Plagues and Media

One of the earliest concepts I remember learning, when I started anthropology courses at UVic, is the difference between archaeology in North America and archaeology in Europe. That difference is obvious in this BBC article on possible Black Death victims found during the construction of a high-speed railway through the City of London (which, confusingly enough, is not London). Here, the archaeologists are studying their own history, with the possibility that these remains are their distant ancestors.

From BBC. The archaeological pit found in the City of London.

The discovery in the City of London contrasts with discoveries of First Nations remains here in BC even in the news coverage it gets. In a class I took last semester, Dr. Thom would send us articles having to do with First Nations (sometimes 14 articles a day!) and he would discuss them in class, pointing out the bias that Canadian media has relating to First Nations. One huge controversy we looked at was skeletons unearthed near the Great Fraser Midden in Vancouver that halted the development of a condominium complex, thoroughly annoying the Vancouver Island couple that were financially backing the development. The comments on those articles were disgusting; suggesting that the people buried in that midden were trash because they were found amongst "trash," a poor interpretation of the meaning of midden. In this BBC article, more people are worried that the skeletal remains still contain the plague--they aren't insulting the memory of those ancestors because they stand in the way of development.

From Warrior Publications. Musqueam band members protest the desecration of  c̓əsnaʔəm.

Maybe the solution to this discrepancy is to encourage greater First Nations involvement in their own history. Would our news sound more like the BBC's article if the archaeologists working on a site weren't settlers whose familial presence on this continent only goes back 200 years? When Dr. Thom would bring in elders from the First People's House to speak to our class, they would emphasize the cultural knowledge that we, as future archaeologists, need to keep in mind when digging up a site; for example, the responsibility of a certain family to maintain burial grounds. I wish the First Nations sites around here got as much positive attention as these Black Death victims. We should start that change by working with local First Nations as much as possible, to synthesize their cultural and environmental knowledge passed down over thousands of years with our own archaeological skills.