Intertidal investigations of early Holocene archaeological deposits from the Núláwitxv tribal area, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

In 2016, 2017 an intertidal excavation program was conducted at the outer coastal archaeological site EkTb-9 in the Núláwitxv Tribal Area of Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) territory, British Columbia, Canada. Haíɫzaqv oral history marks this area as a place of origin and longstanding ancestral histories (núyṃ́) have been derived from Núláwitxv. The sea level curve for this area shows that the shoreline was between two and 4 m lower than today from 14,000 to 10,500 years ago. Intertidal subsurface testing was conducted at EkTb-9 with the hope of discovering archaeological deposits of this age. This resulted in the collection of a varied assemblage of lithics from secondary deposits, representing the products of ancestral labour for the Haíɫzaqv community. The assemblage consists of simple flake and core tools, bifaces, and flakes and cores that generally resemble other early Holocene lithic assemblages from coastal sites in British Columbia. Minimum radiocarbon ages were obtained by dating barnacles found on artifacts, dating this area of the site to at least 9535 ± 25 B.P. (10,199–9714 cal B.P.), and demonstrating that intertidal lithic scatters can be assigned minimum ages. Critical to our understanding of the intertidal secondary deposits is a detailed knowledge of site formation processes and how these were affected by sea level change, erosion, and beach deposition. The results of this work provide a framework for approaching methodological challenges associated with excavating, dating, and interpreting intertidal archaeological sites.