Stitching the Past and Present is an international project designed in partnership with Indigenous Peoples of the Iamal region of Arctic Siberia. Funded through the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the project brings together researchers and community members across Russia and Canada. A crucial element of this endeavour is the development of public educational materials for Nenets and Khanty children. The co-creation of these resources is focused on connecting Iamal communities with their archaeological heritage and highlighting the importance of reindeer hide working, sewing practices, and Indigenous voices. Our presentation will introduce the production and implementation of two activity book volumes, together titled Clever Young Reindeer, which are the first examples of this collaborative effort. These open-access resources are written in Russian and English with integration of Khanty and Nenets languages and are intended to stitch together Indigenous Knowledge and archaeological practice in this region. 

The Schreiber Wood Project, and archaeological field school run by the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), focuses on exploring and documenting a late-19^th and early-20^th century cultural landscape on part of what is now the UTM campus. During the completion of a fourth-year advanced archaeological fieldwork course, we undertook the recording and documentation of the stone foundation of Iverholme (AjGw-535). This house, constructed in the late-19^th century, was consumed in a fire in the early 20th century. Due to poor preservation from the fire and more recent human activity around the site, sections of the foundation are not intact, resulting in gaps in our understanding of the foundation's size and structure. Interpretations of the orientation and style were made using the foundation's dimensions, ArcGIS, historical photographs, and contemporary descriptions of the property. A previously unknown doorway was identified on the north-west wall. Our results indicate Iverholme was a late Victorian hybrid style house, facing North to the Credit River, with a ground floor of approximately 1700ft². This detailed investigation of a single landscape feature contributes to a better understanding of the Schreiber Wood Project. 

Garry Oak savannah ecosystems (GOEs) are Indigenous landscapes. Prior to the 1880’s lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples stewarded a diversity of native plants and animals in these once widespread ecosystems. With colonization and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from these places, GOE stands have decreased in area by 99%. Current research acknowledges that Indigenous fire management and the stewardship of traditional root-foods, such as blue camas, has contributed to the creation and maintenance of these ecosystems. However, I hypothesize that there is a more diverse and currently unrecognized Indigenous history that archaeology is uniquely situated to illuminate. Working with existing site records within past and present GOEs, supplemented by targeted surface surveys, and stratified random archaeological subsurface testing, I argue that GOEs can be reconceptualized as Indigenous archaeological landscapes and that the ecological legacies of burning and cultivation—while key aspects of Indigenous histories —are unlikely to be the only archaeological indicators of Indigenous presence within GOEs. Establishing Indigenous histories is key to asserting Indigenous futures in these places. My master’s research serves to identify, categorize, and create a conversation between the importance of GOEs as Indigenous archaeological sites, as well as spaces where eco-cultural restoration and archaeology intersect.

The Human Flea thrives on human blood, yet exhibits adaptability and opportunism, having been identified on various mammals including pigs, dogs, cats, and burrowing owls. Unlike the Human Louse, which evolved with their primate hosts in Africa, the Human Flea originated in South America, implying that it evolved with another host species before adapting to humans. In 1989, Paul Buckland and Jon Sadler published A Biogeography of the Human Flea, Pulex irritans L. (Siphonaptera: Pulicidae), to date the most comprehensive analysis of this species biogeography. This paper presents hypotheses about the evolution and routes taken by P. irritans, as it adapted to humans and moved out of South America to reach Europe, and eventually achieved a cosmopolitan distribution. Research published within the last 30 years have added to current understanding of this topic, with several studies of insect remains from archaeological sites having yielded specimens of P. irritans. This poster presents the preliminary results of my review of the available archaeoentomological literature. Using temporal and geographical locality data extracted from databases and publications, I have created a series of maps to illustrate the current state of knowledge about the biogeography of the Human Flea.

The Grand Lake Meadows (GLM) was a locus of Loyalist settlement beginning in 1783 in what became the province of New Brunswick. The GLM spans the counties of Queens and Sunbury and is known today as the largest freshwater wetland in New Brunswick and the richest in eastern Canada. Although extensive pre-Contact archaeological research has been completed in the GLM, far less historical archaeology has been conducted, particularly regarding the Loyalists. This poster discusses promising areas in the GLM for future archaeological research through an analysis of GIS site maps alongside archival documents including land grants, probate records, and cadastral maps. In doing so, this poster highlights information about the Loyalists who settled in the GLM and provides a selection of case studies to offer a broader understanding of Loyalist life in New Brunswick.

