<shabon> ... this gets kind of technical ...

[Mike Cleven]

>From: David Lewis <coyotez at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
>
>Dave-
>I appreciate the definition you have provided. It is within the boundaries
>of anthropological thought. For me, I like to think of Indigenous villages
>and settlements and even winter "camps" as also permanent. I just got out
>of an archaeology class which was about the archaeological history of the
>Northwest Coast. Within that type of analysis, people have left cultural
>deposits on the same sites for literally thousands of years, from 11,000
>BCE on the upper coast, and from about 9,000 BCE on most other coast sites,
>until the present era. To me this must constitute a permanent settlement.
>Even if there is a seasonal round, or cycle, to various camps, like winter
>camp, fish camp, etc., the area and land was continuously occupied for
>longer than all other colonial permanent settlements. To me this argument,
>and not necessarily those making the argument right now, but the adherence
>to European-style cultural settlements as the only true permanent
>settlements needs to be challenged. It might even be called an ethnocentric
>theory out of the past. This is a serious fallacy in anthropological theory
>which I will challenge whenever it appears. I think the indigenous
>perspective needs to be recognized here as manytimes even the colonial
>trading centers were placed near or on top of an already well established
>pre-historic cultural site.

I'm feeling like the goalposts have been moved, you guys; the issue that
brought this term "permanent settlements" into play was the
influence/presence of French-speakers in what I thought was the BC Interior
when the subject was raised; Dave R. seemed to think they weren't around
until after mid-19th Century, when in fact it's at that point that they
became outnumbered by other kinds of non-native; it's a given in BC that
most modern "permanent settlements" are on the sites of older native
settlements/camps; because the geography only allows/benefits them in
certain locations; you don't have many choices in a province that one
colonial official described ("not without a touch of horror" as the quoting
historian said) as "a veritable sea of mountains".  Hope, Lytton, Lillooet,
Ashcroft and other places are where they are frankly because they couldn't
have been anywhere else......

MC
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