The Glint of Light on Broken Glass

Tracing Gitselasu History Through Archaeology

BY TRAVIS FREELAND Archaeologist and General Manager, Gitselasu Stewardship Society

On a calm day in Kitselas Canyon, you can hear the creaking of hemlocks bending in the breeze. A red squirrel searches for hazelnuts, and an eagle flies overhead without a sound. The mossy ground is covered with mushrooms and ferns. It’s hard to imagine that for a long time, this was a place full of human activity. This narrow gorge on Ksyen (the Skeena River) was probably one of the most densely populated places in the region for several thousand years. The area was full of the activities of multiple year-round villages. These were the comings-and-goings of the Gitselasu, the tollkeepers of the canyon.

Archaeology is one way we can try to piece together the lifeways of people from the deep past. Beneath the soft forest floor of Kitselas Canyon are layers of sediments and artifacts. These artifacts can help us to understand how Gitselasu ancestors lived during the 6,000 years of documented history here. Most of what remains of the deep past are stone tools. Stone is the most durable material used by ancient people. The cedarwood buildings, fur robes, smoked fish, and bone and antler tools have broken down in the acidic soil. We are left with only a few objects and belongings from the lives of past generations. Imagine if archaeologists in the year 3023 were trying to learn about your life today. If they only found a rusty kitchen knife and tweezers in your long-decayed house, what would they know?

We have developed a few ways to gain as much knowledge from these ancient objects as possible. Take, for example, obsidian. Obsidian forms when molten lava cools under special conditions during a volcanic eruption. It is a brittle, glassy rock that breaks with razor-sharp edges. Ancient peoples around the world used obsidian to produce cutting and piercing tools. It has been traded throughout the Pacific Northwest of North America for the last 10,000 years. In most times and places, it was very valuable. There are only a few known volcanic sources of obsidian in what is now British Columbia. Ancient Gitselasu artisans would need to travel long distances or trade other valued goods to get obsidian. As a result, it was used carefully and frugally and never wasted. When archaeologists find obsidian in places like Kitselas Canyon, it is usually in tiny, wornout fragments rather than large chunks.

Archaeological research since the 1960s has uncovered much information about the ancient people of the canyon. Over time, a growing collection of obsidian artifacts has been found and catalogued. Many of these are classified as “micro-blades.” These small pieces of volcanic glass have two parallel edges and were used for fine cutting tasks. Blades like this might have been set lengthwise into a bone or wood handle to produce a longer cutting edge. These blades were made by expert toolmakers beginning at least 5,000 years ago.

Since 2019, groups of Kitselas summer students have searched for these obsidian artifacts. They carefully sift through countless buckets of soil to spot tiny bits of black, glassy stone — the “crown jewels” of the canyon. In a landscape this big, it’s a needle-in-a-haystack situation. But the obsidian collection is growing, allowing us to investigate how and why these tools were made.

Archaeologists can unlock some of these secrets by looking at the obsidian’s chemical composition. Each volcanic eruption produces obsidian with slightly different concentrations of trace elements. We can examine these elements like a fingerprint. They are so unique they can even vary within the same lava flows. Obsidian on one side of a volcano can have a different fingerprint than obsidian on the other side.

So, we can trace a piece of obsidian back to the source by working with experts in geology and chemistry.

In the 1980s, archaeological research was done at the oldest known site in Kitselas Canyon. Researchers found obsidian that was traced back to two sources: Mount Edziza, on the Stikine Plateau in Tahltan territory, and Anahim Peak, on the Chilcotin Plateau in Tsilhqot’in territory. These sources are not very close to the Kitselas Canyon. As the crow flies, Edziza is nearly 400 km to the north, and Anahim is around 300 km to the south. Travelling by foot and canoe along river valleys and coastlines would make these distances much longer.

Archaeologists studying this obsidian have another great advantage: the Ts’msyen adawx, or oral histories. These histories recount in fine detail the names, movements, and feats of those who came before. As Kitselas Councillor and Treaty Manager Cyril (CJ) Bennett-Nabess tells us, while many neighbouring nations have stories about their supernatural creation within their homelands, the founding narratives of the Gitselasu are all about a series of arrivals from distant locations in the interior and on the coast. These stories of movement, interaction, and intermarriage provide clues about the transport of objects like obsidian.

The Gitselasu Stewardship Society has collaborated with the Vancouver Island University Earth Science Department to look more closely at the obsidian recovered by Kitselas summer students. There is a wide variety of colours and textures in these samples. Some are a waxy blueish grey, and others are a translucent caramel brown glass. You might think these obsidian pieces come from different sources based on the way they look. However, advanced X-ray fluorescence technology has told a different story. Nearly all the obsidian pieces we have examined match most closely with the Mount Edziza source. The few pieces that couldn’t be matched might come from another Edziza flow that hasn’t been examined yet.

This information gives us a strong sign that there were close trading ties with Tahltan ancestors to the north or perhaps other “middlemen” in between. In archaeological research, the answer to one question leads to new questions. Ancient people of the canyon had obsidian that came from the snowy peaks of the Stikine Plateau, but what did they trade in exchange? What other goods would they have obtained through trade with interior peoples? We can imagine small nuggets of obsidian packed in marmot or ermine furs, caribou robes, and dried meats and berries. These could be traded for valued goods from the coast: dried fish, herring eggs, eulachon grease, cedar textiles and basketry, and fruits like moolks (crabapple).

What other interactions did these peoples have? Perhaps ceremonies and marriages occurred at these meetings, solidifying relations between distant nations. Perhaps the social occasion of these meetings was most important, and the traded goods were secondary. How many languages would the tollkeepers of Kitselas

Canyon have spoken to maintain this role? What do the Gitselasu adawx tell us about how these relationships developed over time?

Of course, none of these questions come with easy or simple answers. But with each new clue, the story becomes richer and more textured. The Kitselas youth who helped recover these precious objects are now sharing their knowledge with the Kitselas community and with visitors from around the world who come to experience the heritage of this spectacular landscape.