North America-Canada (Geographic Keyword)
126-136 (136 Records)
The degree of preservation of Housepit 54 at the Bridge River site located in south-central British Columbia provides a rare look at a long series of intact occupational floors within a single pithouse. As data collection continues, a vast number of opportunities emerge to examine behavioral variation at the household level. During the 2014 field season, excavation revealed a household transition that reflected shifts in the organization of space within the household. Changes included...
Vertebrate analysis of column samples taken from Hup’kisakuu7a (93T, DfSh-43) (2017)
Hup’kisakuu7a (93T, DfSh-43) is a small pre=contact site in Tseshaht territory. This site was excavated in 2015 and 2016 in order to determine to what extent smaller sites in Barkley Sound were being used during the late and mid-Holocene (ca 5,000-200 cal BP). Two 2x2 meter units were excavated. A column sample was taken from the north wall of each units in 2016. These column samples reached a depth of 120 cm depth below datum (DBD) in unit 1, and 137 cm DBD in unit 2. The sediment recovered...
Village Aggregation and Early Cultural Developments on the Canadian Plateau: a case study from Keatley Creek (2017)
Understanding when and under what conditions aggregation into larger communities with large corporate house organizations, socioeconomic inequalities and specialized ritual structures occurred has been a central theoretical issue in various regions of archaeological investigations. Perhaps the biggest bone of contention in current theorising is whether these transitions occur when hunter/gatherers accepted claims to privilege on the part of some individuals by consensus to deal with community...
Virtual Archaeology, Virtual Longhouses and "envisioning the unseen" within the Archaeological Record (2016)
In the 1960’s, Ivan Sutherland envisioned a time in the near future in which people would be able to physically enter into an alternative, "digital" world. The ability to not only see the environment around them, but also to touch, smell, hear and be affected by the environment itself would provide a unique digital phenomenological experience where viewers become participants and build on their own personal narratives in a non-linear, almost life-like, virtual experience. In reimagining a 15th...
"We lived there for the food": Archaeologies of Dalk Gyilakyaw, home of the Gitsm'geelm (Kitsumkalum) Tsimshian (2017)
The Gitsm’geelm are a galts’ap (community) of the Tsimshian Nation. Today, Kitsumkalum is located at the confluence of the Kalum and Skeena Rivers. There are a number of documented archaeology sites in the core territorial lands, down the Skeena River to the coast where Gitsm’geelm people hold various types of resource use sites. Dałk Gyilakyaw (Robin Town), a large terraced village site replete with evidence of maintained gardens, orchards and distinct archaeological features, is located at the...
Western Canadian pXRF Obsidian Sourcing (2016)
In January of 2015, researchers from the Royal Alberta Museum, Canada, and the University of Georgia Center for Applied Isotope Studies collaborated on one of the largest geochemical analyses of archaeological obsidian via portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) to date in western Canada, a region previously lacking large scale obsidian XRF analysis. This study is part of a larger project to synthesize obsidian use in the Eastern Rocky Mountains. The Canadian sample consists of approximately 750...
What makes us beat? Toward a heart-centered practice in archaeological research (2017)
Within the discipline of archaeology, we conventionally employ rational, science-based analyses to examine ancient cultures. Yet the lives of archaeological practitioners, contemporary descent communities, and the ancient peoples we study, are more than just minds and bodies. In this paper, we outline a framework for a heart-centered archaeological practice that draws from foundational literature on feminist, indigenous, and community-based archaeologies. We posit that a heart-centered...
What's new in Canadian Shield Rock Art (2016)
The last few years of archaeological fieldwork in Eastern Canadian Shield have allowed the identification of some new figures in the graphic content of sites already documented by other researchers in Ontario. But this context has led also to the discovery of new rock art sites in this province as well as in Québec. These rock painting sites but also the new engraving sites found help more than ever to better understand the variability and complexity of the iconographic themes privileged by the...
Who Shot First?: Codified Categories Creating Imaginary Archaeological Pasts (2015)
Archaeologists in Canada are empowered by the Canadian state through licensing and/or permitting systems; as such, archaeological practices are intrinsically entangled with various levels of governance. While it would be convenient to argue for an archaeology either free entirely of state control, or entirely and purposefully guided to fulfill state mandates, the reality is more nuanced. Archaeology is often structured by interpretive conventions that act to replicate the dominant archaeological...
A Winter at Akulivik: Faunal Analysis of a Thulean House at the site of Kangiakallak-1 (Nunavik, Québec) (2015)
The site of Kangiakallak-1 (JeGn-2 – AKU-10-018), located near Akulivik (Nunavik, Québec), has yielded several occupations attributed to the Dorset and Thule periods. Level A corresponds to a Thulean winter house for which collapse and preservation in permafrost provides an excellent and undisturbed record of Thulean lifeway. This paper presents the results of a faunal analysis conducted on animal remains found within the Level A house. The dominant species recovered were caribou Rangifer...
A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Housepit 54 at the Bridge River Site (EeRl1), Middle Fraser B.C. (2017)
Housepit 54 at the Bridge River pithouse village in south-central British Columbia provides a glimpse into the complex cultural practices that occurred at this area in the past. This village, which includes approximately 80 semi-subterranean structures, was occupied during four periods, approximately 1800-1600 cal. B.P. (BR 1), 1600-1300 cal. B.P. (BR 2), 1300-1000 cal. B.P. (BR 3), and 610-45 cal. B.P (BR 4), firmly placing the site within both a historic and a pre-Colonial context. It is...