Regina Archaeological Society Guest Speaker: Riel Cloutier

The Stony Beach Midden: Did Avonlea and Besant Really Co-Exist on the Northern Plains?

Date: Tuesday March 20, 2012
Time: 7:30 P.M.
Royal Saskatchewan Museum Boardroom
Admission: Free

Riel Cloutier will guide the audience through the 2001
archaeological investigations that took place at the
Stony Beach site. A great deal of time was spent
excavating a previously unknown and intact multicomponent
site on the first valley terrace beneath
the Stony Beach site.
During this excavation Avonlea and Besant
materials were recovered from what appeared to be
the same cultural level. This led Riel to do further
research to determine if Besant and Avonlea were
truly contemporaries on the northern plains.
Riel will discuss the radiocarbon dates, the
stratigraphic observations, and the archaeological
evidence of interaction between these two material
cultures to see if this claim of co-existence is really
what the archaeological record is telling us.

Public Archaeology at Farwell's Trading Post:
Cypress Hills Massacre National Historic Site of Canada (NHSC)

Come and experience history first hand working side-by-side with Parks Canada archaeologists in rediscovering Farwell's trading post. The post was constructed in the spring of 1872 and burnt down in 1873 due to the tragic events of the Cypress Hills Massacre when a group of wolfers opened fire on a nearby Assiniboine camp. (Guy Vanderhaeghe's novel Englishman's Boy is based on these events.)

Recent discoveries at the trading post include portions of the palisade walls, a circular bastion, posts, floor boards, storage pit features and artifacts.

You will
- receive a site orientation and training
- spend four days excavating
- experience evening programming such as a tour of Fort Walsh, artifact workshop, guest speakers, viewing of the Englishman's Boy movie
- discover what life was like in the west before the arrival of the Northwest Mounted Police
- uncover Canada's history and share it with other Canadians
- camp in the Cypress Hills Dark Sky Preserve (see www.cypresshills.com)
- work in a beautiful setting along Battle Creek in the Cypress Hills
- receive a certificate and photograph of yourself working at the site
- contribute anecdotes and photographs to the daily journal we will be keeping for the project

For further information contact:
Saskatchewan Archaeological Society
# 1 - 1730 Quebec Avenue, Saskatoon, SK
S7K 1V9
Phone: (306) 664-4124
Fax: (306) 665-1928
email: saskarchsoc@sasktel.net

Sign up for one of the four day sessions in August (Aug. 8-11, 13-16, or 18-21). Space is limited.
Click here to download the official brochure and registration form for Public Archaeology at Farwell's Trading Post: Cypress Hills Massacre National Historic Site of Canada (NHSC)

The Government of Saskatchewan has proclaimed June as Archaeology Month in Saskatchewan. Archaeology Month is intended to help raise awareness about the importance of preserving the archaeological record that tells the story of the province's past and upon which our heritage and culture is built.

To note the month, the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society has planned several events including talks, tours of both public and private archaeological sites as well as opportunities for people to help out on actual field excavations.

For more information on the government announcement, visit www.gov.sk.ca/news?newsId=65923cb9-f974-4019-b72f-8c3ec86b7193.

To learn more about archaeology events in Saskatchewan, visit www.saskarchsoc.ca.

Saskatchewan Archaeological Society’s Annual General Meeting & Conference

Celebrating its 45th Anniversary

Date: April 25 to April 27, 2008
Location: Park Town Hotel, Saskatoon, Sask.

The Saskatchewan Archaeological Society has experienced 45 successful years of promoting education about, and conservation of, archaeological and heritage issues in the province and beyond! This could not have been possible without the support and energy of its members. You are invited to join and celebrate this success at the Society’s Annual General Meeting and Conference from Friday, April 25th to Sunday, April 27th .

The Saturday evening banquet keynote speaker will be
Dr. Steve Rosen. Dr. Rosen is a professor of archaeology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva, Israel. Dr. Rosen’s specific research areas are in the archaeology of desert pastoralism, using the Negev as a long-term case study, and in lithic analysis, with a focus on stone tools in the Metal ages. His recent work has included excavations at a Neolithic solstice shrine in the Negev, an Early Bronze age campsite, and most recently, the excavation of shepherd’s rock shelters. Dr. Rosen’s presentation is entitled: Nomads in the Negev: the Archaeology of 8,000 years of Pastoralism in the Desert.

As part of Sunday’s wind-up events, two very reasonably priced tours are being offered to participants.

*****

Tour one will be to the Wanuskewin Heritage Park, an archaeological landscape representing approximately
6,000 years of occupation by Northern Plains peoples,
which is located 5 kilometres north of Saskatoon. Dr.
Ernie Walker will take participants on a walking tour
through the park, highlighting its 19 known precontact sites and the biophysical environment. An
introduction to tipi construction and other unique
cultural experiences are included in the tour.
*****

Tour two is to the Petite Ville and Batoche National Historical Site.
Petite Ville is a large, intact Metis hivernant (wintering) settlement located on the South Saskatchewan River approximately 60 km north of Saskatoon. The remains of this 1870’s site include multiple depressions and mounds as well as building outlines. This site contains significant archaeological information concerning Metis life during the transition from nomadism to sedentary farming. Join Dr. Margaret Kennedy as she shares her research and knowledge of this site.
.

