Cross-border archaeological interest

Haida Gwaii’s Karst Caves
by Katy Dycus

[Editor’s Note: In the interests of pointing out how Canadians have successfully collaborated and gotten along with our neighbours to the south in communicating what archaeological discoveries are being made in BC, read below from an article originally published in Mammoth Trumpet (Oct. 2024) a journal from the Center for the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University. As a side note, and full disclosure: Duncan McLaren’s PhD supervisor was Quentin Mackie, younger brother to The British Columbia Review publisher Richard Mackie.]

*

Groundwater has eroded the limestone terrain of Haida Gwaii, an archipelago offshore of Alaska, into a network of dark, cool karst caves, thereby creating the perfect conditions for preserving ani­mal remains and artifacts. “A place largely bypassed by the Ice Age,” Masa Takei wrote in National Geo­graphic. Haida Gwaii is enormously rich with evidence of life past and present—Takei contends that it sup­ports the most biomass per square yard of any place on our planet. A single subterranean water droplet is an ecosystem all its own, and drops less than a meter apart may harbour distinct biological communities.

*

The archipelago was born 20 million years ago in a tectonic spasm when the Farallon Plate began to slide under the North American continent. The collision thrust upward a range of rug­ged mountains from the ocean floor, eventually forming an archipelago of more than 200 islands, 284 km long, that spans the underbelly of the Alaska panhandle from Vancouver Island to southeast Alaska.

An epoch after its birth, the archipelago be­came occupied by people with the mettle to withstand the brutal natural processes that plague the islands—tempestuous storms, power­ful surf, floods, landslides, and earthquakes, events that continually alter the landscape and island ecosystems. Haida people have now made the archipelago their home for many thousands of years, and their oral histories recount this deep past. From lyrical gems crafted by master song makers to elaborate mythic cycles lasting many hours, Haida literature speaks of the land of its an­cestors “Haida Gwaii: the Islands of the People,” or in classical Haida, “Xhaay­dla Gwaayaay: The Islands on the Boundary between Worlds.”

The archipelago, known as the Canadian Galápagos for its endemic wildlife, was named the Queen Charlotte Islands, a British colonial name imposed in 1787, until the Haida First Nations in 2010 renamed it Haida Gwaii. Haida names for the islands are replete with descriptive charm—Killer Whale with Two Heads Island, Sun­shine on His Breast Island, Red Cod Island.

The open-air site of Kilgii Gwaay at Haida Gwaii yields evidence of human occupation associated with maritime fauna that extends back at least 10,700 years. Learning about Haida Gwaii’s environ­mental, archaeological, and cultural impact holds great promise for enlarging our un­derstanding of the earliest humans. Among the first scientists to tap this rich resource was Hakai Institute archaeologist Daryl Fedje, cooperating with Parks Canada, Haida First Nations, and University of Victoria. In the third field season Tim Heaton, paleontologist emeritus at the University of South Dakota, found the first stone spearpoint in cave K1 on Moresby Island. Since then, archaeologists of Parks Canada, Haida First Nations, and University of Victoria have excavated two caves on Huxley Island, Gaadu Din 1, and Gaadu Din 2, and recovered tools and animal remains related to bear hunting, exploited marine resources, and the earliest evidence of domesticated dog in the Americas.

The Haida culture, the remoteness of the islands, the sight of ocean mist creeping through mossy cedars, all contribute to their mystical quality. The more time you spend on this landscape, the more it influences your thinking. Simon Fraser Uni­versity paleoecologist Rolf Mathewes describes the Haida Gwaii–Hecate Strait environmental change dur­ing the early post-glacial period as “the lost world,” a phrase that adds layers of mystery and enchantment to the land.

*

Without the karst environ­ment, Haida Gwaii would lose much of its appeal for cave-based investigations. The name karst stems from Kras, a region in Croatia. Besides the Balkans, karst landscapes are found in southern Asia, Indonesia, Tasmania, New Zealand, the southern United States, and of course, British Columbia. Many biologists consider karst caves the next frontier of ter­restrial and extraterrestrial discovery. NASA scientists in their search for life on other planets are investigating karst caves for examples of organisms that thrive in hostile environments. On our planet water as it flows through karst absorbs oxygen and minerals, thereby reducing its acidity. What results is a karst landscape of robust trees and foliage, an ecology that nurtures organisms from tiny microbes to humans and bears. Karst caves have attracted animals and hu­mans over the millennia. And, to the delight of scientists, they foster an environment that pre­serves bone well.

