Inland Lifeways of Haida Gwaii 400-1700 C.E., A Landscape Archaeological Study (original) (raw)
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Cultural dynamics and the ritual use of woods in pre-contact Hawai'i.
PALAEOETHNOBOTANY has been an important component of archaeological research since its florescence more than two decades ago. It has been used to address important anthropological issues including ancient diet and resource use, the development of agriculture, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, and cultural interaction and exchange systems. The identification of macrobotanical wood charcoal specimens is one of these techniques, and as a class of archaeological data, wood charcoal possesses a number of advantages over other plant palaeoecological data for archaeologists interested in addressing questions about social and ideological change. It is usually found in abundance in archaeological contexts, preserves well in most environments, and is durable through a variety of depositional and diagenetic processes. Although wood charcoal identification has primarily been used as a technique for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, it is also ideal for the study of cultural dynamics because material culture reflects people's choices in a number of cultural pathways, including domestic practices, ideology, and ritualization, as well as political relationships. Inquiries into the changing use of plants can be particularly informative in understanding political and ideological aspects of a society because variability in the economic importance of a plant often parallels variability in its cultural significance as well (Cowan 1985: 243; Ford 1979: 320-323;.
Haida Gwaii : human history and environment from the time of loon to the time of the iron people
2005
When Captain George Dixon sailed by a remote archipelago off the north Pacific coast in 1787 he named the islands for his ship, the Queen Charlotte. Today these islands are more commonly known as Haida Gwaii ("Islands of the People"), the Haida homeland that had already been occupied for over 10,000 years when Dixon appeared. This isolated archipelago has long fascinated academic researchers from a variety of fields, who have been intrigued by topics as diverse as the unique nature of endemic plant and animal species and the impressive Haida achievements in art and architecture. Archaeology also plays a role, particularly since the creation of Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, covering the southern portion of the archipelago, in 1987. The pace of archaeological research has greatly accelerated in recent years through the cooperative endeavours of Parks Canada and the Haida Nation. Such work has been multidisciplinary , involving a considerable number of scholars examining past cultural and environmental history. This volume presents that data.
2012
The royal court of the Kamehameha Dynasty in Kawaihae, Hawai‘i Island, presents an unequalled opportunity to examine the ethnohistoric rendering of a cultural landscape, in comparison to the geoarchaeological record of physical transformation of this same landscape. Beneath the surface, earlier occupation layers predate the historic royal precinct of the A.D. 1790s through 1820s. Drawing on results of 19 controlled excavations, point-specific cultural activities are situated within the last several centuries of natural terrain formation, beginning A.D. 1200–1400 and ending A.D. 1830–present. Geoarchaeological excavations provide the means to place the stratified cultural deposits, occupational horizons, and activity areas in the context of depositional history, environmental transformation, and changing social circumstances in a continuous sequence. The material-based geoarchaeological landscape chronology and the ethnohistorically defined cultural landscape are combined for a more holistic view than either one could provide independently.
2009
Archaeological data-recovery excavations at Site Complex 50-10-05-4157, near the northwestern corner of the Island of Hawai‘i, showed that by the fourteenth century AD people prepared food at what later became the center of the site complex, presumably during (a) short-term visit(s). The recovery of an increasing amount and variety of marine and terrestrial remains from a sixteenth-century deposit in the same area indicates more intensive use of the locale. The recovery of turtle, shark, coral and urchin abraders, specialized fishing gear, bird and pig bones, and basalt and volcanic glass scrapers from a seventeenth-century altar-like feature conform to male-related activities in the ethnographic record. By the eighteenth century, stonewalled structures had spread to the southern portion of the site complex, some of them most likely being co-residential common houses. Recovery of historic period materials suggests that both the center and southern portions of the site complex were o...
Paleoethnobotany of Kilgii Gwaay: a 10,700 year old Ancestral Haida Archaeological Wet Site
This thesis is a case study using paleoethnobotanical analysis of Kilgii Gwaay, a 10,700-year-old wet site in southern Haida Gwaii to explore the use of plants by ancestral Haida. The research investigated questions of early Holocene wood artifact technologies and other plant use before the large-scale arrival of western redcedar (Thuja plicata), a cultural keystone species for Haida in more recent times. The project relied on small-scale excavations and sampling from two main areas of the site: a hearth complex and an activity area at the edge of a paleopond. The archaeobotanical assemblage from these two areas yielded 23 plant taxa representing 14 families in the form of wood, charcoal, seeds, and additional plant macrofossils. A salmonberry and elderberry processing area suggests a seasonal summer occupation. Hemlock wedges and split spruce wood and roots show evidence for wood-splitting technology. The assemblage demonstrates potential for site interpretation based on archaeobotanical remains for the Northwest Coast of North America and highlights the importance of these otherwise relatively unknown plant resources from this early time period.