North America-Canada (Geographic Keyword)
76-100 (136 Records)
3D technologies provide a powerful mechanism for documenting, sharing, and engaging with archaeological information. While the products of these tools (including 3D models and 3D prints) are often treated as neutral objects, they should be identified as mediated and interpretive entities. How people experience, perceive, and value these archaeological "copies" in relation to original archaeological material is still relatively unknown. This poster provides a localised case study from...
Marble Monument Conservation in the Emanu-el Cemetery (2017)
The Emanu-el Jewish Cemetery in Victoria, BC, Canada contains a wide array of plot sizes and monument styles. This project focuses on the marble monuments dating from 1860 to 1910, many of which are now lying flat and cemented in place because they are too fragile to stand on their own. Marble monuments were popular because of their beauty and the malleability of this type of stone. The elliptical shaped pores allows for more water and acids to enter and move into the stone, and the calcium...
Measuring Gesture: Stroke Quantification in Lithic Use-wear Experiments (2017)
The saying "different strokes for different folks" is a literal truism in the realm of lithic analysis and experimentation where stone tools were and are used by individual people whose tool use gestures vary in any number of ways. Until very recently, experimental archaeologists have largely neglected aspects of gestural variation, such as how much force is applied to a tool's edge, and task-related gestures are most often glossed under the catch-all term "stroke". "Strokes" are counted and...
Micro Computed Tomography in Archaeological Ceramic Studies: A Case Study on Ontario Late Woodland Borderlands (2017)
The use of Micro Computed Tomography (CT) in archaeological science is a burgeoning field of research which has the potential to transform the ways in which we conduct materials based studies. This technology is only beginning to be used in archaeological ceramic analysis. Since micro CT uses X-rays to provide non-destructive 3D images of the interior and exterior of ceramics, it can isolate features in clay such as temper, inclusions, voids and micro-folds in a unique way. As such, it has great...
Minding the Ideological Gap in Consulting Archaeology (2015)
This paper discusses recent results from an anthropological research program within a large archaeological consulting firm, highlighting some key ideological differences between consulting archaeologists and Indigenous archaeologists. Using interviews with a cross-section of archaeologists, the study combines results with previous research to illuminate the gap between these two groups with a focus on goals, practises and concerns. We attempt to shed light on areas for improvement and we...
Mobility, Material Culture, and Metis Identity: A comparison of 19th century wintering camps in the Canadian West (2016)
Relationships between artifact assemblages and cultural identities are complex and difficult to disentangle. The Canadian west during the 1800s provides an interesting historical and archaeological case study that has potential to shed light on the dynamics of settlement, material culture, and the mobile nature of Métis peoples. Based originally in the Red River Settlement, some of the Métis began to expand west after 1845, forming interconnected wintering communities to participate in winter...
Monuments in Danger? Study Done in the Jewish Cemetery of Victoria, British Columbia (2017)
Monument preservation is an important part of remembering loved ones. Because of the wide variety of stones and manufacturing techniques, there are many factors that may contribute to monument decay. Each factor should be assessed and measures taken to prevent further degradation. For this project, we attempted to determine what factors could be at play when looking at headstone deterioration at the Emanu-el Jewish cemetery. We considered four hypotheses: first, monuments under tree cover would...
Mortuary Archaeology, Burial Practices, and defining the Prehistoric Funerary Landscape on the Sunshine Coast, British Columbia (2017)
The ancestral burial practices among the peoples of the northwest coast of British Columbia have been well studied and documented by academics, heritage resource management professionals, and the First Nation Communities. Recent systematic surveys from archaeological impact assessments within the Sunshine Coast have yielded previously unidentified funerary archaeological features including various funerary petroforms atypical to this region. My aim is to revisit and define the types of...
The National Archives: Accessing Historical Resources for the Archaeologist (2016)
The National Archives is best known as a repository of the Charters of Freedom and less known for the wealth of historical resources from the vaults, many accessible digitally. This paper discusses how U.S. government records of historical value such as documents, maps and early photographs are organized to facilitate search of archival resources available for archaeological research. An overview of the National Archives collections, databases, and digital information from selected federal...
