Archaeology & Historical Ecology in service to Indigenous Communities and Environmental Conservation

A Current Project

Beyond Shifting Baselines: Archaeology is the missing link in understanding environmental change. The Beyond Shifting Baselines project uses transdisciplinary approaches to incorporating archaeology into ecosystem modelling to address shifting baseline syndrome. This is a collaborative, international project that currently includes representatives from Canada and the United States, with potential collaborators from Spain and Norway included in discussions of future projects. Read more about that here.

PhD Research

My PhD research has been in service to səl̓ilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), a Coast Salish First Nation whose traditional territory is located in what is now known as Vancouver. This is a transdisciplinary collaborative research project that is designed based on the needs and questions of səl̓ilwətaɬ. We use Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE), an ecosystem modelling framework, and a novel transdisciplinary approach combining archaeology, historical ecology, archival records, and Indigenous science. We have four Research Goals:

1. To reconstruct a best-estimate of the pre-contact səl̓ilwətaɬ diet;

2. To reconstruct the pre-contact ecosystem baseline of səl̓ilwət (Tsleil-Wat, Burrard Inlet, BC, Canada);

3. To estimate the maximum carrying capacity of səl̓ilwət;

4. To model the cumulative effects of selected environmental stressors caused by colonization on the ecosystem health of səl̓ilwət.

We assessed the continuity and sustainability of the salmon fishery at təmtəmíxʷtən, an ancestral səl̓ilwətaɬ settlement, over thousands of years before European contact (1792 CE). Read about that here. We also reconstructed the pre-contact səl̓ilwətaɬ diet here!

Our project is part of a collaborative partnership with University of British Columbia, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, Mitacs, and Kerr Wood Leidal.

To see a StoryMap of some of the early components of this work, click here.

I live, work, and study as a guest on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil- Waututh) Nations.

Photo: McKechnie 2018, HECA Field School, Historical ecology of clam gardens in Barkley Sound, BC.