Getting to the root

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Estuarine root gardens are poorly understood and under-researched sites of Indigenous plant cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America. Combining archaeology, ecology and pedology, and drawing from research conducted on 'Namgis and Ahousaht First Nations territories in British Columbia, Canada, this research proposes a novel method to aid in the identification of these gardens. Further, we provide an overview of how this method was successfully deployed to identify a root site that was no longer known by community in Songhees First Nations territory. Based on the success of this methodology, we argue that these sites, as important and often still functioning cultural landscapes, are in need of better recognition and protection by cultural heritage practitioners and legislation in coastal British Columbia. Further, this research highlights the ways in which archaeology remains complicit with colonial systems of power, which can only be rectified by centering Indigenous voices.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39602.0