Dig It is KTW's regularly published column on the history beneath our feet in the Kamloops region. A group of nine professional archeologists living and working in the area contribute columns to educate and fascinate. From writing about specific sites to the life of an archeologist, the columns uncover the complex past of the land on which we walk in the present. To read previous columns, go online to kamloopsthisweek.com and search "Dig It."
By Ramsay McKee republicofarchaeology.ca
During the last ice age, called the Fraser Glaciation, the Kamloops area was buried under up to two kilometres of ice.
About 13,000 years ago, the ice sheet covering western North America (called the Cordilleran Ice Sheet) began to melt. By this time, people were already living in ice-free regions of Alaska and the Yukon, along the west coast of B.C. and south of the ice sheets in the continental U.S.
As the ice receded, the meltwater pooled into very large glacial lakes covering all of present-day downtown Kamloops, Pritchard, Chase and beyond, dammed by large masses of ice at its east and west ends.
The first plant communities to develop in this cold, barren landscape resembled a steppe tundra -- vast tracts of grasses and low shrubs with occasional groups of small trees in low-lying and sheltered areas. The first animals, including birds, rodents, rabbits, deer, elk, mammoth and their predators, soon followed.
Who were the first people to come to this landscape? From where did they come?
The earliest evidence of people arriving in the Kamloops area comes from stone tools they left behind. In particular, early projectile points and blade technologies that closely resemble the stone-tool technologies of people who lived on the B.C. coast, the Far North, the continental U.S. and the Great Plains have all been found in the region.
Unfortunately, these artifacts have mostly been observed in local museums and private collections, which means the context in which these finds were made has been lost. Very few archeological sites that can provide more insight into who the earliest inhabitants of this region were have been discovered to date.
Given that so few early sites have been found, our understanding of who these people were and how they lived largely remains a mystery. Based on what little information is available, the best hypothesis is that early human populations gradually made their way into the region from the south, from the B.C. coast, from the north and from the west as plants and animals they depended on began to colonize the region.
The first peoples in the region are thought to have been accomplished hunters of large game, supplementing their diets with smaller animals, birds, plants and aquatic resources. These early groups were highly mobile, following the seasonal round of their preferred game animals and the ripening of plant foods.
The recent discovery and intense study of an ancient mastodon-butchering site in Northern California that has been dated to about 130,000 years old, before the last ice age, leaves many archeologists with more questions than answers.
If there were people in California 130,000 years ago, could they have been in the Thompson Valley? Were these anatomically modern people like us, Neanderthals or another human species entirely? If there were people here that long ago, what happened to them?
Answering these questions is neither a quick nor an easy process -- and we may never be able to learn the whole answer.