Northern Ontario archeologist wants Indigenous communities to become ‘authors of the past’ | 24CA News

The name got here on a Sunday. A pair digging up a stump on their land not removed from New Liskeard had discovered what they thought was an arrowhead.

Archeologist Ryan Primrose grabbed his gear and headed on the market, pondering it would simply be an “unusual rock.”

And it was very uncommon. A foot-long piece of quartz, carved into some extent.

“Immediately it became clear that this was a very rare site,” says Primrose.

Buried within the floor, he discovered dozens of different historical stone instruments, packed in with crimson ochre— a dye used to color pictographs— and a small piece of charcoal relationship again 3,100 years.

That’s earlier than the Roman empire and earlier than town of Rome was even based.

One of the important thing components of excavating that discover, referred to as the McLean Cache, was a name to Wayne McKenzie from Timiskaming First Nation, who held a feast and ceremony on the positioning the place his ancestors had as soon as walked. 

He says he nonetheless will get a thrill holding that 3,000-year-old piece of quartz. 

“It was pretty awesome to see. Really filled my heart to see it,” says McKenzie. 

“I’m a traditional man. So I sing a lot of old traditional songs passed down thousands of years, but to get a touch of it. It’s home.”

Primrose says lots of the instruments have been by no means used and the individuals who buried them doubtless by no means meant to return for them, as a substitute leaving them as some type of providing.

He says there are additionally instruments which can be similar to these present in Michigan and Illinois, suggesting a commerce community connection between the Great Lakes and the Temiskaming district far sooner than initially thought.

McKenzie says this a part of his individuals’s historical past isn’t nicely understood, together with in their very own communities, and hopes extra shall be revealed within the coming years.

“There is kind of a messy history part there. There’s also a beautiful part of what was here and how we did live,” he mentioned.

For years, Primrose has employed Indigenous individuals to work on his archeological digs to “provide education as well as employment and most importantly to put them in contact with their own history.”

But now he needs to take that additional and develop a brand new course of the place First Nations individuals work alongside aspect archeologists, then take their findings again to elders to be interpreted and determine how the excavation ought to proceed.

“So that one is not viewed as superior to the other, but are both viewed as ways to understand the past,” says Primrose, who early in his profession labored on Mayan websites in central America. 

“I think it behooves us as archeologists to involve those First Nations people in the understanding of that history, which has not yet been written, so they themselves can be authors of the past.”

He needs to check out that new course of at a spot referred to as Mill Creek, which flows out of Lake Temiskaming on land owned by the City of Temiskaming Shores.

Tina Nichol grew up splashing round within the creek and enjoying on trails that she did not know have been doubtless walked by her ancestors centuries earlier than.

When her grandfather, who used to take her all the way down to Mill Creek, died when she was 16, they discovered his start certificates in a shoebox exhibiting that he was Indigenous.

“You felt that even as a child playing down there. You knew how special and sacred that place was,” mentioned Nichol.

“Makes you feel good to know that you were walking in their steps.”

Now working for the Keepers of the Circle, a ladies’s hub within the Temiskaming space, Nichol helps manage an annual pow wow at Mill Creek for National Indigenous Peoples Day. 

And she is worked up to be concerned in future archeological digs on the positioning and discover out if ceremonies have been additionally held there prior to now.

“We’re all new to this. This is a new type of relationship we’re having with scientists. So I think we need to take our time and do it culturally appropriately and learn from the past,” Nichol mentioned. 

“It’s a deep love and very humbling to be present and witness both the findings and growing up there and seeing it unfold, you can’t ask for better truth and reconciliation all at the same time.”