British Columbia (State / Territory) (Geographic Keyword)
526-549 (549 Records)
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...
Village Life in the Barracks (2013)
Fort Wellington, in Prescott, Ontario, Canada was a major British post in the 19th century. The large blockhouse-type barracks in it was served by a separate wooden latrine building, built in 1838. Parks Canada archaeologists excavated the interior of the latrine, and discovered that it had been used for dumping refuse for most of its existence. Material culture researchers studied the artifacts, and found that life in the barracks was much different from what it had been thought to be. Working...
"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...
Whales, Chiefs, and Seal Stomachs: Understanding Ceramic Adoption in the Kodiak Archipelago (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study uses technological investment thinking and experimental archaeology to examine decision of the socially complex hunter-gatherers of the Kodiak Archipelago to adopt ceramics, ca. 500 cal BP. This decision is puzzling for two reasons: a) ceramic adoption on Kodiak lags centuries behind its adoption on the adjacent mainland, and b) evidence of...
What Have We Done, What Are We Doing, and Where Are We Going with Overseas Chinese Archaeology? (2015)
According to this session’s organizers there is no dominant Overseas Chinese narrative, but rather one characterized by diversity. They perceive this diversity as a strength and seek to highlight the range of both Chinese experiences and recent archaeological approaches to their lives. Papers address topics ranging from lifeways of urban merchants to healthcare practices of rural railroad workers, consumer habits of Chinatown residents, and the role of burned sites in creating highly politicized...
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 We See, What We Don’t See: Spatial Data Quality in Large Digital Archaeological Collections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Vision in the Age of Big Data" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In an era of cyber-infrastructures, large digital archaeological collections have the potential to enable deep insights into human history. Yet the life of digital archaeological data post-field recovery is not well understood, and consequently, issues of spatial data quality in large digital archaeological collections have been...
What's in a Name? Agency Coordination with ANCSA Corporations as Federally Recognized Tribes under Section 106 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: A National Perspective on CRM, Research, and Consultation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Consultation with Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations is an integral part of the Section 106 process of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Alaska District is unique among other districts within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in that, per the regulations, village and...
What’s Hot in Beringia? Cooking during the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition in Central Alaska (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The subsistence traditions of the early Americans residing in Beringia have played a key role in debates surrounding the spread of people across the continent. Hunting and related technologies have garnered the most...
"Where France Meets North America": A View from Anse à Bertrand, Saint-Pierre et Miquelon (2018)
Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, long viewed as a peripheral French settlement was in fact essential to colonial expansion throughout the Atlantic World. Indeed, the historic salt-cod fisheries constitute one of the oldest persistent landscapes to hold economic significance for European nations in the New World. Saint-Pierre et Miquelon represents a unique facet within this maritime landscape considering it was seasonally occupied at the beginning of the 17th century and that it would become the only...
Which Stories for Which Storytelling? A Community-Based Approach to the Nineteenth- to Twentieth-Century Nunatsiavummiut Material Heritage (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Current Research and Challenges in Arctic and Subarctic Cultural Heritage Studies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation discusses archaeological research that is intended to create a space for the inhabitants to reconnect with their material heritage on the land. The project took place in the Nain region (Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada) in 2021 and 2022. It contributed to the Nunatsiavut Government policies...
White Eye Traditional Knowledge Camp: Exploring Prehistoric Subsistence Behavior through Gwich’in Traditional Ways of Knowing (2018)
This study explores how indigenous archaeological methods can quantitatively assess prehistoric subsistence practices in interior Alaska. Archaeological sites in Alaska are among the oldest in the Americas, providing valuable information concerning human/animal interactions. Although there are substantial amounts of archaeological information present in the literature, there is a distinct lack of indigenous ecological knowledge. The goal of this project is to combine traditional indigenous ways...
"The White North Has Thy Bones": Sir John Franklin's 1845 Expedition and the Loss of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror (2016)
The hunt for Sir John Franklin's lost ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror is arguably the longest shipwreck search in history. As a story the 1845 Franklin expedition seemingly has it all: two state-of-the-art ships and experienced Royal Navy men vanishing barely without a trace, a life and death struggle for survival in an unforgiving environment, cannibalism, dogged contemporary searches, and fascinating stories from indigenous Inuit who both witnessed the expedition's demise and went aboard and...
