ASBC Victoria Talk: Tuesday September 16, Jenny Cohen on Paleoethnobotany of Kilgii Gwaay

Posted on September 12, 2014 | 12 comments
2002 excavations at Kilgii Gwaay Site.

2002 excavations at Kilgii Gwaay Site.

Paleoethnobotany of Kilgii Gwaay: a 10,700 year old Ancestral Haida Archaeological Wet Site

Jenny Cohen

Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 7:30 pm

Cornett Building B129

(North End of Cornett building)

University of Victoria (map)

The Victoria Chapter of the Archaeological Society of BC (ASBC) has a long-running monthly Fall-Spring speaker series which is starting again next week.  The speaker is UVic Anthropology graduate student Jenny Cohen, speaking on results from her paleobotanical analysis of the 10,700 year old intertidal wet site, Kilgii Gwaay, in southern Haida Gwaii.  It’s a fascinating site which gives real insight into the way of life of Ancestral Haida at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and I’m sure Jenny’s thesis, nearing completion, will be of wide interest.

If you don’t have enough Kilgii Gwaay in your life then I recommend you jump over to the Burnt Embers blog, where there are some excellent photos from the tricky intertidal excavations at that site a few years ago: Setting Up;  Keeping Water Out; Putting Water In;  Water Screening; and Kilgii Gwaay Finds.

Abstract: Continue reading →

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Posted in Archaeology, Haida Gwaii, Northwest Coast

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BC Archaeology Forum is in Nanaimo, Saturday October 18th

Posted on August 25, 2014 | 4 comments
Petroglyph from Petroglyph Park, Nanaimo. Source: danielleen.org

Panel from Petroglyph Park, Nanaimo. Source: danielleen.org

I’m about to disappear off the grid for a couple of weeks (fieldwork in Gwaii Haanas) but before I do, I want to give some publicity for the Annual BC Archaeology Forum.  It’s great to have some advance notice of this and as you can see below it is co-hosted by VIU and the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

edit: they now have a website including the program.

British Columbia Archaeology Forum

Saturday, October 18th, 2014

Nanaimo, BC

We are pleased to announce that the 2014 British Columbia Archaeology Forum will be hosted by Vancouver Island University in the territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation in Nanaimo, BC this coming October.

A reception will be held on the evening of Friday, October 17th, with Saturday the 18th reserved for a full day of speakers and presentations followed by an evening event, and optional Sunday excursions in the local area.

We are currently consulting with downtown hotels about the event and securing discounted rooms for forum participants; more information on this will be provided asap.

In the meantime, save the date — Saturday, October 18th, 2014 — and we’ll be in touch soon!

For more information, email: archforum2014 (at) gmail.com

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

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R.I.P Hilary Stewart, 1924-2014

Posted on June 16, 2014 | 15 comments
Hilary Stewart fish weir

Hilary Stewart drawing of a fish weir. Source: bcheritage.ca

Sad news out of Quadra Island with the news that Northwest Coast archaeological legend Hilary Stewart passed away on June 5th, at the age of 90.  The local newspaper the Discovery Islander has a full obituary (page 2) (PDF) written by her friend, anthropologist Joy Inglis.

Continue reading →

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Posted in anthropology, Archaeology, First Nations, Northwest Coast, Teaching, Technology

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Visit to the UVic Fieldschool on Prevost Island in the Salish Sea

Posted on June 11, 2014 | 6 comments
UVic field school students at work on Prevost Island inland midden site.

UVic field school students at work on Prevost Island inland midden site. Trust me, there really are dense midden deposits at this site.

I had a good visit the other day to the UVic archaeological field school, which is on Prevost Island in the Salish Sea.  Prevost is a large island of about 1700 acres, mostly privately owned by an active farming family, but part of lies within Gulf Islands National Park Reserve.  In some ways, it is the hub of the southern Gulf Islands, lying squarely between Salt Spring, Galiano, Pender and Mayne Islands. There’s no ferry to this island, so it’s surprisingly off the beaten track considering how centrally located it is.  I suspect that’s a car-centric view, and taking the perspective of a maritime cultural landscape, this is one of the best-connected islands in the Salish Sea.

