Background

Regulations

Government regulations, including the 1996 BC Heritage Conservation Act, place regulations upon both developers and archaeologists. For example, Section 14 states that an archaeologist must have the proper permit to conduct subsurface testing, an excavation, or to recover artifacts; Heritage North already possesses these permits. Section 12 of the Conservation Act allows for alteration of recorded, intact sites. To proceed with plans, a representative of the developer must apply for a permit, and then assume responsibility for compliance with regulations. Heritage North can help clients in meeting the Section 12 requirements.

Archaeology in Western Canada

Due to poor soil development in northeastern BC and northwestern Alberta during the Holocene (10,000 years ago to present), most archeological sites are found on or very near the present day ground surface; few sites extend beyond a depth of 25 cm. As a result, even light surface disturbances can impact archaeological resources in this region.

The archaeological sites usually consist of stone (lithic) tools and waste flakes (debitage). Very rarely, a site may also contain faunal material, including calcined bone. Unfortunately, due to the shallow depth of the B-horizon sediments and the lack of stratigraphy, it can be difficult to distinguish separate occupation levels, even with repeated use of the site throughout the Holocene.

Heritage North has developed a simple working model for predicting archaeological site locations in Western Canada:

• The 'relationship' between past hunters and gatherers and their environment has remained relatively unchanged through time.
  
• Local terrain features, in combination with floral and faunal resources, have a direct influence on where any given hunting and gathering group would camp during their seasonal search for food.
  
• In any given area, people would have a number of choices in terms of where they would set up short term or long term camps; where they would gather plants; where they would observe, hunt and process game; and where they would obtain suitable stone for manufacturing tools, etc.
  
• It is on these selected terrain features that people would predictably stay, leaving evidence of their presence.
  
• If a terrain feature is useful today for a specific hunting and/or camping purpose, it is likely that in the past 10,000-11,000 years, the same feature was used for a similar purpose.
  An area that has these characteristics is considered to have predictable archaeological potential.

A more detailed description of the predictive model used by Heritage North can be found here.

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