Who Speaks for the Archaeological Record?: A Media Analysis of Canadian Archaeology (2016)
Archaeology is often conducted under the pretense of being to protect archaeological resources for the good of the general public; however, it is not always clear how archaeological excavations and research serve the public interest. There are many examples of how the Canadian public is interested in the archaeological discipline, but the voice of the academic archaeologist is often absent within public discussions of archaeology and history. By conducting a media analysis of how archaeology is...
Why "Chinese Diaspora" Is More Than Just An Ethnic Label (2016)
Some scholars, myself included, have recently argued in favour of a shift from "Overseas Chinese" to "Chinese Diaspora" as the most appropriate name for our field of study. But are we simply substituting one interchangeable ethnic label for another in accordance with intellectual trends? I argue that the term "diaspora" can potentially unite our disparate research interests because it brings with it a valuable body of theory that helps us understand the process of overseas Chinese migration and...
Why Screen-Size Matters for Isotopic Analysis of Archaeological Faunal Remains: A Case Study from Norton Sound, Alaska (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis) are small nearshore fish distributed throughout the Pacific and Arctic oceans and were a staple to preindustrial Indigenous fisheries of Western Alaska. Fish, mammal, and bird-bone were sampled for carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from sites in Norton Sound, Alaska, spanning 2500 BCE–1850 CE. Comparing our...
"Women Smoking Leather": Identifying Women and Their Ethnicity at Fort Selkirk. (2015)
Fort Selkirk served as a small subarctic fur trade post for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in central Yukon from 1848-1852. The company’s priority was the trade of European goods in exchange for furs trapped and hunted by Northern Tutchone and other Indigenous groups in the region. A review of Fort Selkirk journal records indicates the fort employed and housed a pluralistic population which included British, Indigenous and Metis men who worked as clerks, labourers and meat hunters. Mostly...
The Wreck of HMS Erebus: A Fieldwork and Research Update (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site of Canada: 2016-2019 Underwater Archaeological Investigations" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. HMS Erebus is situated amongst islands and reefs in Wilmot and Crampton Bay, off the west side of the Adelaide Peninsula, Nunavut. Since the wreck’s discovery in 2014, Parks Canada’s Underwater Archaeology Team has completed a multi-year site...
The Wreck of HMS Terror (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site of Canada: 2016-2019 Underwater Archaeological Investigations" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper will present a preliminary archaeological examination of the wreck of HMS Terror, discovered in September 2016, in the aptly (but coincidentally) named Terror Bay, along the southwestern shore of King William Island, Nunavut. To date, Parks...
You’re Building What Where?: Innovation with MOAs in the Far North (2019)
This is an abstract from the "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: A National Perspective on CRM, Research, and Consultation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Alaska District conducts numerous undertakings in the Arctic regions of the United States. Many of these undertakings, such as coastal erosion protection and small navigation improvement projects, require Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) among the USACE, the...
Yup’ik Tool Use at Temyiq Tuyuryak—Indigenous Approaches to Artifact Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Temyiq Tuyuryaq: Collaborative Archaeology the Yup’iit Way" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tool analysis is a foundational component of archaeological research and site interpretation. Methods for analysis include a rigorous set of categories including, but not limited to, raw material type, tool type, use-wear, retouch, etc. Although these categories are informative, telling us about a specific set of criteria and...
Zooarchaeological Analysis of Alaskan Goldrush Sites (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The current accumulation of archaeological investigations at far-north Alaskan Goldrush sites either completely lack or severely underrepresent the zooarchaeological components at these sites. This data is vital and adds context to past and future archaeological investigations by enabling more accurate and inclusive interpretations of life in the...
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...
Zooarchaeological Evidence of Dietary Impacts from Contact at Maima, Jamaica (2016)
Recent field research at the Taino village of Maima on the north coast of Jamaica has revealed a complex late prehistoric and contact era village settlement. Occupied during the late prehistoric era, Maima was impacted by Columbus and his crew when they were stranded on the island for a year in 1503. After that initial contact, the villagers were forced into labour at the nearby Spanish settlement of Sevilla la Nueva. Faunal evidence, including shell and vertebrate bone, show that the impact...