Archaeology conference aims to centre Indigenous perspectives in work on ancestral sites

Beneath the rolling hills around Lethbridge, now tinged with green after the past week's rain, understanding of the past is lodged in the landscape itself. 

It's here, at the city's university, that archaeologists have gathered to listen and learn from the voices of the people who have always been here, and whose ancestral belongings are objects of desire to museums across the country. 

Just over a decade since its inaugural event, the second Blackfoot Archaeology Conference, called Ksaahkommitapii, meaning "spirit of the ground" in the Blackfoot language, wrapped up on Saturday, after two days of collaboration and consultation between conference-goers and member tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy. 

And while agenda items included technical presentations with titles such as, "using photogrammetry to record a rock art glyph at Writing-On-Stone, Alta.," the event's main goal was to reinforce the inclusion of Blackfoot philosophy into the analysis of archaeological sites.

"Archaeology can look at a rock and date it, but why it's there and what it means … we're the only ones that can interpret that," said Jerry Potts. 

Potts is a member of the Piikani Nation and chair of the Iron Shirt Culture and Heritage Society, the non-profit that hosted the conference. 

He says Indigenous involvement with local archaeological practices is crucial, not only to give nations agency over the artifacts of their ancestors, but to re-examine Canada's past from another perspective. 

"History only starts in Canada after the railway came through," said Potts.

"Archaeologists are really important in terms of recording history. But that history has to start being recorded within Blackfoot territory, with Blackfoot history and what it means to us. We're not a subject, we're real people."

Across the U.S. border in Montana, Potts says the Blackfeet tribe has made great strides by tying archaeological findings to traditional stories and customs, efforts that have given local First Nation consultants more authority when carrying out their work. 

His society is attempting to do something similar in Alberta, says Potts, but it's not without its challenges. A big piece of the puzzle is collaboration with professional archaeologists, who have access to the great majority of potential historical sites that exist on private land. 

One of those archaeologists, who Potts says has become a close friend, is Gabriel Yanicki, curator of western archaeology at the Canadian Museum of History, in Gatineau, Que. 

"Growing up in southern Alberta and having an interest in archaeology, the question of whose heritage I wanted to study wasn't front of mind at the time, the generation when I started in my career," said Yanicki. 

But as a graduate student, Yanicki's interests narrowed, and he began focusing on archaeological sites that connected him to the Blackfoot people. Since then, Yanicki said there has been a shift in his field.