New Dates and a Proposed Chronology for the Little John Site (KdVo-6), a Multi-Component Site in Eastern Beringia, Yukon Territory, Canada (2015)
New AMS radio-carbon dates derived from culturally modified bone and charred material in association with artifacts has expanded our appreciation of the antiquity and continuity of occupation at the Little John site, from the early Bolling-Allerod in the Late Pleistocene post-glacial period through the Early and Later Holocene. These new dates, combined with dates from other local sites on the Yukon – Alaska borderlands, allow us to identify a number of discrete chrono-zones at Little John that...
Next-generation sequencing unravels the relationship of Paleoeskimo and Thule dogs from the North American Arctic (2015)
The peopling of the North American Arctic, occurred in two waves. First the Paleoeskimo people migrated from Siberia roughly 4,000 BP, followed by the Thule people ca. 1000 BP. The Thule people are known for their innovation and rapid colonization of the North American Arctic, compared to small population sizes of the Paleoeskimo. A distinguishing characteristic of Thule culture relative to previous Arctic cultures was increased use of dogs, particularly for dogsled traction. Use of dogs by the...
Niche Construction and Early Agriculture in Northeastern North America (2015)
Agriculture in the Northeast is a secondary development with research focusing on migration as a result of population growth in agricultural centers and the introduction of maize, bean, squash , sunflower and tobacco and the subsequent consequences of their introduction. Unlike pristine/primary origins whose explanations are couched in complex ecological considerations, be they interactive (ecological engineering, niche construction) or based in HBE (human behavioral ecology), ecological...
Nunataks and Valley Glaciers: Over the Mountains and Through the Ice (2016)
The first peopling of the Americas is characterized by either a coastal route or an ice free corridor during the late Wisconsin glaciation, when continental ice still covered the north half of the continent. While the pendulum has swung somewhat towards the coastal route, no smoking gun exists that will deliver a champion in this controversy. With this paper we would like to present a third option – the “Icy Corridor.” We argue that a corridor is an unnecessary feature for Clovis predecessors...
One Group or Many? Cultural Inheritance at Housepit 54, Bridge River Site, British Columbia (2015)
The Bridge River housepit village, located in south-central British Columbia, features 80 housepits with radiocarbon dates spanning the past 2000 years. Many of these house structures include stratigraphic records indicating multiple generations of household re-occupation. Housepit 54 offers a particularly impressive record with an estimated 15 superimposed anthropogenic floors, the majority of which date to the period of ca. 1100-1500 cal. B.P. Extensive excavations undertaken in 2013 and...
Oral Narratives and Archaeology: Telling Multiple Stories for Multiple Pasts? (2015)
It is widely accepted that the study of material culture and oral narratives are two different but equally important avenues for looking into the past. While the distinct sets of data they produce frequently corroborate and/or complement each other, allowing for a deeper understanding of the past, discrepancies are not uncommon. In those cases, "scientific" data often take precedence and local knowledge is marginalized. While archaeologists see oral narratives as useful "tools" to archaeological...
Palaeo-Eskimo exploitation of inland chert quarries on southern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada (2015)
The southern Baffin Island chert sourcing project was initiated in 2007. Eight years of fieldwork and geochemical analysis have allowed us to refine our chert characterization technique and its instrumental application. We have successfully characterized two large chert quarries in the interior of southern Baffin Island using solution ICP-MS trace element analysis. We have also linked chert artifacts from one of these quarries to a nearby Palaeo-Eskimo occupation site, demonstrating transport...
Paleoshorelines and Archaeology of the Discovery Islands on the West Coast of Canada (2015)
The sea level history of the Discovery Island archipelago on the Canadian West Coast shows that early post-glacial paleoshorelines are stranded up to 165 m above modern. Under the auspices of the Tula Foundation we are using this history and landscape modeling to guide investigation into the early human history of the area. Survey has focussed on landforms such as raised marine terraces, tombolos and wave cut notches (potential rockshelters). In 2014 we located and tested archaeological sites...
