Vihtr'iitshik
A Stone
Quarry Reported by Alexander Mackenzie on the Lower Mackenzie River in
1789
by
Jean-Luc Pilon
Canadian
Museum of Civilization
Archaeologists prefer to describe their
profession as firmly anchored in science. It is, but a common
perception of the scientific process is of a calculated, directed,
highly organized pursuit of knowledge. In actual fact, a wild array of
vagaries interject into this desirable, orderly plan and on occasion
completely upsets the applecart. This is in fact how the really
interesting discoveries are made.
Prior
to the work of the NOGAP Archaeology Project in the lower Mackenzie
Valley, relatively few archaeological sites were known and even fewer
had been studied. A site at the mouth of Thunder River had been briefly
reported on in 1975 by Millar and Fedirchuk, but it, along with many
other sites had slipped back into the anonimity from which it had only
briefly emerged.
This site was initially reinvestigated
not as part of a well-thought out plan, but as a result of a unique
combination of chance circumstances. As it happened, this locality is
one of the more important ones for understanding trade networks and
inter-ethnic relations in the lower Mackenzie Valley.
This analysis was originally published in the journal Arctic,
vol.43(3), 1990. It has been organized into the following sections:
To return to this index from anywhere in this analysis, simply click
on this icon at the bottom of each page.
