The archaeology of submerged prehistoric sites on the North Pacific Coast of North America

Easton, Norman Alexander; Moore, Charles D.; Mason, Andrew R.

doi:10.1080/15564894.2020.1785061

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Archaeological work further offshore on the continental shelf (i.e., at a distance and/or at depth) carries greater logistical difficulties and may incur considerable expense [52]. Nevertheless, these areas hold significant archaeological potential, as evidenced by the accumulation of chance discoveries of artefacts and faunal and human remains, as well as discoveries made following targeted investigations of shallower nearshore waters [7,15,[53][54][55][56][57][58]. The southern North Sea is associated with probably the best studied and understood submerged palaeolandscape sequence in the world.…”

Section: Characterising Prehistoric Underwater Cultural Heritagementioning

confidence: 99%

Winds of Change: Urgent Challenges and Emerging Opportunities in Submerged Prehistory, a Perspective from the North Sea

Walker,

Gaffney,

Harding

et al. 2024

Heritage

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Development of the continental shelf has accelerated significantly as nations around the world seek to harness offshore renewable energy. Many areas marked for development align with submerged palaeolandscapes. Poorly understood and difficult to protect, these vulnerable, prehistoric landscapes provide specific challenges for heritage management. Indeed, there now appears to be a schism between what underwater cultural heritage policy intends and what it is achieving in practice. Shortcomings in international and national legislature ensures that large parts of the continental shelf, including areas under development, may have little or no legal protection. Increasingly impacted by extensive development, these unique cultural landscapes are ever more at risk. However, heritage challenges posed by such development also create opportunities. An immense amount of data is being generated by development, and there is an opportunity to establish broader cooperative relationships involving industrial stakeholders, national curators, government bodies, and heritage professionals. As a matter of urgency, the archaeological community must better engage with the offshore sector and development process. If achieved, we may revolutionise our knowledge of submerged prehistoric settlement and land use. Otherwise, our capacity to reconstruct prehistoric settlement patterns, learn from past climate change, or simply manage what are among the best-preserved postglacial landscapes globally may be irreparably undermined.

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Section: Characterising Prehistoric Underwater Cultural Heritagementioning

confidence: 99%

Winds of Change: Urgent Challenges and Emerging Opportunities in Submerged Prehistory, a Perspective from the North Sea

Walker,

Gaffney,

Harding

et al. 2024

Heritage

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show abstract

“…Even if it were demonstrated that the artifacts had undergone substantial post-depositional movement, or showed evidence of significant water-rolling, this would not be sufficient to falsify the hypothesis that they were originally used and discarded on a preinundation land surface. There are many such examples in other parts of the world (e.g., Easton et al, 2021) Ward et al are highly critical of the publicity surrounding our findings, but it is unclear how this criticism relates to the validity of our conclusions. Their imputation appears to be that we have cut corners or ignored evidence to gain short-term and unwarranted publicity.…”

Section: Primary or Secondary Contextmentioning

confidence: 88%

A wet strawman: A response to Ward et al.

et al. 2022

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Ward et al. (2022) assert in their desktop study that we are "mistaken" in our interpretation of the artifacts at the Cape Bruguières Channel (CBC), Flying Foam Passage (FF), and Dolphin Island (DI) sites as evidence of cultural activity on a pre-inundation land surface (Benjamin et al., 2020 [CBC and FF]; Dortch et al., 2019 [DI]) and that we have failed to take account of local hydrodynamic processes that could have displaced artifacts and moved them over much greater distances than we thought possible. They argue two key points in support: (1) that "these sites are in the intertidal zone" (p. 783) and (2) that "many or all artefacts are likely to have been reworked" (p. 783). | SUPPORTING DATA SETSWard et al. have relied on a hydrodynamic model with a parent 2500 m grid and a smaller nested 500 m grid (Ward et al. supplementary information). From this, they have derived modeled current movements at peak ebb and flood tides and generated a range of hypotheses of possible artifact movement in response to these current flows. They do not model currents at the seabed nor provide a justification for their bed roughness value of 0.0002 m. The smaller 500 m grid is almost five times larger than the width of the CBC reported in Benjamin et al., so there is no way this model could accurately represent current speeds in CBC, yet they still incorporate a grid cell over this site and model the current speed. The DI site reported in Dortch et al. is located within a shallow embayment on the eastern side of the FF and is not even captured in their grid. Large reef areas across the northern archipelago (immediately adjacent to CBC) are also completely unsurveyed. Nevertheless, this area is incorporated into the grid mesh. In their supplementary information, they also refer to RPS data with measured cyclonic current speeds that exceed 2 m/s on the North West Shelf. They do not provide a location for this measurement. Given that the North West Shelf covers an area of over 200,000 km 2 with tidal ranges of more than 10 m in the north, we question how this value is even remotely relevant to the Murujuga sites. It is axiomatic in geoarchaeological studies of underwater archaeological sites that the local conditions most relevant to archaeological site formation and deformation processes can vary over distances of as little as 10 s or 100 s of meters. The model proposed by Ward et al. is too coarse to be useful in contradicting our LETTER TO THE EDITORS

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“…2021; Bourgeon 2021; Eren, Meltzer, and Andrews 2021; Fiedel et al. 2021) and the routes of arrival (Cassidy 2021; Easton, Moore, and Mason 2021). There is also an ongoing focus on ancient DNA analyses to help explain human movement, change, and interaction through time (Liu et al.…”

Section: The “Decolonizing Generation”mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dearth of engagement with Indigenous peoples is clearest in scholarship on the first peopling of the lands now known as North America, where debates continue about the precise dating of various sites (e.g., Araujo et al 2021;Boulanger et al 2021;Bourgeon 2021;Eren, Meltzer, and Andrews 2021;Fiedel et al 2021) and the routes of arrival (Cassidy 2021;Easton, Moore, and Mason 2021). There is also an ongoing focus on ancient DNA analyses to help explain human movement, change, and interaction through time (Liu et al 2021), while ethical challenges remain in working with ancestors (Cortez et al 2021;Supernatant 2020;Tsotie, Fox, and Yracheta 2021)…”

Section: The "Decolonizing Generation"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeology in 2021: Repatriation, reclamation, and reckoning with historical trauma

Montgomery

Supernant

2022

American Anthropologist

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Archaeology in 2021 was characterized by a continued call to use the tools of the discipline to document the violence of settler colonialism in the past and present, pushing anthropology to reckon with its own role in perpetuating historical trauma. The tension between disciplinary reflection and reform was most clearly articulated in the use of archaeological geophysics to detect the unmarked graves of incarcerated Indigenous children who died at residential and boarding schools in Canada and the United States. The highly publicized investigation of these schools has brought renewed attention to issues of repatriation and historical reclamation for many communities impacted by settler colonialism. These discussions have reverberated throughout the discipline, prompting revisions to the Society for American Archaeology's “Statement Concerning the Treatment of Human Remains,” reopening conversations around an African American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and informing debates around the ethics of DNA research. These conversations are part of a larger movement toward decolonizing the field by using archaeological methods to explore marginalized histories and support communities most impacted by the violences of settler colonialism.

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The archaeology of submerged prehistoric sites on the North Pacific Coast of North America

Cited by 11 publications

References 56 publications

Winds of Change: Urgent Challenges and Emerging Opportunities in Submerged Prehistory, a Perspective from the North Sea

Winds of Change: Urgent Challenges and Emerging Opportunities in Submerged Prehistory, a Perspective from the North Sea

A wet strawman: A response to Ward et al.

Archaeology in 2021: Repatriation, reclamation, and reckoning with historical trauma

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