Pills and Potions at the Niagara Apothecary (2017)
In 1964, pharmacist E. W. Field, closed his practice in Niagara-on-the-Lake due to ill health. This pharmacy had been in operation for a total of 156 years by 6 pharmacists, 5 of whom had been apprenticed to their predecessors. Re-opened in 1971 as an authentic restoration of an 1866 pharmacy, the building is owned by the Ontario Heritage Trust and curated by the Ontario College of Pharmacists. Several archaeological investigations have taken place in the rear yard of the apothecary, most...
Plant use practices of an ancient St’át’imc household, Bridge River, British Columbia (2015)
This poster focuses on the interpretation of archaeobotanical macroremains from Housepit 54 occupations at the Bridge River site, on the British Columbia Plateau, dating 1100-1500 cal. B.P. Recent excavations have revealed living floors spanning a critical period when this village reached peak size and then began to decline during a period of climate transition. Previous research at Bridge River suggests that access to salmon and deer may have declined after ca. 1200-1300 cal. B.P., triggering...
The Potential Integration of Niche Construction Theory into the Framework of Human Behavioral Ecology (2015)
Throughout the history of hominid evolution, our ancestors developed the ability to adapt to extremely different environments and eventually colonize the entire world. The capacity to adapt to environments as different as the Amazon Rainforest and the Arctic tundra is complex, and has led some anthropologists to question the utility of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary frameworks. The debate over the utility of these frameworks has become more heated recently, with some proposing the use of Niche...
Prehistoric Mobility Patterns and Geochemistry of FGV Toolstones at Slocan Narrows Pithouse Village and the Upper Columbia River Area (2017)
The work of Charlotte Beck and George T. Jones dramatically advanced toolstone provenance studies from how to conduct field survey, to how to prepare samples for laboratory analysis. Building on their pioneering work, this paper details the beginning of our efforts in sourcing fine-grained volcanic (FGV) toolstones in the Upper Columbia River area of the interior Pacific Northwest. Handheld portable x-ray fluorescence (HHpXRF) instrumentation was used to non-destructively analyze the FGV...
Preliminary Vertebrate Faunal Analysis of Hup’kisakuu7a (93T): Results from 2015 and 2016 Excavations (2017)
Excavations conducted at the site of Hup’kisakuu7a (93T), in partnership with the Tseshaht First Nation, unearthed a variety of fauna that merit zooarchaeological analysis. Unlike the major ancient village sites previously excavated, such as Ts’ishaa and Huu7ii, the shallow shell midden of 93T is representative of a small-scale site, potentially occupied over a long period of time, comparable to that of the aforementioned major sites. The faunal assemblage is small in comparison to those of...
Prestige Foods and the Adoption of Pottery by Subarctic Foragers (2017)
In the last two millennia before European contact, pottery technology was adopted by foragers across much of the southern Canadian Boreal Forest in response to the spread of Woodland (~100 BC – AD 1700) cultural influence. However, the function and importance of pottery in these northern societies remains unclear due to a combination of poor organic preservation, thin and disturbed stratigraphy, and limited archaeological exploration. In this study, we summarize the results of food residue...
Public Perceptions of Archaeology and its Impact on Archaeological Resource Preservation: A Case Study from Western Canada (2015)
Although archaeologists acknowledge a legal and ethical responsibility to engage the public, the level of public appreciation and knowledge of archaeology and attitudes toward heritage preservation still remain poorly understood. A handful of past social surveys in North America and Europe give an initial perspective of public opinion on archaeological heritage preservation and its role in contemporary society. Given recent digital advances in public access to information and forums for...
RADIOCARBON DATING OF TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSITIONS: FROM ATLATL TO BOW IN NORTHWESTERN SUBARCTIC CANADA (2017)
Prehistoric archaeologists traditionally focus on periods of stability rather than change when constructing regional cultural chronologies, even though explaining periods of change is equally if not more important than explaining periods of stability. The advent of large radiocarbon date databases and the proliferation of open source computing programs such as program R have recently provided archaeologists with the tools necessary to begin understanding prehistoric transitions with high...