Following the visit to Petite Ville, the tour journeys 14 km north to the Batoche National Historic Site. During this guided tour you will be introduced to the last battlefied in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885 located in the village of Batoche - the headquarters of Louis Riel’s ‘Provisional Government of Saskatchewan’. Several village buildings have been
restored for you to appreciate.

Should time permit, the tour may also visit a historic homestead site near Saskatoon.

For more information, please contact the
Saskatchewan Archaeology Society at: 306-664-4124
or by email at saskarchsoc@sasktel.net

Karin Steuber will give a presentation on the fieldwork undertaken at EkOr-8, a pre-contact pebble chert quarry near the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. This site has been classified as an enigma in Alberta archaeology.

Due to weather, the January 15 meeting was cancelled. Information at this time is that the guest speaker Karin Steuber will give her presentation at the February meeting.

Regina Archaeology Society meeting
Date: Tuesday February 19, 2008
Time: 7:30 P.M.
Royal Saskatchewan Museum Boardroom (come to the side entrance by the parking lot just before 7:30 p.m. - knock on the door if it's locked)
Admission: Free

Presentation:
It's The Pits!
EkOr-8: A Pebble Chert Quarry near Consort, Alberta

Guest Speaker: Karin Steuber

Karin will be guiding attendee’s on an illustrated presentation that details the fieldwork undertaken at EkOr-8, a pre-contact pebble chert quarry near the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. This site has been classified as an enigma in Alberta archaeology.

A number of archaeologists have previously been to this area to discover the nature of this site. Everything from buffalo wallows, Métis pit-houses, and meteorite impact craters have been used to describe this location. From the nature of the lithic tools and geoarchaeology of the site, EkOr-8 appears to be a quarry with evidence of lithic reduction taking place on site.

Following the presentation will be a short business meeting.

Regina Archaeology Society meeting
Date: Tuesday November 20, 2007
Time: 7:30 P.M.
Royal Saskatchewan Museum Boardroom (come to the side entrance by the parking lot just before 7:30 p.m. - knock on the door if it's locked)
Admission: Free

Presentation:
Forensic Analysis Identifying Diagnostic Signatures on Bone from Household Tools and its Application to Homicide Investigation
Guest speaker - Chad Salisbury, RCMP Forensic Lab Services

Following the presentation will be a short business meeting.

Regina Archaeological Society meeting
Date: Tuesday October 16, 2007
Time: 7:30 P.M.
Royal Saskatchewan Museum Boardroom (come to the side entrance by the parking lot just before 7:30 p.m. - knock on the door if it's locked)
Admission: Free

Presentation: Trip to South Africa
George and Sharon Maier will share their stories and photos from a trip to South Africa in November 2006. The archaeology connection for this trip is the rock paintings that were seen in the Drakensburg Mountains.

Following the presentation will be a short business meeting.

The Saskatchewan Archaeological Society (SAS) is offering an all-ages, hands-on event that allows participants to observe, excavate and recording an archaeological excavation at near St. Louis, SK. Participants will be excavating South Branch House, a former Hudson Bay Company fur trade post site located along the South Saskatchewan River. The post was occupied from 1786 to 1794 and was abandoned after a battle between European fur traders and Gos Ventre individuals.

This field school runs from July 19 to July 22. No experience is necessary. Children under the age of 14 should be accompanied by a guardian.

Registration costs for the field school are:

S.A.S. Individual - $40.00
S.A.S. Family - $60.00
Non-S.A.S. Individual - $50.00
Non-S.A.S. Family - $70.00

For further information about the field school or to register, please contact the SAS Office.

Last Mountain House Provincial Historic Park is worth a stop.

Less than a 45 minute drive from Regina, (map) this small Hudson's Bay Company fur trading post has been rebuilt as it looked in 1869-70. It is open for self-guided or park interpreter-guided tours Thursdays through Sundays 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. from July 1 to Labour Day. Voluntary admission fee.

When I visited on Saturday, there were several people touring the site who had worked on the original archaeological excavation during the 1960s. I heard them discuss how some of the original trading beads were discovered, and where they found most of the dishes ** (see the end of this post)

The story of the archaeological excavation of the site in the 1960s is told in the booklet Last Mountain House Historic Park by Saskatchewan Department of Natural Resources, text by J.V. Hodges (Regina: Department of Natural Resources, 19--)

Isaac Cowie, the first Hudson's Bay Master of Last Mountain House, was posted here in the winter of 1870-71. He mentions it several times in his book The Company of Adventurers: A Narrative of Seven Years in the Service of the Hudson's Bay Company during 1867-1874 (Toronto: William Briggs, 1913). This book is one of many in the Prairie History Room fur trade collection.

Volunteer amateur archaeologists did much of the work on this site. The Regina Archaeological Society holds six meetings a year (with speakers on various aspects of archaeology) and host many archaeological-based activities. They are a branch of the province-wide Saskatchewan Archaeological Society.
Contact them for membership details and dates and places of archaeology field schools.

Saskatchewan archaeology links:
Saskatchewan Archaeology website

Stanley Mission excavation site

** most of the dishes were found discarded in the bottom of the privy (outhouse)!!

posted by Sharon