Introduction
The Bridge River archaeological project has been ongoing since 2003. The Bridge River archaeological site is located in the Mid Fraser Valley in British Columbia, Canada. The site is just a few kilometers from the town of Lillooet in British Columbia. There are a total of ten Bands in the St’át’imc First Nation. They are the Xwisten, Ts’kw’aylaxw, Xaxli’p, Tsal’alh, T’it’q’et, Sekw’el’was, N’quatqua, Samahquam, Skatin, and Xa’xtsa. These bands have been in the area for hundreds of years, with their ancestors living in the vicinity for thousands of years. The Bridge River Band or the Xwisten First Nation are the decendents of the people that occupied the Bridge River site. They reside just below the terrace that the Bridge …show more content…
There has been an ongoing excavation at the site for over ten years. The University of Montana has been the main entity behind the excavation, which is headed by Dr. Anna Marie Prentiss with additional help from the local band and its members. Dr. Prentiss describes the Bridge River Archaeological project as “An interdisciplinary collaborative effort involving contributions from First Nations members, archaeologists, zooarchaeologists, paleoethnobotanists, geoarchaeologists, and other scientists, including experts in ancient DNA and isotopic analysis of animal bones.” (Prentiss: 2013) There are other large housepit villages in the area around the Bridge River site, which are Keatley Creek, the Little S7istken site, the Lochnore-Nesikep site, and the Bell site. Keatley Creek is by far the largest prehistoric pit house village in the area, “Keatley Creek site is an unusually large prehistoric pithouses village site located on the terraces of the Fraser River, about 20 km upstream from the town of Lillooet, British Columbia.” (Hayden: 1996) Keatley Creek is significantly older than Bridge River, with dates around 4,800 to 2,400 BP. There are over a hundred pithouses located in Keatley creek which is