Anyway, the UVic fieldschool is being taught by doctoral student Eric McLay, whose research focuses on inland shell middens in the Salish Sea.  These are middens well away from the high tide line — in the case of Prevost, about 800 metres inland.  Several dozen comparable sites are known, such as the ones near the rockshelter burials on Gabriola Island.  Why people brought substantial quantities of shell to these inland locations is something of a mystery, one which Eric, with the help of the fieldschool students and First Nations participants, and the support of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, aims to shed light on.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Archaeology, fieldwork, Northwest Coast, Shell Middens, Teaching, Uncategorized, Vancouver Island

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Public Talks on Quadra Island, Monday June 16

Posted on June 10, 2014 | 5 comments
Quadra Clam Gardens. Source: Groesbeck et al. PLOS-1, 2014.

Quadra Island Clam Gardens. Source: Groesbeck et al. PLOS-1, 2014.

Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre and Discovery Passage SeaLife Society present:

1. Sea Level History of the Discovery Islands.
Daryl Fedje, University of Victoria

2. Quadra Island’s Ancient Clam Gardens.
Dana Lepofsky, Simon Fraser University

Monday, June 16th | 7 pm Quadra Island Community Centre

So I usually limit my announcements of public talks to those happening in the Victoria backyard of Blog World Headquarters but it so happens there is one exceptional one coming up on Quadra Island, where I’ll be spending the next week.  The talk, actually two talks, will focus on two archaeological projects underway up there.  The poster advertising the talks is here, or you can read more below.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Archaeology, Northwest Coast, Vancouver Island

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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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ASBC Victoria Talk Thursday April 17: Hein Bjerck on Colonizing Scandinavian Seascapes

Posted on April 16, 2014 | 1 comment
Lateglacial shoreline at Vega, northern Norway, 96m asl today. The first settlers (9500–9000 BC) had to cross 20km of open sea from the mainland (in the background) to reach the island, a strong indication that seaworthy vessels were at their disposal (photograph H.M. Breivik).

Late glacial shoreline at Vega, northern Norway, +96m asl today. The first settlers (9500–9000 BC) had to cross 20km of open sea from the mainland (in the background) to reach the island, a strong indication that seaworthy vessels were at their disposal (photograph H.M. Breivik).

The Colonization of Scandinavian Seascapes in the Pleistocene/Holocene transition.

Dr. Hein B. Bjerck

ASBC talk Thursday April 17th
7.30
UVIC, Cornett B129
All welcome.

In common with the Northwest Coast, coastal Norway was heavily glaciated into a rugged landscape of fjords and islands.  As the glaciers retreated, people moved in. This talk gives us a chance to do a compare and contrast between our setting and the very distant, yet parallel, setting of post-glacial Scandinavia.

Hein B. Bjerck, is Professor in Archaeology at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), The University Museum, Trondheim, Norway.  He is Project leader, “Marine Ventures – Comparative perspectives on the dynamics of early human approaches to the seascapes of Tierra del Fuego and Norway”.  You can also view a project gallery and writeup at the Antiquity journal website.

Dr. Bjerck is in British Columbia at the invitation of the archaeological projects of UVic’s own Daryl Fedje and Duncan McLaren, who are generously funded by the Tula Foundation. The thrust of these projects, at Quadra Island and the Central Coast respectively, is to look at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and the first occupation of the Northwest Coast.

Incidentally, if you are a graduate student, there is an excellent short field course in archaeology and ecology starting soon at Hakai.  It’s non-credit but you might be able to wrap it into a directed studies with your supervisor. Strongly recommended.

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Posted in Miscellaneous, Northwest Coast

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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.

Continue reading →

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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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