ASBC Victoria Tue Feb 19th: Coastal Archaeology in Huu-ay-aht territory, Vancouver Island

Archaeological work in Huu-ay-aht territory, 2012

Quick note to say that the upcoming February meeting of the Victoria Chapter of the Archaeological Society of B.C.  should be a good one (sadly I am back east at the time):

Coastal Field Archaeology in Huu-ay-aht Territory: Highlights from the 2012 Bamfield Marine Science Centre Archaeological Field School

Tuesday February 19th, 2013, 7:30 pm Pacific Forestry Centre,
506 West Burnside Road. map

Free and Open to the Public

Abstract: In July and August of 2012, the Huu-ay-aht First Nation and the Bamfield Marine Science Centre co-hosted a ‘Coastal Field Archaeology’ course on Huu-ay-aht Government Lands in Barkley Sound on western Vancouver Island.

Buy Your Piece of BC Archaeological History

Sisiutl for Sale

I was browsing to price out some used skiffs, and look what I found – a custom built archaeological research vessel — only $99,000.  (I wonder what she cost to build?) The listing is here, with a PDF backup for posterity here.

I don’t have any memories of the Sisiutl —  never stepped on board — but I know she is close to the hearts of many SFU faculty and former students.

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

Old site on Calvert Island, Central Coast of B.C.

UNBC student Cory Hackett excavates a unit in shell midden (photo credit: B. Alway, via UNBC)

There’s a good, recent article in the Globe and Mail (PDF) on some exciting preliminary findings by Dr Farid Rahemtulla of UNBC at a site on Calvert Island (map).

The site, thought to be the “lost village” of Luxvbalis, is in territory of the Heiltsuk and Wuikinuxv (formerly Oweekeenow/Awikenox) peoples.  The project was intended to re-locate this village, which figures prominently in Oral History. 

Victoria ASBC Public Talk, Tuesday May 17: Locarno Houses?!

UVIC students visiting "Aquattro Site" near Esquimalt Lagoon, 2008.

The next scheduled public talk of the Archaeological Society of BC, Victoria Chapter, will be held next Tuesday evening at 7.30 at the Pacific Forestry Centre, 506 West Burnside Road (map).  The talk is free and open to any member of the public.

The talk is entitled Preliminary Investigation Results from DcRu-1151: A Locarno-Age Living and Processing Site at Esquimalt Lagoon, and will be given by local archaeologists Kristi Bowie and Kira Kristensen.

I had the pleasure of visiting this site while it was being excavated a few years ago.  All signs were that the site included the remains of a house dating to between 2500 and 3500 years ago, the “Locarno Beach” period, though at that time the feature was not directly dated.  Very little is known of domestic structures from this time and so the finds could be quite exciting. I’m looking forward to hearing more about this site, though it is doubtful I will be able to attend this talk due to the ongoing circumstances which also keep this blog running slowly.  I am pasting in the abstract and speaker biographies below, or else click here for the PDF.

Dixon’s Underwater Entrance

Waters around OYK Cave. Source: Polarfield.com

E. James (Jim) Dixon, now at the University of New Mexico,  is pretty well known on the Northwest Coast for his pioneering work at the 10 to 12,000 year old 49-PET-408 (“On Your Knees Cave”) in the Alaskan Panhandle, and more recently for his exciting work on Alaskan Ice Patches. I see now that he apparently received some funding to go underwater during the summer of 2010 in the waters around PET-408, not far north from the aptly named Dixon Entrance, in Southeast Alaska (map).  This work could have implications for the coastal route of First Peopling of the Americas.

Fieldschool Update, and Public Lectures

Screenshot of Times Colonist article - click to go to the story.

I am in town briefly and see the Time-Colonist has an article and photo gallery about the UVIC-Parks Canada archaeological fieldschool in the Gulf Islands.  It’s a pretty good article with some nice quotes from the students about their experience, and which emphasizes how threatened some archaeological sites are.  It would have been nice to see more acknowledgment of local First Nations and of the hard work Parks Canada’s liaison team is doing to help build relationships around cultural resource management.  It’s very early days for the field school but in the medium term it hopes to be of service to First Nations and their archaeological questions and concerns. A big part of that is the specific focus on archaeological site assessment and management skills being taught by the course instructor, Dr Duncan McLaren, and another big part is the presence of paid First Nations interns who will be taking the field school – only one this year but more in the future it is hoped.  Anyway, the article tells part of the story very effectively and the reporter and photographer had an interesting time with the fieldschool and vice versa.

In related news, I’ll be giving a public talk about Salish Sea archaeology with a fieldschool update this Friday July 30 on Pender Island at 7.00 in the Anglican Hall.  Then, my mini road trip takes me to Saturna Island on July 31 for a talk at 7.30 at the Community Hall.  Otherwise, there probably will be no updates here until the middle of August.

Times-Colonist screenshot - click to go to story.

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.

Capilano University Field School Blog

"At each logging camp a familiar discovery was a wood burning stove or oven. The one pictured {above} had stumped some former students of Muckle's in the past because the student who helped recover the stove had read an engraving on the side saying "To Jake". After pondering upon this curious inscription, it was realized that the "J" had incorrectly been read, and the whole etching had actually said "To Bake", commonly found on ovens." Source: http://archaeologyfieldschool.blogspot.com/

I noticed that the Capilano University Archaeology Field School, which just started a few days ago near Vancouver, has a blog.  So far there are three days worth of entries and it looks like it will be a lot of fun to follow along with the students who, under the direction of  Bob Muckle, will be continuing to work on the archaeology of historic logging in the Seymour River Watershed, which flows into Burrard Inlet.  Much of the logging was conducted by Japanese immigrants, making for a nice overlay of ethnicity and capitalism and material culture.

NE BC Archaeology Videos

Click to play video.

Click on the picture above to see a short video of an archaeologist working with Nenan Dane-zaa elders and youth, near Fort St. John.  It’s a nice example of some community archaeology by an unidentified archaeologist who appears to go by the name “Frank”.

Of course the weather in Northeastern B.C. is not always so sunny and warm, and yet (as we discussed a few weeks ago) archaeology continues or even accelerates in the winter months.