Métis ancestors are a powerful force. It is through them that we understand our identity, our culture, and our relationships. Their names alone are enough to build and rebuild bonds between people regardless of distance or age; but names are not the only piece of our ancestors that has been left to us. Their bodies act as roots in the earth, anchoring us to the land – a symbol of our existence. My research seeks to understanding the impacts of this and how their bodies can transform the land to create a deathscape. Deathscapes are often viewed as landscapes that have connections to mortuary practices, but they can also extend to include the ways in which memory is understood and how the landscape is imbued with a power that can be linked to belonging and exclusion. I will be visiting with Batoche – a place on the Saskatchewan landscape that is an intersection of Métis and Canadian history, culture, and identity across space and time. To understand the complexity of this deathscape and the extent of its influence, I will have to look to not only to the land but to the people who walk among our ancestors, including myself.

The Schreiber Wood Project, an undergraduate field school offered by the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), has been exploring Euro-Canadian occupations on the UTM campus for the past eleven years. Its excavations have tested various features associated with late-19th- to early 20th century occupation of part of the UTM campus property. More than a decade of excavation by the project has resulted in well over 100 stratigraphic drawings. Utilizing AutoCAD, stratigraphic profiles from one large midden feature were combined to create 2D renderings from North/South and East/West to identify patterns in soil types and artifact densities. AutoCAD was used for this process due to its accuracy and infinite scale when creating 2D renderings, and its potential to subsequently create 3D models which is its key benefits over Adobe Illustrator and similar programs. Another benefit to AutoCAD is the ability to filter the renderings for aspects such as cultural (artifacts or features), natural (soil types/colours or natural inclusions (roots/large stones)), or specific cultural groupings (artifacts by raw material). This poster presents the results of this case study and considers the potential value of AutoCAD as an analytical tool in both Cultural Resource Management and academic contexts.

Table etiquette and table settings encompass a ritualized and class-specific aspect of late 19^th to early 20^th century meal-time customs. The combined factors of these customs and their implications for a specific socio-cultural group greatly contribute to archaeological constructions of the recent past. Table setting, in particular, encompass a variety of material sources, whose presence reflects a certain Euro-Canadian meal-time standard with implications for understanding social stratification and class. Employing analysis of historical documentation, in conjunction with recovered artifacts from a site on the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) campus, I recreate a late 19^th century to early 20^th century place setting to investigate the social stratification and wealth status of the property residents. This was completed utilizing ceramics, glassware, and utensils recovered from two middens on the UTM property indicating the probable displaying of formal table settings at this location. Analyzing the materials demonstrates this late 19^th century to early 20^th century family's adherence to contemporaneous societal standards of ceramic services and other components of table settings.

Archaeologists in Alberta have studied tipi rings for over 75 years and there are now over 8000 recorded sites in the province with stone circle features interpreted to be the remnants of rocks that anchored tipis. What have archaeologists learned about life in tipis? We review some of the important tipi ring studies in Alberta and visualize their findings with new artwork, diagrams, photographs, and maps to help make technical content accessible and interesting to a wider audience. This project is part of the ongoing Heritage Art Series, the purpose of which is to employ art to captivate public audiences and instill appreciation of Alberta’s past. Tipis are fascinating adaptations: imagery highlights their ingenuity, significance, and inherent connection with animals.

The traditional territory of the Denesułiné of Łuéchogh Túé (Cold Lake First Nations, CLFN) has been occupied by Indigenous communities since deglaciation; however, this region has received little archaeological attention. In 1952–1954, CLFN was removed from their territory by the Canadian military in order to establish the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range (CLAWR), a nearly 20’000 km² munitions testing area in northern Alberta/Saskatchewan. This separation caused deep impacts on the wellness of Indigenous communities who were evicted from their homes and then barred access from returning. As a result of this history, the region remains one of the least archaeologically studied areas in Western Canada. In the early 2000s, CLFN signed an agreement with the Canadian military that allowed nation members access to their territories within the CLAWR. As a result, community-driven archaeological and anthropological research has been taking place. In 2021, a multi-year study of Xah Tué (Primrose Lake) began to 1) identify historical archaeology sites, 2) understand the relationship between pre-contact and historical sites in the region, and 3) document archaeological evidence of CLFN’s forced removal from the CLAWR. This poster presents results from these investigations in the context of the past, present, and future of CLFN.