natural history of this beautiful and sensitive area. One of the other Hakai projects is an archaeological fieldschool directed by Dr. Farid Rahemtulla of the University of Northern BC.  I wrote about this fieldschool once before and you can get some background on this site (EjTa-4, Luxvbalis) at that link. The site is in the traditional territory of the Heiltsuk and Wuikinuxv First Nations.  Yesterday I had the chance to visit the site, get shown around by Farid, and hang out at the screens with his great students – and to be the annoying guy with a camera.

So it’s a really deep site.  Above you can see Kira Cari in this years main excavation unit.  They are expanding a unit from last year which went down 4.7 metres or so without bottoming out. As of yesterday, they are about 2.4 units down.  Basal dates so far are in the 6-7,000 year old range but this might get older since the bottom is not yet reached and there may be older cultural deposits intact in the intertidal zone as well. Continue reading →

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Posted in Archaeology, fieldwork, Northwest Coast, Shell Middens, Teaching

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Memorial Tributes for Dr. Richard “Doc” Daugherty

Posted on March 26, 2014 | 2 comments
Richard Daugherty with the famous "whaling trophy" from the Ozette Site. Source: Washington State University.

Richard Daugherty with the famous “whaling trophy” from the Ozette Site. Source: Washington State University.

Dale Croes sends along the following information: two tribute events for the late Dr. Richard Daugherty, who passed away February 22 at the age of 91. Daugherty was Professor of Archaeology at Washington State University, and is best known for two remarkable projects: the Marmes Rockshelter dig and the long-term Ozette wet site project, the latter being commonly referred to as the “Pompeii of North America” on the grounds of its incredible preservation of organic Makah material culture.

I only met Dr. Daugherty once a long time ago when I was privileged to speak about the Kilgii Gwaay wet site in Seattle, but there is an entire generation of NW Archaeologists who were his students, or were otherwise inspired or mentored by him. If you’re one of them (and count me amongst the inspired), then feel free to leave a comment below, and this can serve as an online repository of good memories and funny stories perhaps. It’s the NW Anthropology meetings starting tonight in Bellingham and I am sure there will be plenty of beer glasses clinked in his memory.  If you click “continue reading” then I’ve gathered together some of the obituaries and also the poster which Dale sent with details of the two tributes, the first of which is this coming Monday in Olympia.

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Posted in Archaeology, Northwest Interior, Northwest Coast, Washington State

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Two talks in Victoria next seven days

Posted on March 11, 2014 | Leave a comment
Burial cairn on Race Rocks. Source: RaceRocks.com

Burial cairn on Race Rocks. Source: RaceRocks.com

Two very cool talks in Victoria over the next few days.  The first is a unique opportunity to hear from Cowichan (Coast Salish) “gravedigger” Harold C. Joe, who for more than 30 years has worked with archaeologists and anthropologists to care for the disturbed ancestral dead, among his other responsibilities.

The second talk is the monthly ASBC event which features Dr. Andreas Fuls of the Berlin Institute of Technology, who will address a topic in Mayan astronomy and the Mayan collapse.

If you’re not in Victoria you can probably stop reading, but if you click below then you’ll find  more details, including abstracts and the where and when.

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Posted in Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, First Nations, Northwest Coast, Vancouver Island

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ASBC Victoria talk: Tue Feb 18, Nicole Westre on Hiikwis Fauna

Posted on February 17, 2014 | 3 comments
UVIC Students excavating at Hiikwis Site, Barkley Sound.

UVIC Students excavating at Hiikwis Site, Barkley Sound.

They didn’t do it just for the Halibut: A faunal analysis of the Hiikwis site complex (DfSh-15 & DfSh-16), Barkley Sound.

Nicole Westre

Tuesday, February 18, 2014, 7:30 pm
Cornett Building B129
(North End of Cornett building)
University of Victoria

As always, the ASBC talks are free and open to the public.

Abstract:

The Hiikwis site complex (DfSh-15 and DfSh-16) consists of two village sites in inner Barkley Sound, occupied continuously for nearly 3000 years until the 1900s. Excavated between 2008 and 2010, the site complex has gained attention as the only Barkley Sound village site to contain a significant flaked stone assemblage in late contexts. My talk, however, focuses on sampled vertebrate faunal remains recovered from the site, which are unique among Barkley Sound sites as well. The bird and whale assemblages will be discussed, as will salmon exploitation. In general, Barkley Sound sites suggest that salmon did not become an important resource in the area until only about 800 years ago. This observation challenges the idea that complex Northwest Coast societies emerged as a result of salmon preservation for winter consumption as long as 3500 years ago. Does the Hiikwis site complex follow the typical Barkley Sound pattern, or do the bones tell a different story?

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Posted in Archaeology, fieldwork, Shell Middens, Vancouver Island

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Upcoming archaeology talks in Nanaimo

Posted on February 4, 2014 | 1 comment
Millennia hearth model screenshot.

Millennia hearth model screenshot from video. Click to go to blog post and view video.

I’ve been asked to post about some upcoming talks in Nanaimo with archaeological interest.  Below I list the talks, which are all co-sponsored to one degree or another between VIU and the Nanaimo ASBC chapter.  The linked posters below give you more information about parking, times, room numbers, abstracts, bios, etc.  All these talks are free and open to the public. For further information then contact mail@asbcnanaimo.ca .

