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fishing weir settlement Haida
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22 DECEMBER, 2014 - 00:44 MARK MILLER
13,800-year-old Haida
site found underwater
in Canada
Estimates of people’s presence in the Americas
have ranged from about 12,000 to 50,000
years. A new study by a team of archaeologists
that has been researching the subject, has
found a site dating back 13,800 years, now
underwater in the Juan Perez Sound off British
Columbia in Canada.
The underwater area they examined was once
dry land, inhabited by the Haida people. The
Haida have an old flood tale on Frederick
Island that tells of how the peoples became
dispersed in the New World. Frederick Island
is a different site than the one recently
studied.
The team, led by archaeologist Quentin Mackie
of the University of Victoria, found the site this
past September near the Haida Gwaii
Archipelago. They found a fishing weir, a stone
channel structure that was probably used to
catch salmon, the CBC reports.
Haida Gwaii islands as seen from Hecate Strait
(Wikimedia Commons)
“He's far from certain, but Mackie is hopeful
the images show at least one stone weir — a
man-made channel used to corral fish. The
scan suggests a wall of large stones was placed
in a line at a right angle to the stream, a
fishing technique used by many other ancient
cultures, including those that thrived along
B.C's coasts,” the CBC says.
Global BC news broadcast on the Haida
discovery
Mackie says the findings make sense in the
context of his research there over the past 20
years. Indian Country Today Media Network
says the findings also fit in with tribal oral
histories.
A Haida story from the book American Indian
Myths and Legends by Richard Erdoes and
Alfonso Ortiz tells of a great flood that force
people to move. An excerpt:
… the old people told them to
stop laughing at the stranger.
At that moment the tide was
at low ebb, and the woman
sat down at the water’s edge.
The tide began to rise, and
the water touched her feet.
She moved up a little and
again sat down. The water
rose again, and again she
moved back. Now she sat
down at the edge of the
village. But the tide kept
rising; never before had it
come so high. The villagers
grew frightened and awe-
struck. Having no canoes, they
did not know how to escape,
so they took big logs, tied
them together into a raft, and
placed their children on it.
They packed the raft with
dried salmon, halibut and
baskets of spring water for
drinking.
The woman kept sitting on higher and higher
ground, and the water kept climbing. Waters
covered their island, the Haida story says, and
hundreds of survivors were adrift without
anchors.
By and by the people saw
peaks sticking out of the
ocean. One of the rafts
drifted to a piece of land and
its survivors stepped off
there, while other rafts were
beached elsewhere. It was at
that time that the tribes
became dispersed. - Based on
a tale related by Henry Young
in 1947 and repeated by
Marius Barbeau in 1953.
‘Spirit of Haida Gwaii’, the Black Canoe,
sculpture by Bill Reid in bronze, outside the
Canadian Embassy in Washington (Wikimedia
Commons)
The superintendent of the Gwaii Hanaas park,
Ernie Gladstone, told the CBC that people lived
in the area for many thousands of years, but
much of their ancient territory is under waters
of Hecate Strait now. Stories like the one
recounted in American Indian Myths and
Legends and other collections may be actual
history told in semi-metaphor.
The book Mythology of the American Nations
says the waters and lands where the Haida
people lived were so rich with fish and game
that they had a social structure more like
advanced agricultural societies. They had
private property, ranked social classes and a
rich history of art. Governments and
missionaries made strenuous efforts to
assimilate Haida people on the islands and
mainland. But the Haida resisted and instead
preserved much of their culture and
homelands, wrote the authors, David M. Jones
and Brian L. Molyneaux.
Several months ago, the archaeologists used
an unmanned, robotic vehicle to examine
under the waters around the islands. The weir
is under 400 feet (122 meters) of water. The
researchers say the area under water was dry
land at sea level 14,000 years ago, from the
islands to what is now the British Columbia
mainland. The area has been underwater
since after the last Ice Age ended and a
warming period began about 11,000 years ago.
The archaeologists saw other formations on
the sea floor that they think may have been
camps from around the same time.
The oldest artifact ever found previously in
Canada came from near the same weir site, in
Gwaii Hanaas National Park Preserve from
12,700 years ago. The latest finding therefore
constitutes the oldest ever evidence of human
habitation in Canada.
Featured image: Researchers probe the ocean
floor in Juan Perez Sound with University of
Victoria’s AUV. The team will soon use a
remote vehicle to dig for artifacts. Credit: The
Canadian Press
By Mark Miller