Tag Archives: Archaeological Society of British Columbia

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

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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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The Midden, Reborn

Cover, Volume 1, Number 1 (Nov. 1968) of the ASBC newsletter, soon to become The Midden.

Cover, Volume 1, Number 1 (Nov. 1968) of the ASBC newsletter, soon to become The Midden.

As many readers will know, The Midden is the newsletter and journal of the Archaeological Society of B.C. The ASBC has fallen on some hard times in recent years with the Nanaimo Branch and the Vancouver Executive Branch both falling by the wayside. Luckily, the Victoria Branch, in recent years largely run by Graduate Students out of the Archaeology Lab at the University of Victoria, has retained its vitality and, after a hiatus and some thin issues, has recently started producing The Midden in its full glory again.

Even better news, the entire back run of The Midden since its first issue in 1968 is now available open access and online, with the exception that the most recent six months will be available to members only. It is to the enormous credit of the Victoria Group, who I have occasionally observed in their toils from faraway perch in Blog World Headquarters, that the ASBC and The Midden continue to express the vision of its founders over fifty years ago. The core group of the Victoria ASBC in recent years has including longtime members Pete Dady, Tom Bown and the late Gerry Merner, and more recently (and spearheading the digitization project) Jacob Earnshaw, Nicole Westre, Cal Abbott, Seonaid Duffield, and Colton Vogelaar (recent UVIC grads), and Genevieve Hill of the RBCM. Thanks also to the UVIC Library for hosting the journal. (If I’ve forgotten someone then apologies, and I will add them, just let me know). The ASBC has always been run by volunteers and has played a huge role in public education and promotion of archaeology in the Northwest, so the long-standing members and volunteers should also be thanked – of particular note perhaps, long-standing editor in the 1980s and 1990s, Kathryn Bernick.

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ASBC Victoria September 18th 2012: Public talk on bedrock stone bowls by Beth Weathers

Stone Bowls in bedrock at Willows Beach, Victoria

Stone Bowls in bedrock at Willows Beach, Victoria. Photo courtesy of Beth Weathers.

Investigation into Intertidal Bedrock Bowls at Willows Beach, Victoria.

BETH WEATHERS

Tuesday Sept 18, 2012, 7:30 pm Pacific Forestry Centre,
506 West Burnside Road. map

Free and Open to the Public

Overview (via ASBC): In 2009, Beth Weathers was informed by a local resident that there were some “Indian Bowls” in a bedrock outcrop at Willows Beach in the Oak Bay area of Victoria. Upon investigation, Beth identified and recorded 27 bowls that have been ground into one granite outcrop near the mouth of Bowker Creek. These bowls, and others like them, will eventually became the topic of her MA thesis. Beth will present information and results to date from her studies into these fascinating ancient features.

Bio: Beth Weathers has worked as a professional archaeologist for over a decade, first in Cultural Resource Management consulting, then at the British Columbia Archaeology Branch, where she is still employed. She was also instructor and TA for two semesters at UVic during her spare time.

Note: At the completion of Beth’s presentation a brief period will be devoted to the Annual General Meeting business.

For information, e-mail asbcvictoria@gmail.com

PS: While we’re talking public talks, where is the Archaeology Forum going to be this year?

ASBC Victoria, Feb 21, 2012: Archaeology of Nimpkish Area by Jim Stafford

View of Woss Lake. Source: panoramio user cyberhun.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA,
VICTORIA CHAPTER

Archaeology of the Nimpkish River Valley, Northeastern Vancouver Island  

Jim Stafford
Coast Interior Archaeology

     TUESDAY FEB. 21, 2012, 7:30 pm
Pacific Forestry Centre,
506 West Burnside Road. (map)

Free and Open to the Public

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ASBC Victoria – Public Talk Tue Nov 15th: Duncan McLaren on Early Archaeology of the Central Coast

Duncan McLaren using Livingstone core on Castor Poop Lake on Porcher Island, B.C.. Daryl Fedje holds the leash.

Next up for the local (Victoria) branch of the Archaeological Society of B.C. is a Tuesday, November 15th talk by Dr. Duncan McLaren of Cordillera Archaeology and the Anthropology Department at University of Victoria.  Duncan’s highly successful  Ph.D. thesis was an interdisciplinary, geoarchaeological approach to the early occupation of the Dundas Island group on the northern B.C. coast. He is now in the early stages of applying a similar research program to the Central Coast of B.C., which promises great advances in knowledge.

The talk is free and open to the public, and you don’t need to be an ASBC member to attend.