I know many of you are stuck in other lovely places in the world and can’t make it, but for those more local then the details follow.

First up – in just a day or two – is Morley Eldridge of Millennia Research, speaking on his cool uses of digital technology in site recording and excavation.  This is really cool stuff and probably the way of the future for at least some scales of archaeological research. There’s  sneak preview of some of the new methods on the Millennia Blog.

Lecture: A New Methodology for Archaeological Excavation: Mitigative Excavation of GbTo-13 and GbTo-54, Prince Rupert.

Date: Thursday February 6, 2014

Location: VIU Nanaimo campus, Building 356, Lecture Hall 109 (Education/Social Sciences) Time: 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
ASBC Members, Students and the Public Free! Everyone Welcome.  More instructions on the poster (PDF)

The other talks are by Andrew Martindale (UBC) and Quentin Mackie (UVIC) (no relation).  Details below:

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

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A Coast Salish Mausoleum, 1864

Posted on December 27, 2013 | 30 comments
A Salish Grave, 1864. Watercolour by Edward M. Richardson. No specific locale given. Source: CollectionsCanada.gc.ca

A Salish Grave, 1864. Watercolour by Edward M. Richardson. No specific locale given. Source: CollectionsCanada.gc.ca  Click to enlarge slightly.

“Grave House” is one of those archaeological terms which render slightly creepy a feature that is more or less an everyday experience: the mausoleum, a house for the dead, filled with coffins.

This is a fascinating image I hadn’t come across before: a very early image of a Coast Salish mausoleum.  It highlights the artistry and vividness of these features better than the few sketches or early photographs do. The accompanying text at the Canadian Archives is:

Subject depicts grave boxes in a grave house with guardian figures. The grave house is covered with a roof of wooden planks but has no walls. At the front of the house stands six guardian figures. There are flags to the left and right of the house. On the left hand side of the house a tent is set up and clothes are hanging. A shotgun hangs from the front beam of the house. Item was up for auction in the September 28, 1970 Christie’s sale in Calgary. Lot 31.

The image isn’t very high-resolution but there are still some things to talk about – and there is another Richardson painting I’ll link to in a day or two. (edit: here) Continue reading →

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Posted in anthropology, Archaeology, archives, First Nations, history, Northwest Coast, Vancouver Island

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Tagging along with Archaeologists in Quatsino Sound

Posted on December 23, 2013 | 11 comments
Quatsino - Cave at Heater Point. Source: bcmarinetrails.org

Archaeology Crew at Quatsino: Cave at Heater Point. Source: bcmarinetrails.org

How does the general public perceive archaeologists?  There’s a lot of ways to get at this question, not least the comments section of any newspaper article!  But a positive and slightly unusual perspective is found in this article by Stephanie Meinke at the BC Marine Trails website.  In the course of establishing some new marine trails in the Quatsino Sound area of NW Vancouver Island (map), concern arose that there might be archaeological sites at some of the campsites. Kayakers generally having solid ethics about leaving no trace, but all the same there might be some unintentional impacts.  So an archaeological consulting team (Kennedy Richard and Morgan Bartlett) was hired to assess these spots with potential impact. They were guided by Stephanie and by Janis Leach of Recreation Sites and Trails BC, as well as by two field assistants from the Quatsino First Nation: Mark Wallas and Mark Hunt.

The article gives something of a participant-observation view of the archaeological consulting business in its coastal survey guise, as well as some nice pictures of gorgeous scenery.

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Posted in Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, fieldwork, Northwest Coast, Vancouver Island

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Northwest Anthropology Conference (NWAC) is in Bellingham, March 26-29, 2014

Posted on December 21, 2013 | 3 comments
Screenshot from NWAC 2014 page.

Screenshot from NWAC 2014 page.

Just a quick service note to help get the word out: the NW Anthropology Conference 2014 is coming up, conveniently located in Bellingham, Washington.  It will run Wed March 26 through Saturday March 29th, 2014. This is usually an excellent conference.  It often skews a little to the archaeology side of anthropology, but the theme this year is “Anthropologists Connecting” which should stimulate a broad attendance:

Anthropologists make connections between communities, generations, biology and culture, past and present, and with each other.

It appears the conference is being organized out of the fine Department of Anthropology at Western Washington University, co-ordinated by Dr. Sarah Campbell.  Session proposals and paper submissions are still open, so get yours in.  If you have a a session arranged and want to troll for presenters, then feel free to put a comment in here: one of my seven readers might rise to the bait. (you know who you are).

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Posted in anthropology, Archaeology, Miscellaneous, Washington State

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Tlingit War Helmet Rediscovered after 100 years

Posted on December 18, 2013 | 15 comments
Tlingit war helmet recently rediscovred in Springfield Science Museum. Source: SSM.

Tlingit war helmet recently rediscovered in Springfield Science Museum. Source: SSM.

This is the kind of cool story that makes me want to poke around in all the community museums I see.  A fantastic Tlingit war helmet has been recently rediscovered in the backroom of a museum in Springfield, Massachussests.  The helmet was accessioned in 1899 as an “Aleutian hat” and the designation was never questioned until now.  The news article about it suggests only 95 of these helmets are known, with the largest collections found in Russia.  They are part of an elaborate system of armour known from the contact and early historic period in Tlingit territory (Southeast Alaska – Alaska Panhandle).

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

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