Holocene Settlement History of the Dundas Islands Archipelago, Northern British Columbia

• Main Authors: Letham, Bryn, Martindale, Andrew, McLaren, Duncan, Brown, Thomas, Ames, Kenneth M., Archer, David J.W., Marsden, Susan
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: PDXScholar 2015
• Subjects: Archaeology > Holocene > Northern British Columbia; Coastal archaeology > Northern British Columbia; Coastal settlements > Holocene > Northern British Columbia; Anthropology; Archaeological Anthropology; Archer; Dundas Islands; Tsimshian; Tsimshian*
• Online Access: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/anth_fac/81; https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=anth_fac

As this article demonstrates, the Dundas Islands have been home to humans for at least eleven thousand years. This occupation was at times very extensive; this relatively small group of islands was likely home to a population of several thousand people by about two thousand years ago. While geographically on the “outer shores” of Northern Tsimshian traditional territory, these islands were in no way marginal as locations for settlement. We outline the settlement history of the archipelago by presenting the results of the Dundas Islands Archaeological Project, including the radiocarbon dating program results combined with data from three previous small-scale surveys (Archer 2000; Haggarty 1988; Inglis 1975). We discuss different types of habitation sites and chronological trends in their occupation to argue that the Dundas Islands have been near-continuously occupied for at least the entire Holocene and that this was central, not peripheral, to the broader history of human occupation in the region.