September 20: Archaeological Society of BC Lecture - Morley Eldridge

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

In association with the Anthropology Department of UVic

SEPTEMBER LECTURE and AGM

Morley Eldridge

"Bracelets, Mountain Goats, and Household Archaeology. Evidence of Control of Trade in Prince Rupert Harbour nearly 2000 Years Ago"

Tuesday, Sept 20th , 7:30

Cornett B129, UVic Campus, Victoria

(AGM will take place at 7:30 for about 10-15 minutes, prior to Morley’s lecture) An enigmatic class of antler artifacts found at the Casey Point sites by the Millennia Research excavations of 2012-2013 was found to be part of a previously unknown sophisticated clasp for bracelets. This clasp system has since been found to be occasionally present throughout the Northwest Coast and the Interior Plateau.Mountain goat horn bracelets were collected by early European visitors to the Northwest Coast. These share the clasp system with antler bracelets. The Casey Point sites have an extraordinary amount of mountain goat remains, as well as other species indicating harvest or trade with the interior. The patterned distribution of various types of goat remains, features and artifacts such as labrets suggest one household had higher status than the others, and likely produced mountain goat horn bracelets. Exotic features and apparent wealth goods were distributed throughout the site, however. The entire village may have had high status relative to other village sites in Prince Rupert Harbour. Only the Boardwalk site comes close to equalling the amount of "exotic" goods found at Casey Point. This was unexpected given the difficult access and poor building sites available at Casey. Morley Eldridge is the president of Millennia Research Limited, a Victoria archaeological consulting company. Morley’s special interests are predictive archaeological modeling and remote sensing (particularly with LiDAR data), CMTs, wet sites and basketry, archaeological data management, and paleo-indian remains in northwest America.

OCTOBER LECTURE

Duncan McLaren

“Intertidal Investigations into the Late Pleistocene Land Use and Occupation on the Central Coast”

NOVEMBER LECTURE #1 (Nov 8th)

Cameron Robertson

“Archaeological Assessments in Melanesia”

NOVEMBER LECTURE #2 (Nov 22nd)

Susan Crockford

“Mother Lode of Prehistoric Mountain Goat Oreamnos Americanus Remains Near Prince Rupert, BC and its Implications.”

JANUARY LECTURE

Eric Guiry

“Exploring Atlantic Salmon Migratory Behaviors in the Ancient Past using Isotopic Analyses of Archaeological Fish Bones.”

For information, e-mail asbcvictoria@gmail.com

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