Waterlogged

Name: Waterlogged
SKU: 978-0-87422-366-8
Price: 32.95 USD
Availability: InStock

Examples and Procedures for Northwest Coast Archaeologists

Edited by Kathryn Bernick

$32.95

Currently, wet-site archaeology is not widely taught at North American universities. Waterlogged helps bridge that gap. Seventeen experienced archaeologists who work on the Northwest Coast discuss their original research in regional and global perspectives, share highlights of their findings, provide direction and guidance on how to locate wet sites, and outline procedures for recovering and caring for perishable waterlogged artifacts. The volume offers practical information about logistics, equipment, and supplies, including a list of items for a wet-site field kit, and presents previously unpublished original research spanning the past ten thousand years of human presence on the Northwest Coast.

“Waterlogged will find its way to the bookshelves of almost every practicing archaeologist in BC. It succeeds in bringing together experience and innovation in a single source.”—BC Studies

Illustrations / maps / references / bibliography / index / 256 pages (2019)

PLEASE NOTE: Free shipping on orders over $50 applies only to shipments within the United States. Shipping to Canada is $30. Canadian customers can now purchase this title online through Indigo.

SKU: 978-0-87422-366-8 Categories: Archaeology / Prehistory, Canada, eBooks, Native American, Pacific Northwest titles Tags: archaeology, Native American

Description

Wet sites matter. On the Northwest Coast in antiquity, an estimated 85 percent of objects were made entirely from wood and other plant materials that normally do not survive the ravages of time. Fortunately, wetlands, silt-laden rivers, high groundwater levels, and abundant rainfall in the Pacific Northwest combined to provide ideal conditions for long-term preservation of waterlogged wood. Archaeologists who investigate these wetplaces uncover artifacts, structures, and environmental remains that are missing from the usual reconstructions of past lifeways. Waterlogged cultural remains sometimes are found unexpectedly, on beaches and eroding riverbanks or at the bottom of an excavation trench, but few archaeologists intentionally search for wet sites. Yet, every Northwest Coast archaeologist may encounter them—even when working inland, away from the coast.

Currently, wet-site archaeology is not widely taught at North American universities. Waterlogged helps bridge that gap. In Waterlogged, seventeen experienced archaeologists who work on the Northwest Coast discuss their original research in regional and global perspectives, share highlights of their findings, provide direction and guidance on how to locate wet sites, and outline procedures for recovering and caring for perishable waterlogged artifacts. The volume offers practical information about logistics, equipment, and supplies, including a list of items for a wet-site field kit.

Waterlogged presents previously unpublished original research spanning the past ten thousand years of human presence on the Northwest Coast. Examples include the first fish trap features on the West coast to be identified as longshore weirs, a complete 750-year-old basket cradle from the lower Fraser Valley, wooden self-armed fishhooks from the Salish Sea, and a paleoethnobotanical study at the 10,500-year-old Kilgii Gwaay wet site on Haida Gwaii. In addition, contributors discuss insider-vs.-outsider perceptions of wetlands in Cowichan traditional territory on Vancouver Island, a habitation site in a disappearing wetland in the Fraser valley, a collaborative community-academic project on the Babine River in the Fraser Plateau, and Early and Middle Holocene waterlogged materials from British Columbia’s central coast.

Illustrations / maps / references / bibliography / index / 256 pages (2019)

PLEASE NOTE: Free shipping on orders over $50 applies only to shipments within the United States. Shipping to Canada is $20. Canadian customers can now purchase this title online through Indigo.

Recognition

“Waterlogged will find its way to the bookshelves of almost every practicing archaeologist in BC. It succeeds in bringing together experience and innovation in a single source. A mix of advice for field archaeologists, empirical research results and, critically, theoretical interpretation of wetland and wet sites sets this book apart as different from the usual edited volume.”

—Paul A. Ewonus, PhD, RPCA, for BC Studies

“There is much to like about this book. Kudos to the editor, Kathryn Bernick, for bringing together contributors who are among the most respected practitioners of British Columbia archaeology. Bernick’s first-rate editorial oversight in assuring consistency in writing and page length is also evident, and the organization of the chapters is suitable to their contents. Largely jargon-free, Waterlogged appears to be written for broadly educated readers rather than for professionals, which is appealing. The book flows very well, and since it is quite short at 256 pages, it makes for an easy read straight through. The chapters, while coherent and united for the purposes of this volume, are also designed to stand alone as separate contributions, which many readers will find useful.

For non-professional archaeologists, Waterlogged provides a good glimpse into field archaeology while not forgetting the discipline’s popular allure, which on the Northwest Coast includes the unexpected discovery of wooden and wood fibre artifacts. These discoveries are important in adding to our knowledge of the human past in early British Columbia and neighbouring regions, and for helping to alleviate the bias of stone. For archaeologists not used to searching for wet sites and recovering waterlogged objects, Waterlogged will also serve as an indispensable guide.”

—Bob Muckle, Capilano University archeologist, for The Ormsby Review