For scientists searching for evidence of early human life, karst caves also offer an al­ternative to coastlines. Early occupants of Haida Gwaii likely settled close to coastal shore­lines, “but those sites are all now drowned by 100-plus me­ters of water, making them difficult places to work,” says Duncan McLaren, Hakai Institute and University of Victoria archaeolo­gist. “So we started focusing on karst caves, inland targets on Haida Gwaii.”

Activities like logging or road building can alter drainage and damage karst. In 2006, Haida Gwaii became the first forest district in British Columbia to enact protection for most karst features during forestry operations. Moreover, permission to enter caves on Haida Gwaii is granted only to archaeologists like McLaren, who was a member of a research team that excavated K1, Gaadu Din 1 and Gaadu Din 2 caves—all protected under the Canada National Parks Act and Haida law.

*

From a palaeontology perspective, the K1 cave, located on the northwest coast of Moresby Island, radiates richness. More than 1,400 bones have been recovered, including those of black and brown bears, caribou, deer, and fish. What puzzles McLaren is that “the species we find both before the Ice Age in these caves and afterward are still living today. These are Pleistocene megafauna, but they’re not as charismatic in our minds because they haven’t become extinct. Mass extinctions didn’t occur in this area.”

Many of the larger bones recovered at K1 exhibit damage from carnivores like tooth punctures, spiral (green bone) fractures, and crushing. Archaeologists believe these are the remains of animals killed inside the cave or brought in as prey. Evidence suggests predation of denning bears by other bears and kills brought into caves by non-denning bears.

Two stone tools associ­ated with bones of black bear were recovered, but the absence of butcher­ing tools or resharpening debitage indicates that hu­mans likely didn’t use the cave. Scientists believe that humans hunted bears at the entrance to the cave and that wounded bears then retreated inside. Lithic artifacts may have been lodged in the bodies of wounded bears, which eventually died in the cave. Evidence shows that brown bears used the cave 13,400–13,200 years ago, black bears 12,850–12,300 years ago.

*

Charcoal associated with stone tools is evidence that humans occupied Gaadu Din 1 12,700 – 12,200 years ago. The presence of a few simple stone knives suggests human occupants in the cave butchered their kills. Canid remains and scattered charcoal point to ethnographically confirmed hunting techniques of tossing burning branches into a den to smoke out a bear from its lair. McLaren explains that “we figured the main attractant to these caves was hibernating bears. In the middle of winter, when things are lean, a hibernating bear is a dangerous bag of meat, fur, bones. If you’re able to find where they’re denning and pick the correct time and have hunters ready with spears, you can come back home with a full larder.”

Mammal bones recovered at Gaadu Din 1 were predominantly bears (560), of which 369 were black bears (13,300–12,300 yr b.p.) and 96 brown bears (13,400–11,300 yr b.p.). Although brown bears are common on the British Columbia mainland, K1 and Gaadu Din 1 offer the first evidence of their presence on Haida Gwaii. Brown bears likely used Gaadu Din 1 to prey on other bears, or to devour open-air kills or scavenged remains. Elements of black bears are so complete that archaeolo­gists believe most were killed and eaten by brown bears (the only species present in a large number of unmodified bones). Large bones of brown bears are missing, which could mean that human hunters removed choice parts. The absence of cutmarks, however, is con­sistent with ethnographic re­spect for hunted bears, which it was believed ritually offered themselves to humans and deserved respectful burial. Canid remains recovered at Gaadu Din 1 consisted of three teeth, two of which dated to 13,100 yr b.p. Following adna and mtdna analyses of these teeth, scientists believe that these remains constitute the earliest evidence for domesticated dog in the Americas.

