The Ancestral Remains of the Cheslatta T'en: A Rare Burial Site from the Middle Holocene in Central British Columbia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the fall of 2020, human ancestral remains were discovered eroding out of the bank of a lake within the traditional territory of the Cheslatta Carrier Nation, at the northern end of the Canadian Plateau. In 2021 more remains were found at the same location. At the request of the Cheslatta t’en archaeologists conducted salvage excavations to protect and preserve the ancestral remains and to gain a better understanding of the site and the impact of the ongoing erosion there. Working with and for the Cheslatta t’en, a rare mortuary occurrence is being documented. The burials of at least 6 individuals have been radiocarbon dated to a period around 4500 BP, making this one of a very few burial sites identified on the Canadian Plateau from this period. This paper will discuss these findings in the context of the osteological analysis of the remains, and discuss the potential for stable isotope and DNA analysis. We will also highlight how being an Indigenous led project has provided direction and focus to the scientific analysis, thereby letting the archaeology be a tool for the Nation in their efforts to reclaim their land and their past.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37049.0