Previous: Fishing Rocks
Our knowledge of early lifestyles comes from a combination of archaeological evidence and ethnographic studies of stone age cultures that have survived into modern times. Using these techniques we can infer what happened when people first entered the Fraser Canyon thousands of years ago, soon after the Cordilleran Ice Sheet retreated from the British Columbia interior. It’s likely that salmon had already re-established their runs in the Fraser. As people discovered the fishing rocks and the bounty that could be harvested each year, when, and why, did the changes in their culture begin?
Brian Hayden would eventually employ both archaeology and ethnography to answer these questions, but what sparked his curiosity in the first place? In this video, he discusses the influences that led him to Keatley Creek, and a central focus of his life’s work—the stage of cultural evolution called the transegalitarian, somewhere between the egalitarianism of nomadic hunter-gatherers and the complex, stratified societies that accompanied the rise of agriculture and technological innovation.
Next: The Pit House
