Natasha Lyons

The Archaeology of the Scowlitz Site, SW British Columbia

Abstract This paper summarizes the results of six seasons of archaeological fieldwork conducted at the Scowlitz site located at the confluence of the Harrison and Fraser Rivers in SW British Columbia, Canada. Research beginning in 1992 has revealed a complex sequence of site use beginning with a residential occupation about 3000 years ago. After some 1500 years the site became a cemetery, featuring some of the best preserved examples of the burial mound and cairn complex remaining on the Northwest Coast. Then, 1000 years ago, the site added seasonal use for resource processing while continuing as a cemetery. In the protohistoric and historical periods the site was used as a fishing camp and, still, as a cemetery. We discuss the implications of the Scowlitz site for understanding the development of complex hunting-fishing-gathering societies on the Northwest Coast.

The Wisdom of Elders: Inuvialuit Social Memories of Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century

The Inuvialuit of the Canadian Western Arctic are no strangers to change. From the arrival of whalers ca. 1890, they underwent a century of monumental societal upheaval. Perhaps against the odds, they sustained many of their traditional socioeconomic activities and continued to follow a land-based lifestyle through much of the twentieth century. With a few notable exceptions, historical accounts of this period were written by cultural outsiders who conveyed their own perspectives on Inuvialuit culture. This paper focuses on the social memories of present-day Inuvialuit Elders who recount aspects of their lifeways throughout the twentieth century, including seasonal practices, traditional skills they maintained, and responses to the historical events that challenged their ways of living and spurred continuous change. These oral narratives form part of a larger history for succeeding generations, and a platform from which to construct contemporary identities and to negotiate a collective future.

The Archaeology of Camas Production and Exchange on the Northwest Coast: With Evidence from a Sts'ailes (Chehalis) Village on the Harrison River, British Columbia

Edible root resources were widely cultivated and consumed by First Peoples throughout North America from the early to mid-Holocene to historic times. In recent decades, archaeobotanists, ethnobotanists, archaeologists, and traditional knowledge-holders have explored and clarified many aspects of root food ecology, production, and exchange. This paper focuses on camas, considered a cultural keystone species across much of western North America because of its high cultural value and influence in defining the cultural identities and land use of resident communities. While historic camas use by First Peoples has been widely documented throughout the Pacific Northwest, the archaeology of camas is little known at coastal sites. This paper presents evidence for a concentration of camas bulbs (Camassia spp.) found in an earth oven complex within an ancient Stsailes (Chehalis) village in the Upper Fraser Valley of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. We contextualize this find by exploring the abundant ethnobotanical and ethnohistoric camas literature in order to create a picture of the production and exchange of camas amongst coastal communities of the Northwest Coast. We analyze direct and indirect sources of archaeological data for coastal camas production, which helps us to evaluate questions raised by the presence of this resource 150 km outside of its historical growing range.

Engineered feature used to enhance gardening at a 3800-year-old site on the Pacific Northwest Coast

Ancient complex hunter-gatherers constructed a rock pavement to enhance the predictability and availability of wetland plant resources. Humans use a variety of deliberate means to modify biologically rich environs in pursuit of resource stability and predictability. Empirical evidence suggests that ancient hunter-gatherer populations engineered ecological niches to enhance the productivity and availability of economically significant resources. An archaeological excavation of a 3800-year-old wetland garden in British Columbia, Canada, provides the first direct evidence of an engineered feature designed to facilitate wild plant food production among mid-to-late Holocene era complex fisher-hunter-gatherers of the Northwest Coast. This finding provides an example of environmental, economic, and sociopolitical coevolutionary relationships that are triggered when humans manipulate niche environs.

Sharing deep history as digital knowledge: An ontology of the Sq’éwlets website project

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, and relation. This paper presents an ontology of the Sq’éwlets Virtual Museum of Canada Website Project, a project that has focused on creating a digital community biography of the Sq’éwlets First Nation (www.digitalsqewlets.ca). Based on several decades of community archaeology and the recent production of short video documentaries, the website presents a long-term perspective of what it means to be a Sq’éwlets person and community member today. We explore how this project came to focus on the nature of being Sq’éwlets; how community members conceived the nature, structure, and nomenclature of the website; and how this Sq’éwlets being-ness is translated for outside audiences. We suggest what lessons this approach has for anthropological conventions of naming and knowing as they relate to Indigenous histories, and consider how archaeological knowledge can be transformed into a digital platform within a community-based process.