Archaeologists find sites where we look for them. This sounds overly simplistic, of course we find sites if we look for them. The opposite side of that coin is that we can’t find the sites no one has looked for, and that can help explain the large gaps we see when we look at maps showing recorded archaeological sites. You may think ‘why is there a site here, but not right there beside it’? Or a planner might think ‘that site doesn’t extend into the property, I’m fine to go ahead and develop’.
In CRM, or cultural resource management, archaeologists don’t get to do research and excavate where we necessarily want to, we conduct our studies in the areas that are going to be impacted by a proposed, or an ongoing, development. Sometimes these places are interesting and archaeologically rich, other times less so. There may be a spot right beside where we’re working that we’d love to check out, but we can’t extend our studies as it’s outside the area we’re allowed to work per our regulatory permits.
The area around the Big Bar Slide on the Fraser River is a prime example of ‘nothing recorded’ definitely does not equal ‘nothing present’. As some readers may be aware, efforts are ramping back up at the slide location to clear debris from the river while water levels are low enough to undertake such activities.
When I first arrived at the Big Bar slide site back in September, it became obvious immediately (like within 5 minutes) that this was an area rich in indigenous history and there were indeed archaeological sites present. And even though it was obvious to everyone present, no archaeological sites had been recorded within kilometres of the slide. This is because the area is remote, hard to access, requires private property permissions, and archaeologists hadn’t had a reason to look there before…
Within the first few days on site, we found numerous cultural depressions (representing house pits, cache pits, and roasting pits), lithic scatters with many hundreds of stone artifacts, buried living floors, and caves. I found out that local crew members from the High Bar and Stswecem'c Xgat'tem Nations also already knew of a site on the opposite side of the river approximately a kilometer upstream that has cultural depressions and pictographs (rock art, carved into boulders at the river’s edge). This whole area had been an extensively used and thriving First Nations village site in the past, but nothing had been registered until the slide happened and we were asked to start archaeological assessments and record what we saw.
One government employee I spoke to said rather abashedly that they had looked on the provincial heritage registry when the slide happened, saw that there were no recorded sites anywhere nearby, and thought that meant there would be few archaeological concerns as a result. They also admitted that they wouldn’t make that mistake again!
This is a concept for planners and developers to keep in mind. Just because an archaeological site doesn’t extend into a property, or there is nothing recorded nearby, doesn’t mean there aren’t sensitive and legislatively protected archaeological sites present that need to be taken into consideration.