Bones

[datzenmike]

Well we have a job that requires surveying the location of a sewage pump station near the shoreline and a creek. During the excavation bones were unearthed. It's a perfect place for a native midden, for those who don't know what a midden is, it's a native garbage dump akin to our landfills. Mostly seashells, bones and broken implements. Well these are human remains so archeologists were called in to uncover them. We had to go there later in the day to do some layout and were asked to survey and locate the two skeletons on the site plan. I have no idea what the burial practices are but the bones were in piles with skulls more or less on top. I would imagine they were set into a small hole in a fetal though upright position and they settled over the years. Years? they said maybe 1,000 years old. Both were about a foot and a half down, one was under the pavement that was pulled up. The one set were smaller like a 12 year old, although the natives are small to begin. I had to get down in the marked off grid to record location and vertical depth in 3D. Isn't that something???

 

The bones will be removed and studied and relocated to a new burial spot.

[I'm BLUE]

Thats fascinating !!

 

Thanks for sharing !

[MikeRL411]

Thank you for respecting the dead. My wife's family has a family graveyard that celebrates the 25 recorded generations of her family line. Enough to make a Mormon genealougist weep!

[HRH]

You know, I can't help but think of the South Park Spooky fish episode that follows pet cemetery. They have the haunted pet store and when asked if the shop keeper had any odd history about the shop, he replies "Oh well we built it on top of the old Indian Burial Ground." And when queried if they relocated the graves, he says, "Oh no, we just dug them up, mixed all the bones, pissed on them, and then buried them again, why?" Of course, all the pets in the pet shop are possessed. :D I know it's not pc, but it does paint a social commentary on how most people just don't give a shit. But obviously you do Mike!

 

You should be commended! ;)

[TENDRIL]

amazing will you be able to find out more? and if you do please share,

[datzenmike]

I have nothing to do with the reburying... that's just the procedure where I live up here. They are collected and examined, probably in Victoria?, then returned. There were at least two native people in the crew doing the digging. I don't know where they'll put them so they won't be dug up again. There's other middens locally and there is a covenants protecting them. That's a legal restriction against the landowner doing anything within it's boundaries. I just helped survey the location for future reference.

 

Last year my work partner volunteered his time over several weekends to help survey some local weirs. This is a framework of cedar boughs and pegs layed out in the tidal flat that look somewhat like a curved fence a few feet high. The tide comes in and covers it. When the tide goes out fish are trapped in the curve and can't get out as the water goes down. All you do is go out and pick the ones you want and open the gate to release the ones you don't. Very smart and efficient fishing. Anyway there are rotten wood remains out on the flats. Mostly the pegs left in the sand/mud. What's left of them. They were carbon dated to around 1,300 AD.

 

At another site some bone implements were dug up and the archeologist shower me some. It was a broken hollow bone so it had a curve blade shape. There were barbs carved into the edge... no way this was natural. Just imagine someone hundreds of years ago making and using this.

[HRH]

Ratsun ingenuity before Datsun, huh Mike? ;)

[]2eDeYe]

Where's the pics? :D

[datzenmike]

Just for that I'll lug my camera to work the rest of the week.

 

On the way home I bike right past the site on the old RR grade. I talk with the flag girls directing traffic on the highway as they put in the sewer pipe They told me late last week they dug up 8 more, and today a couple more but these were spread out instead of in piles. We went down there last Friday to see the archeologists but they had gone home. I noticed the area in question was covered in plastic and a foot of sand covering it. She said they are going to dig everything up next week in some major operation... maybe we'll be called down to survey the site and locate them. If not I will have my camera on the ride home and try for a few oics.

[Skib]

neat :cool:

[KhausticMess]

Super interesting, glad you posted about it.

[datzenmike]

Yeah you know we've only been around for a few decades and generally our ancestors here for only a few hundred years. Before that were native people (more or less like ourselves) who lived here for thousands of years living off the land leaving not much but bones. These bones that were paved over were walking around the same spot where I bike home maybe a thousand years ago.

[KhausticMess]

I'm a bit of an archeology nerd always read anything I happen to run across on similar subjects even considered going back to school to join the field. History can be fascinating, even more so if a bit of mystery is involved.

[datzenmike]

I remember my mom telling me that history and geography were her favorite subjects at school. I could have cared less. It's only later in life when I had seen some history that it became fascinating.

[datzenmike]

Well, what started out as a busy day ending with a visit to the dig site has turned into a short day. I ride past the archeology site on my way home so I dropped in to look. I'm heading home for a few hrs. and then I'll bike back to this site and meet my partner in the company van.

 

The bones found so far were covered with plastic and dirt to preserve them and today they are peeling this back to expose and collect them. We'll survey them in three dimension around 2:00 this afternoon.

 

 

 

There were two more to the right and I'm probably standing on some under the samd.

[bananahamuck]

Yeah you know we've only been around for a few decades and generally our ancestors here for only a few hundred years. Before that were native people (more or less like ourselves) who lived here for thousands of years living off the land leaving not much but bones. These bones that were paved over were walking around the same spot where I bike home maybe a thousand years ago.

 

There`s a place called Devils Tower it`s in Wyoming USA and it gives you that same feeling when your walking around it,, and you see the spirit bags people have left hanging in the brush... Gets you daydreaming of past peoples , something intense.

[datzenmike]

 

 

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[Draker]

This is pretty cool actually. Thanks for the pictures. It's good they are taking care of these and not just paving over them.

[datzenmike]

Seems like an oval hole was dug and the body sort of curled up and then covered. Possibly in a sitting position with knees drawn up and the bones settled down, but their shoulders would have been above ground. Unless the ground was higher here in the past. The beach is about 40 meters away and likewise a creek bottom is nearby. Even closer about 10 meters is an abandoned RR right of way.... surely other bones would have been dug up when it was built almost exactly 100 years ago. Nobody cared much back then I guess. There appears to be no jewelry or adornments nor any pottery or possessions with the bones. Surely there must have been some marker so you wouldn't dig up one while burying another.... unless they were all buried at the same time? I'll keep my ears open for Carbon dating results if and when as this can take months.

[wildmaninid]

So cool! Where is the greedy developer who defacates on the graves before pouring concrete over them to build a high-rise condo? Oh yeah, you are in Canada....;)

[datzenmike]

A sanitary pump station is going in here..... After two other places were chosen and nixed by neighbors who didn't want it near them. Which is all so stupid as the other two choices were all within 150 feet!!! So with no-where else to go but here the bones got dug up. Bet the neighbors all dug up 'stuff' and threw it away because they wanted their houses built along the beach.

 

One lady didn't want it near her house because she was " sensitive to electro-magnetic radiation" (you know the type that bitch about everything but have big screen TVs, toasters, microwaves....) So now the native burial ground is disturbed. Hope she sleeps better for this.