Clam Gardens (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ginevra Toniello. Dana Lepofsky. Kirsten Rowell.

Clam gardens, anthropogenic rock-walled terraces built at the lowest intertidal, are part of an ancient system of mariculture of the Indigenous people of the Northwest Coast of North America. The construction of clam gardens increased shellfish production by increasing ideal clam habitat and creating substrate preferred for clam growth. On Northern Quadra Island, where there is a dense concentration of clam gardens, we assess bivalve productivity of clam gardens by 1) calculating how much clam...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric McLay.

Clam Gardens of the Southern Gulf Islands and southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia This paper describes a comprehensive, five-year archaeological project to identify and document the location of ancient intertidal clam garden features in the Southern Gulf Islands and southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It is discovered that clam gardens in the Southern Gulf Islands region are extensive, exhibit clear patterning in location and morphology, and demonstrate a monumentality...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Natasha Salter. Amy Groesbeck. Kirsten Rowell. Anne Salomon.

Emerging evidence suggests that Northwest Coast First Nations sustained and enhanced shellfish production through features known as clam gardens, intertidal rock-walled terraces, built in the late Holocene. Experiments and surveys have revealed that clam gardens are 2-4 times more productive than non-modified clam beaches, supporting greater densities, biomass, and higher growth rates of important clam species. While heightened productivity within clam gardens is partly attributable to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Neudorf. Nicole Smith. Dana Lepofsky. Ginevra Toniello. Olav Lian.

Rock-walled archaeological features are notoriously hard to date, largely because of the absence of organic material for radiocarbon dating. This study demonstrates the efficacy of dating clam garden walls using optical dating, and uses optical ages to determine how sedimentation rates in the intertidal zone are affected by their construction. Clam gardens are rock-walled, intertidal terraces that were constructed and maintained by coastal First Nation peoples to increase bivalve habitat and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric McLay.

Clam gardens represent monumental coastal landscapes constructed by Northwest Coast hunter-gather-fisher peoples over the past 1000 years. The slow, laborious movement of boulders and cobbles to build up rock-walled intertidal terraces not only created new productive shellfish habitat for greater food security, but transformed social and political relations over peoples’ rights to lands, foreshore and access to shellfish at a regional scale. As large-scale community works, clam gardens must be...