Holocene Settlement History of the Dundas Islands Archipelago, Northern British Columbia

Authors

Bryn Letham, University of British Columbia
Andrew Martindale, University of British ColumbiaFollow
Duncan McLaren, Hakai InstituteFollow
Thomas Brown, Portland State UniversityFollow
Kenneth M. Ames, Portland State UniversityFollow
David J.W. Archer, Northwest Community College - Prince RupertFollow
Susan Marsden, Museum of Northern British Columbia

Sponsor

Funding was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Radiocarbon dates for Stephens Islands were funded by NSF Grant #1216847. Additional radiocarbon dates for GdTq-3 were funded by the Portland State University Anthropology Department 2015 Thomas Newman Scholarship.

Published In

BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Subjects

Archaeology -- Holocene -- Northern British Columbia, Coastal archaeology -- Northern British Columbia, Coastal settlements -- Holocene -- Northern British Columbia

Abstract

As this article demonstrates, the Dundas Islands have been home to humans for at least eleven thousand years. This occupation was at times very extensive; this relatively small group of islands was likely home to a population of several thousand people by about two thousand years ago. While geographically on the “outer shores” of Northern Tsimshian traditional territory, these islands were in no way marginal as locations for settlement. We outline the settlement history of the archipelago by presenting the results of the Dundas Islands Archaeological Project, including the radiocarbon dating program results combined with data from three previous small-scale surveys (Archer 2000; Haggarty 1988; Inglis 1975). We discuss different types of habitation sites and chronological trends in their occupation to argue that the Dundas Islands have been near-continuously occupied for at least the entire Holocene and that this was central, not peripheral, to the broader history of human occupation in the region.

Description

Archived with author permission and publisher embargo. This article can also be found at the publishers website.

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/16210

Citation Details

Letham, B., Martindale, A., McLaren, D., Brown, T., Ames, K. M., Archer, D. J. W., & Marsden, S. (2015, August 18). Holocene Settlement History of the Dundas Islands Archipelago, Northern British Columbia. BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly.