Ways forward for Archaeology & Indigenous Sovereignty

Lisa Hodgetts and Natasha Lyons will host this conference session at the Canadian Archaeological Association meetings in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: https://canadianarchaeology.com/caa/annual-meeting

Special Issue of Études Inuit Studies called ‘Inuit Voices/Voix Inuit: Community-Based Archaeology across the North American Arctic’

Special Issue of Études Inuit Studies called ‘Inuit Voices/Voix Inuit: Community-Based Archaeology across the North American Arctic’ is published: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/etudinuit/2022-v46-n2-etudinuit08855/. Edited by Sean Desjardins, Natasha Lyons and Mari Kleist, this volume showcases the work and involvement of Inuit in Arctic archaeology, with a majority of papers first-authored by Inuit.

Ursus RISC Training

Ursus undertook two Archaeological and CMT RISC training courses in 2022. In July, Fraser Bonner with assistance from Ginelle Taylor facilitated a course for eight community members from the Kyuquot/Cheklesath First Nation (KCFN) in the village of Kyuquot on behalf of their Stewardship Program. In August, Fraser Bonner facilitated a course for the Westbank First Nation (WFN) in West Kelowna for four employees from their Archaeology Department. The courses provided participants with a background in British Columbia cultural resource management and basic archaeological field techniques including field preparation, field survey, artifact and CMT identification, and archaeological site investigation, recording, and mapping.

KCFN RISC participants Collin Hanson, Daylin George, Calvin Hanson, Caleb Hanson, and Adam John conducting shoreline survey on Aktis Island as part of the RISC field training component.

Letitia Pokiak presents about Inuvialuit cultural and ecological resilience

Letitia Pokiak, an award-winning Inuvialuit scholar, presents with Spencer Greening in the Simon Fraser University President’s Dream Colloquium on November 17th, 2022, in a talk called Ecological and Cultural Resilience in a Changing World: Inuvialuit and Ts’msyen Perspectives. Letitia is advisor to the Inuvialuit Living History Project, directed by Natasha Lyons and Lisa Hodgetts.

Society for American Archaeology article about decolonizing CRM

‘Decolonizing CRM is about the Power to Decide’: this invited contribution, published December 2022 in the Society for American Archaeology newsletter, the SAA Record, is written by Natasha Lyons (Ursus Heritage), Roma Leon (Katzie First Nation), Jasmine Peone (Westbank First Nation), Sarah Hazell (Nippissing First Nation), Debbie Miller (Katzie First Nation), Josh Dent (Timmins-Martelle Heritage), and Tanja Hoffmann (University of York). https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=768625&article_id=4385025&view=articleBrowser

‘Were the Ancient Coast Salish Farmers?’ is published

The article ‘Were the Ancient Coast Salish Farmers? A Story of Origins’, written by Natasha Lyons, Tanja Hoffmann, Debbie Miller, Andrew Martindale, Ken Ames and Michael Blake, will be published in the September issue of American Antiquity. It is currently available here in FirstView: Were the Ancient Coast Salish Farmers?

Welcome to new Ursus staff!

A warm welcome to our new Ursus staff who have joined us for the 2021 field season: Ash Fuhr, Crystal Sawyer, Averie Romas, Sean Matthews and Nahanni Dynes. Here’s to a great field season!

Lyons & colleagues present in SAA Plenary

Natasha Lyons, with colleagues Lisa Hodgetts, Kisha Supernant and John Welch, will present in the Presidential Plenary Session of the Society for American Archaeology meetings. Their talk is titled ‘Power and Practice, Trauma and Resilience: Exploring the Experiences of Canadian Archaeologists’

Ursus staff member elected BCAPA president

Ursus staff member Jeff Wilson is the newly elected President of the British Columbia Association of Professional Archaeologists: https://www.bcapa.ca. Jeff, good luck with your term!

Ursus Launches New Website!

Today we are launching our new website into the world. This website has been a while in the making. We would like to express our gratitude and appreciation to web designer David Tiede (davidtiede.com) for his hard work and fabulous design skills. Thanks to Ursus staff and many friends and colleagues for contributing and/or appearing in the photos that make this site beautiful. Please enjoy and share!