Material Elements of the Social Landscape at Fort Vancouver’s Village

Summary

Fort Vancouver contains the archaeological vestiges of houses, activity areas, and other landscape features of the British and American Colonial Period, AD 1827 to 1860. Data from this site are used to explore the lives of its inhabitants who worked in the fur trade and other economic activities of the Hudson’s Bay Company.  Most of the material culture recovered from Fort Vancouver is imported European articles, tied closely to the marketing and sales of trade goods to its employees and family members. However, flaked glass artifacts, tobacco pipes of clay and stone, and ceramic slop bowls provide contrasts to acculturation or world systems explanations for the Village.  Our research suggests that the multicultural community employed artifacts in different ways that only partly integrated aspects of a British colonial identity, adopting alternative means to utilize colonial objects more closely tied to both indigenous and creole patterns. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Landscapes of Colonialism in the North American West

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 377