The department of Anthropology at the University of Northern British Columbia recently finished an excavation at a ancient fishing village on the Babine River.

The project was a continuing partnership between the university and the Lake Babine Nation.  A wide range of artifacts were found that can be dated from thousands of years ago to just recently. 

In 2010, the village was the focus of UNBC’s Archaeology Field School, which revealed that the settlement was at least 1,300 years old. As a result of those findings, the LBN invited the Department to conduct a more research-intensive excavation, funded by the LBN Treaty Office.

In 2010 the village was a focus of the UNBC's Archaeology field school, revealing the village was at least 13-hundred years old.  Due to the finding the LBN invited the Department to conduct more research.

UNBC Anthropology Professor, Dr. Farid Rahemtulla says, “Probably one of the biggest village sites I've ever seen in the interior, quite remarkable because compared to our life today back in those days there are no big cities, so that would have been one of the biggest settlements I think in Northern BC...In terms of hunting weapons we found everything from things made from stone so anything from 1000 to a few thousand years old and also musket balls and flints for the old type of weapons, just around the time Europeans were arriving... and modern days cartage's, it was the entire garment of hunting weapons at least, and the same thin also goes for many other types of things that people do.”

LBN Chief Councillor Wilf Adam is very excited for these findings, “It really confirms for us, that we've been living there for thousands of years, so just very happy that you know that we are getting the governments and the university to help us uncover and rediscover our history that we have known well down the ages.”

Over 4-hundred artifacts were uncovered.   The next step will be to conduct number analyses back at the university.