The annual archaeology partnership between the University of Calgary and the City of Calgary is well underway in Edworthy Park.
Unlike other years, more than just city and UCalgary officials can join in on the fun.
For the next couple of weeks, archeology students from UCalgary will be elbow-deep in dirt at Edworthy Park, just south of the Bow River during their six-week field school.
The school gives students a chance to practice their procedures as archaeologists, while exploring southern Alberta’s history piece-by-piece, according to Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer, an Assistant Professor with the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at UCalgary.
Amundsen-Meyer said that the current dig site was found during last summer’s field school and is home to proven history of more than 2,000 years.
“We have everything from a 2,000-plus-year-old occupation based on a projectile point we found last week, from Indigenous people pre-contact, through Thomas Edworthy’s homestead in the settler period all the way into Brickburn, which was an industrial brick making plant during the early period of Calgary,” she said.
“It’s a really fascinating place to learn about the history of this place, because we have all of these many, many layers and history and time depth of use in one place.”
The pre-registered public will be doing largely the same archaeology as the students, just at a slower pace.
“Typically, they have more questions, but we have grad students to help them out along the way, but they get to dig, screen the dirt and see what they find,” Amundsen-Meyer said.
From the dig site, the projectile point and a stone biface that was found in a shovel test last year are the highlights so far.
Indigenous voices are crucial in modern archaeology: Officials
Indigenous communities and archaeologists have had a rocky past, according to Amundsen-Meyer, specifically surrounding gathering and burial grounds.
In Canada, 95 per cent of digs yield Indigenous artifacts, while only five per cent of archaeologists are Indigenous, she said, adding that UCalgary is very conscious of that discrepancy.
“With our programs, we are working now with all of the Treaty Seven Nations to run this program. Two weeks ago, we started with a ceremony from a Siksika knowledge holder, a Blackfoot ceremony and a Stoney ceremony here,” Amundsen-Meyer said.
“There’ll be elders coming out throughout the project to work with us and teach our students. What I’ve heard for years is that descendant communities want to be directly involved in the work that’s studying their own heritage.”
Laurencine Saddleback, a final-year Archaeology student at UCalgary, has been very excited with the finds throughout the field school thus far.
“As an Indigenous student, that’s our history, so it feels really good knowing that I’m here finding our own people, our stone tools, what we use to skin buffalo. It’s pretty cool,” she said.
Saddleback personally found a century-old nail. When classmates ask for context or history of their findings, she’s happy to fill them in, where she can.
Amundsen-Meyer said that she’s happy having Saddleback in her class and that more archaeological initiatives in Indigenous communities are needed, something Saddleback agreed with.
“For me personally, as that role model for others, I hope I can inspire other Indigenous students to go for archeology, because we’re taught that archeology is destructive and as from an Indigenous standpoint, it’s seen as a negative,” Saddleback said.
“For me, having Indigenous knowledge and Western (knowledge), I get to share that message in a positive way, that what we’re doing is a good thing and we need more of us to share our own stories to make this work great.”
