British Columbia’s 14,000-year-old Village
By James Donahue
October 10, 2017
There is very ancient history in the Americas but it has long been buried under the dust covered records passed down by the Europeans, Hebrews and Far Eastern cultures. It has become apparent that humans walked the American landscape possibly as long as they existed on this planet. The difference is that they built their monuments in North America out of dirt and wood instead of stone.
Proof of the ancient human history recently turned up at an archaeological dig on Triquet Island on British Columbia’s Central Coast. There a team led by Alisha Gauvreau from Hakai Institute has begun uncovering the remains of a Heiltsuk village where the artifacts are calculated by carbon dating to be 14,000 years old.
During a presentation at the Society for American Archaeology conference in Vancouver, Gauvreau said she estimated the site to be “three times as old as the Great Pyramid at Giza and among the most ancient human settlements in North America.” That really puts the cobwebs on this particular village.
Interesting too is that the artifacts uncovered at this site show that the people living there were not primitive. Found were compound fish hooks, a wooden projectile launching device and a hand drill thought to have been used to light campfires.
The Heiltsuk Nation, believed to be the direct descendants of the people who once lived in that village, is still present in that coastal island area of British Columbia. It was their oral history that stirred the architectural dig. The people talked of a settlement at that site in a place where the land never froze during the ice age.
The age of the site was established by an analysis of charcoal found in a hearth some eight feet below the surface. William Housty, a tribal member of the board of directors for the Heiltsuk Resource Management Department, noted in a report to CBC News, that the discovery of the settlement “reaffirms a lot of the history that our people have been talking about for thousands of years.”
Today, according to Wikipedia, the Heiltsuk Nation is a “First Nations government” centered on Campbell Island, at Bella Bella, British Columbia. The Heiltsuk people speak their own unique language. They are among five tribal groups inhabiting about 6,000 square miles of the Central Coast of British Columbia.
The Heiltsuk stories tell that the people were living at this site before the time of “a great flood.”
The dig, coupled with the tribal stories, has allowed researchers to consider the possibility that a massive human migration may have occurred along the Canadian coastline at some distant time in history. Archaeologists have long thought humans arrived in North America from Mongolia by way of a land bridge between Russia and Alaska. The discovery now suggests that the people moved down the coast in boats.
Gauvreau said this new “alternative theory” is now supported by the tools found at the dig site. They show that the people living in that village “were rather adept sea mammal hunters,” she said.
Housty noted that the scientific findings now back up the verbal stories long told by the Heiltsuk. And this, he said, could play a crucial role in future negotiations over land title and property rights.
He said the tribe now has “a history supported from Western science and archaeology.”
By James Donahue
October 10, 2017
There is very ancient history in the Americas but it has long been buried under the dust covered records passed down by the Europeans, Hebrews and Far Eastern cultures. It has become apparent that humans walked the American landscape possibly as long as they existed on this planet. The difference is that they built their monuments in North America out of dirt and wood instead of stone.
Proof of the ancient human history recently turned up at an archaeological dig on Triquet Island on British Columbia’s Central Coast. There a team led by Alisha Gauvreau from Hakai Institute has begun uncovering the remains of a Heiltsuk village where the artifacts are calculated by carbon dating to be 14,000 years old.
During a presentation at the Society for American Archaeology conference in Vancouver, Gauvreau said she estimated the site to be “three times as old as the Great Pyramid at Giza and among the most ancient human settlements in North America.” That really puts the cobwebs on this particular village.
Interesting too is that the artifacts uncovered at this site show that the people living there were not primitive. Found were compound fish hooks, a wooden projectile launching device and a hand drill thought to have been used to light campfires.
The Heiltsuk Nation, believed to be the direct descendants of the people who once lived in that village, is still present in that coastal island area of British Columbia. It was their oral history that stirred the architectural dig. The people talked of a settlement at that site in a place where the land never froze during the ice age.
The age of the site was established by an analysis of charcoal found in a hearth some eight feet below the surface. William Housty, a tribal member of the board of directors for the Heiltsuk Resource Management Department, noted in a report to CBC News, that the discovery of the settlement “reaffirms a lot of the history that our people have been talking about for thousands of years.”
Today, according to Wikipedia, the Heiltsuk Nation is a “First Nations government” centered on Campbell Island, at Bella Bella, British Columbia. The Heiltsuk people speak their own unique language. They are among five tribal groups inhabiting about 6,000 square miles of the Central Coast of British Columbia.
The Heiltsuk stories tell that the people were living at this site before the time of “a great flood.”
The dig, coupled with the tribal stories, has allowed researchers to consider the possibility that a massive human migration may have occurred along the Canadian coastline at some distant time in history. Archaeologists have long thought humans arrived in North America from Mongolia by way of a land bridge between Russia and Alaska. The discovery now suggests that the people moved down the coast in boats.
Gauvreau said this new “alternative theory” is now supported by the tools found at the dig site. They show that the people living in that village “were rather adept sea mammal hunters,” she said.
Housty noted that the scientific findings now back up the verbal stories long told by the Heiltsuk. And this, he said, could play a crucial role in future negotiations over land title and property rights.
He said the tribe now has “a history supported from Western science and archaeology.”