McLaren tells us all sorts of marine resources abounded 13, 500 – 11,000 years ago. “Bears were a small supplement to a diet focused primarily on marine life. We don’t have a good record of a shoreline site until 10.700 years ago at Kilgii Gwaay, but at this site we find all kinds of deep-sea fish and marine birds and also bears. The marine resources were obviously easier and safer to gather.”

Archaeologists believe the principal food source was spawning salmon, which may have been trapped along the exit stream flowing out of the lake on Huxley Island or along ancient rivers on the east and west sides of the island. Fish remains dominate the palaeontological collec­tion at Gaadu Din 1. Of more than 2,000 salmon bones recovered from the main chamber, 5 were dated to 12,700–11,300 yr b.p., ranking them among the earli­est post-glacial specimens for the Northwest coast. Most bones are in good shape, and many vertebrae show large spines attached, which suggests fish were brought to the cave by bears or canids. A strong marine signature in brown bears and canid remains from Gaadu Din 1 suggests a substantial salmon diet during spawning season. The fish also provided a predictable food source for humans during the Younger Dryas when availability of certain resources was limited.

Because of preservation and access, stories of hunting bears in the caves abound, but bears weren’t the mainstay of the hunter-gatherers’ diet, according to McLaren. We don’t have a well-documented late-Pleistocene site with faunal remains adjacent to an ancient shoreline, he explains, but people were undoubtedly using watercraft at this time. “The marine resources were so rich, even during post-glacial times, that to have ignored them would have been pure folly. The islands are a limited land basin, so you’d run the risk of running out of bears if that’s what you were specializing in.” The primary realm of the gods in Haida cosmology isn’t celestial, it’s submarine.

Hunter-gatherers in Gaadu Din 2, meanwhile, likely used the cave as a temporary camp 12,500–10,700 years ago. A paucity of bones, along with the presence of 11 bifacial resharpening flakes and hearth features, together suggest this small cave was used as a hunting encampment. All lithic artifacts conform to hunting-related activities: projectile points, bifaces for butchering, and resharpening flakes. Surprising to archaeologists is the scarcity of faunal remains compared with other karst caves. Fluctuations in the acidic water table and freeze-thaw events could account for poor bone preservation.

*

Although bears probably weren’t the main dietary staple for humans at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition on the Northwest mainland, evidence from Haida Gwaii suggests that bear hunting was both economically and ceremonially significant for early island inhabitants. Bears appear to have occupied this area before humans arrived. The 17,200-year-old date on a brown bear from K1 shows this species may have survived the last glacial period in a local refugium.

Northern American black bears (Ursus americanus) and brown bears (Ursus arctos) appeared on the northern North­west Coast immediately following the Fraser glaciation, the last glaciation of the Pacific Cordillera. As a result of changing post-glacial environmental conditions and sea-level rise, it ap­pears that brown bears disappeared from Haida Gwaii during the late Pleistocene (although they still live in Alaska and on the mainland), while black bears have remained. We don’t know whether black bears survived the last glacial period in a nearby refugium, or instead arrived via the south coast and the narrow Hecate Strait prior to 13,300 years ago.

The Haida people have used the land to their advantage, yet always with a deep reverence for all the Earth provides. Archaeological and palaeontological dis­coveries hold significant meaning for the Indigenous people.

Haida hereditary chief and archaeolo­gist Skil Hiilans (also known as Allan Davidson) participated in the excavations at K1, Gaadu Din 1 and 2. “We’ve maintained a strong friendship even though we don’t do field work together anymore,” McLaren says. “In fact, Allan invited me to be part of his wedding party when he got married.” McLaren was with Davidson deep inside K1 cave when they decided to turn off their headlamps and sit in absolute darkness. They didn’t speak; they just listened to the sounds of dripping water. “After a while,” McLaren says, “it almost sounded like human voices, the drips of water. After what we though was ten minutes, we turned our lights back on, and discovered it had been two hours.”

*

Katy Dycus holds a Master of Letters from University of Glasgow and currently writes for the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University. Her essays and reviews appear in Appalachia, Harvard Review, Hektoen International, World Kid Lit and Necessary Fiction, among others.

*

The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster