Category Archives: Cultural Resource Management

ASBC Victoria: September Public Lecture – Isabelle Maurice-Hammond on Coast Salish Root Gardens

Posted on September 15, 2019 | 1 comment

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The Archaeological Society of BC is happy to invite everyone to their first public talk of the 2019-2020 season, featuring Isabelle Maurice-Hammon, a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Studies at UVIC, where she studies under friend of this blog, Dr. Darcy Mathews.  The text below and poster (PDF) are fairly self explanatory, suffice to say that Darcy is leading a multi-year project on ethnoecology on Tl’chés, a small island off Oak Bay/Victoria – this research is so multi-dimensional it makes my head spin, but it includes work in the intertidal zone, so it is ok by me.

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Posted in Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, fieldwork, First Nations, Northwest Coast

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3-D Models from the ARC/K Project and the Secwepemc Museum

Posted on September 24, 2018 | 2 comments
Detail of "Chief's Regalia" 3-D model, Secwepemc Museum, model by arck-project.

Detail of “Chief’s Regalia” 3-D model, Secwepemc Museum. Note how you can see the many layers of leather, fur and stitchng. Model by arck-project.  https://sketchfab.com/models/bcacd91251954b2281e41b554d4db88d

While I was sleeping, 3-D digital models of archaeological items and features have come a long way in their usability and quality.  I stumbled into a set of three cool models from the Secwepemc Museum & Heritage Park (in Tk’emlúps / Kamloops), who have collaborated with a company called The ARC/K-Project which uses SketchFab to make rotatable, high-resolution, and (most importantly based on my experience) slick, smooth, and stable virtual models of a few of the items in their collection, such as the Chief’s Regalia detail shown above (link to model). I was mildly disappointed that there were only a couple of 3-D models online, but then I found more.  More is good, nom nom nom. Continue reading →

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Posted in Archaeology, archives, Cultural Resource Management, First Nations, Miscellaneous, Technology

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The BC Archaeology Forum is Almost Here – Kamloops, November 18 & 19, 2017

Posted on November 9, 2017 | 2 comments

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Blogs are so old fashioned and slow that I am sure you have all already heard of the when and where of the 2017 BC Archaeology forum – but I was asked to post a reminder and so here it is (it’s more than 144 characters so take a deep breath):

The Secwepemc Museum and Heritage Park and Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, welcomes the BC Archaeology Forum 2017 on Saturday, November 18th at the Moccasin Square Gardens (old KIRS Gym, Kamloops Indian Band). Saturday the 18th is reserved for a full day of speakers and presentations, followed by an evening event. Attendants are also invited to attend the Repository Roundtable discussions on Sunday Nov 19th.

It appears that you can still propose a paper, according to a nice email I got from one of the organizers (thanks, Carryl!).  It looks like you can get full information on the web here, or on facebook here.

The forum is usually one of the best ways to get up to date on new finds and issues in BC Archaeology, and is one of the rare events where First Nations Cultural Specialists, Cultural Resource Management Archaeologists, Academic and Student Archaeologists, and Government Archaeologists all get together in one place and at one time to compare notes. Looks like questions can be sent to bcarchforum17 [at] gmail.com, or see the poster below for an additional email.

Arch Forum Poster

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Posted in Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

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The BC Archaeology Survey

Posted on December 20, 2016 | 2 comments
Republic of Archaeology, B.C. Archaeology Survey, 2016.

Republic of Archaeology: B.C. Archaeology Survey, 2016.

There’s a survey being taken of BC Archaeologists, First Nation, and other interest groups such as museum professionals, realtors, developers, and interested members of the public.  it’s a fairly detailed survey with some quite specific questions about the regulatory and legal process of Archaeology and “Cultural Resource Management” in BC. The survey is run by Joanne Hammond, M.A., an archaeologist based in Kamloops, who also runs the Republic of Archaeology website, which is worth a look in its own right.  The survey is only open for another 10 days or so,until December 31st.