Early Period Archaeology and Landscapes on the Central Coast of British Columbia

November 15th, 2011, 7:30 pm
Pacific Forestry Centre,

506 West Burnside Road (Map)

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

ASBC Nanaimo: In Trouble?

ASBC Nanaimo Members in the Field, 2011: Photo: Colleen Parsley, Source: ASBC Nanaimo.

I posted this as a comment a few days ago, but decided it was worth a post on its own: there is a worrisome news snippet in the Nanaimo paper concerning the Archaeological Society of BC, Nanaimo Chapter. (At least, I infer this is the society in question!).

The full text indicates there will be a public meeting on Monday November 7th at Vancouver Island University which suggests the Nanaimo organization is in tough times:

7 p.m. The Archaeological Society is on the brink of collapse. If you feel the archaeology of Nanaimo and area has significant value, please come share your ideas at Bldg 356 Room 109 on the VIU campus. Continue reading

Victoria ASBC Talk – Tuesday Oct. 19 – Vikings!

Being crudely made of more than one piece of wood, their ships were fire hazards.

The Vikings are better known as the Haida of the North Atlantic, so I am sure  locals will be delighted to know that Victoria’s newly emplaced Viking Archaeologist, UVIC’s own Dr. Erin McGuire, will be speaking at this month’s Archaeological Society of BC, Victoria Chapter meetings.  As ever, these talks are free and open to the public – they just require a modicum of navigational skill to make it to the Pacific Forestry Centre (see the map below).  Unfortunately, I am on a bad skid of not being able to make the ASBC so regrets in advance, and if the winner of the mystery quiz (below) shows, they will not be getting their free beer.

You want to live where?  Living and dying in Viking Iceland

Dr Erin McGuire, University of Victoria

Tuesday October 19th at 7.30, Pacific Forestry Centre, 506 West Burnside Road (map)

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Two upcoming events in Vancouver and Victoria


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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ASBC Victoria: May Public Lecture Tuesday 18th

Quartz Crystal projectile point with Stave Watershed in background.

Seven Thousand Years of Occupation at the Ruskin Dam Site, Stave River Watershed

Duncan McLaren, Ph.D. and Brendan Gray, M.A.

This month’s Archaeological Society of B.C. (Victoria Chapter) free public lecture will be about a fascinating site recently excavated by Cordillera Archaeology in the Stave River watershed, near Vancouver:

Excavations of the Ruskin Dam Site, located on the north side of the Fraser Valley, were conducted over four months in 2009 as part of a salvage project.  Our talk will discuss the significance of the major discoveries at the site including: the house features, quartz crystal tools, biface styles, woodworking technology, objects of personal adornment, and faunal remains which contain a high proportion of sturgeon bones.  Combined, the artifacts, radiocarbon dates, and site stratigraphy provide a unique opportunity for gaining a perspective on the long-term occupation of this strategically located archaeological site.

I expect this talk will also indirectly exemplify the leading role B.C. Hydro is playing in enlightened Cultural Resource Management in this province.

This talk is free and open to any member of the public.

Tuesday May 18 at 7.30 P.M.

Pacific Forestry Centre, 506 West Burnside Road.

For information,  e-mail asbcvictoria@gmail.com , or leave a comment/question below.

ASBC Victoria April Meeting: Tuesday 20th

Excavations at Banda, Ghana.

This month’s Archaeological Society of B.C. public lecture is coming up soon, on Tuesday April 20th, in Victoria.  Everyone is welcome to attend these free talks.  The details are as follows:

Ann Stahl

Professor and Chair of Anthropology, University of Victoria

Ritual & Metallurgy: Genealogies of Practice in Banda, Ghana.

The goal of the Banda Research Project has been to investigate the dynamism of African village life in relation to shifting global connections ranging from the imposition of colonial rule at the end of the 19th century and extending to the early first millennium AD when Banda villagers participated in the Saharan trade. Our 2008 and 2009 field seasons at Ngre Kataa revealed extensive primary metal- working contexts dating to the period cal AD 1200-1400 where the site’s inhabitants produced copper alloy and iron objects. These metal-working features and deposits co-occur with a series of apparent shrine deposits. The evening’s presentation will explore the nature of these deposits, and share preliminary insights into the implications of our findings for our understanding of craft specialization and the genealogies of metallurgical practice in the Banda area.

Time: 7.30 p.m.

Place: Pacific Forestry Centre, 506 West Burnside Road.

For information,  e-mail asbcvictoria@gmail.com

A poster for this talk can be downloaded here (PDF)