14,000-Year-Old Village Found on Canadian Island
14,000-Year-Old Village Found on Canadian Island
The category is: “Thing that are old.” What is Great Pyramid at Giza? Good answer. What is Stonehenge? Better. What is a Heiltsuk village site on Triquet Island in British Columbia? Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner! Charcoal recovered from a hearth buried in a Heiltsuk village site dates back 14,000 years, making it one of the oldest First Nations settlements in North America and older than the Great Pyramid and Stonehenge combined.
I remember when we get the dates back and we just kind of sat there going, holy moly, this is old.
Attendees at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archeology this week will hear about the discovery from Alisha Gauvreau, a PhD student at the University of Victoria who worked at the excavation on Triquet Island, 320 km (200 miles) south of the Alaskan border and about 500 km (310 miles) northwest of Victoria, Canada. In addition to the charcoal, Gauvreau and the rest of the archeologists found rare artifacts such as a wooden projectile-launching device called an atlatl, compound fish hooks and a hand drill used for lighting fires.
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/fire-starting-drill-300x225.jpeg 300w, http://mysteriousuniverse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/fire-starting-drill.jpeg 640w" alt="" width="570" height="428"> A 6,000-year-old fire-starting drill
It appears we had people sitting in one area making stone tools beside evidence of a fire pit, what we are calling a bean-shaped hearth. The material that we have recovered from that trench has really helped us weave a narrative for the occupation of this site.
That narrative lends credence to the stories told by the indigenous peoples of the Heiltsuk tribe about ancient settlements that appeared to date back prior to previously-accepted estimates of their first arrival on the island. Stable sea levels kept the artifacts well-preserved just a few feet below the current ground level.
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/hole-300x198.png 300w, http://mysteriousuniverse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/hole-768x507.png 768w, http://mysteriousuniverse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/hole.png 791w" alt="" width="570" height="376"> Alisha Gauvreau at the dig site
The artifacts and sediment also show that two tsunamis in the village’s history may have caused residents to vacate for a time and, when they returned, change their eating habits. The evidence shows the Heiltsuk people’s ancestors hunting and eating seals, sea lions and other large mammals for about 7,000 years, then switching to fin fish and shellfish.
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/fishing-hook-300x225.jpeg 300w, http://mysteriousuniverse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/fishing-hook.jpeg 640w" alt="" width="570" height="428"> A stick tied to nets that catches in the throat of fish
One of the best ways to determine how ancients cultures lived is to look at their trash and there’s a five-meter-deep (16 feet) midden (trash heap) that runs for 70 meters (230 feet) between the beach and the village that Gauvreau plans to dig in next. The team will also begin similar excavations on other coastal islands to see if the tsunamis resulted in dietary changes there.
What have we learned from the excavation on Triquet Island? Dead men may tell no tales but their garbage tells all of their secrets. And there are people who still say “holy moly.”
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''That narrative lends credence to the stories told by the indigenous peoples of the Heiltsuk tribe about ancient settlements that appeared to date back prior to previously-accepted estimates of their first arrival on the island.''
Oral history once again.
Impossible.
Really interesting information. It also does away with the timeline that is usually accepted about when the first people arrived here.
That's true Perrie. I expect to see numerous changes in the previous theories on migration and the time lines in the Americas.
I'm glad that someone finally found it and excavated it. There is so much we have yet to learn about our early humans in the Western hemisphere!
The past few years have lead to numerous new discoveries in the America's, many of them have changed previously accepted theory.
A settlement that old would put it in the ice age. This seems to fit within current speculation that not all islands off Canada were covered in ice. People may have been able to avoid inhospitable glacier covered continents and live on these islands, traveling south along the coastline in boats to hunt wherever they found game. Essentially, the ocean became a highway.
The discovery of human habitation on islands off the coast of Southern California, dated 11,000 to 12,000 years old would support the theory that ancient people did indeed travel via water along the coast of north America.
Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands has been a wealth of information for the sea faring theory.
All interesting. The speculation is that native Americans originated in Siberia. They crossed the Bering straight into Alaska over a land bridge, perhaps in search of better hunting grounds. But when the land bridge submerged, the straight is only a few miles wide at some points so native people could easily continue to cross by boat or float down the coastline. Hunting along the coastline seems to minimize contact with hostile native people who have settled in permanently and declare an exclusive right to a particular hunting ground.
There also appears to be a separate group of people who came to the americas via boat from the South Pacific but that was much later than the ice age.
Interesting article. However, when I try to open the links, this is what I get:
Error 1011 Ray ID: 34fa967bf62751c4 • 2017-04-14 23:54:00 UTC
Access denied
What happened?
The owner of this website (mysteriousuniverse.org) does not allow hotlinking to that resource (/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/fishing-hook.jpeg).
Cloudflare Ray ID: 34fa967bf62751c4 • Your IP : 125.86.110.26 • Performance & security by Cloudflare
I get the same thing Buzz. Somehow it's connected to the photo in the article.
Try pasting that into your browser.
That worked. Thanks Steve.
Cool.
Indeed it is Bob.
Dear Friend Kavika: My choice for things that are old:
The Meat Loaf at Jay's Diner.
Forensic Paleontologists assess it at 20,000 years (25,000 if you count the ketchup on top of the slice).
P.S. Seen the ad for Jay-Harmony.com?
Its a singles meeting site for single Diner patrons.
Their motto: "We are all about dating. And we aren't talking about Carbon 14"!
Enoch, Using a Jackhammer on a Parkerhouse Roll at Jay's to Cut It.
I'm really old, so anything that is petrified is good with me...
I will be interested to learn what they discover in the middle of the hidden midden.
I thought everyone knew we came from a much longer time ago then that!
Among these advanced teachings is the story of Xenu (sometimes Xemu), introduced as the tyrant ruler of the " Galactic Confederacy ". According to this story, 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and detonated hydrogen bombs in the volcanoes. The thetans then clustered together, stuck to the bodies of the living, and continue to do this today.
Makes perfect sense to me!
The REAL story, that coincides with the bible, is that Adam and Eve were sent to Earth in a spaceship (like the Superman story). Isn't that an Adam's rib-tickler? I know its true because with the article about these original Canadians, is this story on the same page:
Kavika,
That's a cool discovery. I look forward to hearing more of their discoveries as they continue to unearth more artifacts. Thanks for sharing this! It would be cool to be on that dig!
I'm sure that they will uncover some really interesting things Spike.
With each new discovery the old ''theories'' are changed, the dates and migration patterns change. Who knows where it will end up.
A friend here at work just came back from a couple weeks vacation on a dig in South Dakota. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about what they found if anything yet. Would certainly be an 'alternative style vacation' to do that someday....might be a new add to the 'Bucket List'.
There have been many new discoveries in the Dakota's, Wyoming and especially Montana.
Working on a dig would be very interesting.
It was in Montana that the skeleton of a young boy was found intact. The connection between the Clovis people and the modern American Indian was established beyond any doubt..This was a couple years ago.
Go for it, Spikegary.
Digging would be the ultimate vacation. Even if you found nothing. Just learning the technique and going through the process would be neat. Like panning for gold. Sounds exciting.
Al