I took the survey a few weeks ago and I expect if there is sufficient participation then the results will be quite revealing about the present and future of the practice of Archaeology in B.C.  If you’ve read this blog much (not that it is getting updated, but still) you’ll know that the context of Archaeology in BC often becomes quite political, and charged with structural as well as unintended conflicts of interest, or the appearance thereof. Working in the colonial landscape we know that those “who control the past” assume upon themselves a lot of power and influence. Is the way that archaeology happens in this Province – almost always in a relationship to development – the best it could be?  Take the survey to add your voice.

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Posted in Cultural Resource Management, First Nations, Northwest Interior, Northwest Coast

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Public talk in Portland, Oregon: The Kwädąy Dän Ts’ìnchį Project

Posted on October 5, 2015 | 7 comments
View of the glacial edge high in the Tatsenshini where Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi was found in 1999.

View of the glacial edge high in the Tatsenshini where Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi was found in 1999. Photo credit: Al Mackie

[Edit: November 2017: The Book is now available, also through Amazon, etc.]

I don’t usually plug public talks in cities that don’t contain the Shining Tower of Blog HQ, but I’m making an exception for this one.  BlogBrother Alexander and BlogSisterInLaw Kjerstin are speaking on Tuesday evening in Portland on the topic of “The Kwädąy Dän Ts’ìnchį Project, a Collaborative Study of a Man Frozen in a Glacier and His Belongings.”

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Posted in Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, First Nations, history, Northwest Interior, Northwest Coast, Oregon

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Visiting Celts at the Mayne Island Museum

Posted on September 27, 2015 | 4 comments
Mayne Island Museum and Gaol. Source: tumblr

Mayne Island Museum and Gaol. Source: http://gulfislandsnprcoop.tumblr.com/

The only thing better than small town museums are small town thrift shops, but it’s close. I stuck my nose into the Mayne Island — a small island in the Salish Sea — Museum a day or two ago, which is housed in the former gaol  (that’s “jail” for my diverse readers).  These museums can be fun, but you do have to put on your “this place is historically situated” eyeglasses.  As in, there is usually an enormous preponderance of Settler material, and often there is a fairly reductionist, colonialist or otherwisely unfortunate depiction of First Nations. The Mayne museum doesn’t escape this altogether.  The First Nations display is probably 5% of the total, both in material display, and in the timeline presented (I didn’t take a picture but it is typed out pretty much verbatim here, compare to my pie chart timeline).  Anyway, I don’t want to focus on any negative vibes from the museum, they share the general issues of almost every community museum I’ve been to, but neither do I want to ignore them completely. To their credit they have a good section  the Japanese Internment Camps and the fate of Japanese-Canadian islanders during World War II.  Anyway, I took a few lousy pictures with my phone and I’ll share these below and in a subsequent post (since really who wants to read 2,000 words of pontification in one sitting?) We’re going to start with my favourite artifact type.

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Posted in Archaeology, archives, Cultural Resource Management, history, Miscellaneous, Northwest Coast, Technology, Uncategorized, Vancouver Island

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A cool new cave site near Tumbler Ridge?

Posted on September 24, 2015 | 12 comments
Inside of Cave near Tumbler Ridge with members of Saulteau First Nation. Source: Mark Hume, Globe and Mail.

Inside of Cave near Tumbler Ridge with members of Saulteau First Nation. Source: Mark Hume, Globe and Mail.

Tumbler Ridge is a small coal-mining town on the eastern flanks of the Rockies, where British Columbia starts to resemble Alberta. It’s not a million miles, in distance nor in generalized setting, from Fort St. John (map), where Charlie Lake Cave remains one of BC’s most significant archaeological sites.  Charlie Lake Cave has radiocarbon dates of up to 10,500 years old (PDF), or possibly as old as 12,750 calendrical years or thereabouts. With interesting finds such as a basally-thinned projectile point reminiscent of a fluted point, and the deliberate burial of two ravens from the lower layers (PDF), combined with it’s location in the “ice free corridor” has made this site really significant for regional cultural history (PDF) as well as for larger issues in the peopling of the Americas debate.  (And see the new introduction/context to the Raven paper by Driver here).  The Cave was recently purchased by local First Nations, which is an interesting development with the goal of protection and developing a cultural tourism site.

