Scowlitz means "steering the canoe around the corner,"
and refers to the bend in the Harrison
River, just before it enters the Fraser River. The Scowlitz are
part of the Sto:lo group of the Coast
Salish Nation, and have lived along the lower reaches of the Fraser
River for thousands of years.
Sto:lo simply means "river."
The Scowlitz are thought to have occupied a permanent plank-house village
at this site between
1500 - 3500 years ago.
("Interior of a Ceremonial Lodge," Columbia River,
from "Paul Kane's Great Nor-West" by Diane Eaton and
Sheila Urbanek.)
Archaeologists use burial sites and house remains as
their main source of information for reconstructing
ancient cultures. Part of the reason why this site is
one
of the most intensely studied native sites on the coast
is because it contains both burial mounds and house
remains at the site, which rarely occurs.
This site also is of interest because it was occupied through
a time when a major cultural change
was happening in the area; from that of simple hunter-gatherers to
complex hunter-gatherers.
Using data collected by archaeologists at Simon Fraser
University, our group set out to create a
database that could be queried, in order to allow researchers to visualize
spatial and temporal
relationships between various archaeological features and, eventually,
artifacts.
Introduction/Background/Site/Methodology/Analysis/Discussion/Links/Home