For the past decade I have worked mainly in Haida Gwaii in collaboration with Parks Canada archaeologists.  Together we have found or excavated a series of sites from near the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, which is the time  when modern climatic and vegetation conditions were established.  This is a time of rapid environmental change – literally, it may be the Time of Transformation related in Haida oral histories.  Sites such as Richardson Island, Kilgii Gwaay, and Gaadu Din each provide a different perspective on the life of Ancestral Haida.

I am continuing my research collaboration in Haida Gwaii for the foreseeable future.  Part of this involves completing the anaylsis of over 60,000 stone tools and flakes from Richardson Island, and a large stone tool assemblage form Kilgii Gwaay.  We anticipate conducting more underwater archaeological research near Gaadu Din.

In the next few years I plan to extend this collaboration to southern Vancouver Island and the new Gulf Islands National Park Reserve.  By applying the principles and approach we developed in Haida Gwaii, I anticipate that over the next five years we will be able to extend the known archaeological record of Southern Vancouver Island from the current earliest dates of about 5,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago, and that a similar story of cultural resilience in the context of major environmental change will emerge.

Apart from these specific field-based research projects, I maintain an interest in spatial modelling, especially in coastal contexts.  The long-standing terrestrial orientation of archaeology has left coastal adaptations under-appreciated and archaeologists can be more sensitive to the unique nature of coastlines and how the shape of a coastline is an important determinant of the social geography of the people who live there.  In theorizing this, I hope to make a contribution to the archaeology of coastlines in general and  especially to the proposed coastal route of the first peopling of the Americas.  This is one aspect of my general interest in developing a nuanced landscape approach to Northwest Coast landscape archaeology, in which quantitative methods are used to make operational the social archaeological theories of such scholars as Tim Ingold, Chris Gosden, and John Barrett.

I am continuing my research collaboration in Haida Gwaii for the foreseeable future.  Part of this involves completing the analysis of over 60,000 stone tools and flakes from Richardson Island, and a large stone tool assemblage form Kilgii Gwaay.  We anticipate conducting more underwater archaeological research near Gaadu Din.

In the next few years I plan to extend this collaboration to southern Vancouver Island and the new Gulf Islands National Park Reserve.  By applying the principles and approach we developed in Haida Gwaii, I anticipate that over the next five years we will be able to extend the known archaeological record of Southern Vancouver Island from the current earliest dates of about 5,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago, and that a similar story of cultural resilience in the context of major environmental change will emerge.

I have supervised graduate student projects at both M.A. and Ph.D. level on a wide variety of Northwest Coast topics, most recently these include: mortuary archaeology on Southern Vancouver Island; environmental archaeology of the Dundas Islands; sampling theory and Northwest Coast household archaeology; unifacial technology on Haida Gwaii; LiDAR remote sensing in archaeology; palaeobotany in shell middens; microblade technology in Haida Gwaii; historical archaeology of Black pioneers in the Gulf Islands; mussel shell technology, early Holocene hearth fauna; dog domestication and the origin of species; and geochemical application in stone tool analysis. While most students work on coastal projects, often as part of my current field or laboratory research; I have also supervised projects involving material from Idaho; Alaska and the Yukon.

October 3, 2009