Anyway, this post is not actually about Charlie Lake Cave, just to introduce the archaeological potential of caves in this general part of the province, a potential that is not really been realized yet. It’s cool then to see pictures of a newly discovered cave with some superficial archaeological findings near Tumbler Ridge, as pictured above and outlined in this good article by Mark Hume in the Globe and Mail.

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Posted in Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, Northwest Interior, Uncategorized

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BC Archaeology Forum 2015 is October 16 – 18 at Musqueam

Posted on September 23, 2015 | 3 comments
Just reusing the 2010 Archaeology Forum graphic here.

Just reusing the 2010 Archaeology Forum graphic here.

I think it was the day after the last Musqueam – Lab or Anthropology Archaeology Forum that I had to post this, so time flies, and not always exactly like a banana. In more recent dismal events, my laptop got disturbed, which, even though a quality it now shares with me, has disrupted this blog of the last week or two, not to mention my day job.  Anyway, I wanted to get out this announcment which twoeyes kindly forwarded a week or so ago: the 2015 BC Archy Forum is being co-hosted by the Musqueam Indian Band and the Laboratory of Archaeology at UBC, and runs from Friday October 16 to Sunday October 18.  So, soon.  What follows is the text of their announcement email within UBC circles.

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Posted in Archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, First Nations, Northwest Interior, Northwest Coast

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Still selling First Nations’ Archaeological Heritage

Posted on September 7, 2015 | 37 comments
Coast Salish artifacts for sale at Granny and Grumpa's store. Photo: B. Thom

Coast Salish artifacts for sale at Granny and Grumpa’s store, Abbotsford, B.C.. Photo: B. Thom

I like hanging around junk shops as much as anyone, in fact more than most, if my new Monkey-Darwin-Skull office lamp is anything to go by. Very occasionally will I see a local archaeological artifact in one of these shops.  However, my colleague at my day job (yes I have a job, honest), Dr. Brian Thom, sent me some pictures and an account of his encounter with a very large collection of Coast Salish artifacts.  And they’re for sale.

Now, Brian may have the most magnificent Star Trek memorabilia collection to sit squarely atop the 49th parallel, but no sites were harmed in his collecting behaviour. The law around the ownership and sale of ancient artifacts in B.C. is regrettably unclear (as was hashed out in the fractious comments of this previous blog post and here too: 1, 2, 3).  As I note lower down,  below Brian’s comments, some of the clearest direction on this front comes not from the Act, but from recent public statements from BC Archaeology Branch director Justine Batten.  It’s always tempting to write some huge essay when I’m trying to figure something out, but it’d be better to let Brian kick things off. His commentary and links are below, reproduced with his permission.

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

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Haida stone carving from Chumash Territory, California?

Posted on August 20, 2015 | 8 comments
NW Coast stone carving found in Chumash Territory, California. Source: http://www.arrowheadology.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42646&p=359269&viewfull=1#post359269

NW Coast stone carving found in Chumash Territory, California. Source: http://www.arrowheadology.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42646&p=359269&viewfull=1#post359269

If someone out there in webland makes a link to my blog, and then someone else clicks on that link, I might be able to tell which site is referring to me.  Sometimes this leads to unexpected discoveries.  One of these incoming links is a query to an artifact collecting forum (boo) from a collector in southern California, who found the above small sculpture in Chumash territory.  As is so common in the collector world, there is no other contextual information about this piece, which to my eye, appears to be an early historic Haida carving in argillite. Knowledgeable readers may wish to weigh in below in the comments section about the motifs and provenance of this sculpture – there are more fairly low-quality pictures here. How it made its way to the Santa Barbara area is anyone’s guess, it may have been a simple curio bought by a tourist, or it may be a now-lost bit of evocative human history like the one I suggested here for Haida argillite found on San Juan Island.

NW Coast stone carving found in Chumash Territory, California. Source: http://www.arrowheadology.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42646&p=359269&viewfull=1#post359269

NW Coast stone carving found in Chumash Territory, California. Source: http://www.arrowheadology.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42646&p=359269&viewfull=1#post359269

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Posted in Archaeology, California, Cultural Resource Management, Haida Gwaii, history, Northwest Coast

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