IX. Cultural Keystone Places and Historical Ecology (Part 2)

Many places of ancestral and cultural importance to the Quw’utsun Peoples have been recognized by settlers as important contributors to biodiversity. This recognition has resulted in settler-led ecological restoration efforts of cultural keystone places such as Garry Oak Meadows and the Cowichan Bay Estuary. While such efforts are well-intentioned, lack of understanding of pre-colonial baselines and implementaiton of fortress conservation practices have contributed to poor, long-term restoration outcomes. Our research alongside Cowichan Tribes is showing that centering cultural resurgence in restoration planning is a critical methodology that ensures the reciprocal, long-term human-land relationships required for successful outcomes. Our results have broad implications for land restoration that suggest that finding ways to strengthen human relationships to land (Indigenous or not), could provide the commitment and stewardship lands need from us to thrive into the future.

Menorca, one of the Balearic Islands off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, has multiple UNESCO designations: as a Biosphere Reserve (1993), and as home to an inscription on the World Heritage List, the Prehistoric Sites of Talayotic Menorca (2023). Thus these natural biota and prehistoric archaeological sites are deemed important to modern life – but there is a leap of nearly two millennia from prehistory to today. In this gap, during the medieval period (c. 10th-13th centuries), people developed landuse practices (including irrigation systems) which left traces that endure into the 21st century. We marshal archaeological data to investigate two questions: How can archaeology deepen modern connections to a landscape? Specifically, how can archaeological investigation of the medieval populations contribute to the deep chronology of people stewarding this island landscape? Using the framework of CKP, we connect to themes of memory and identity active in the archaeological research of the region.

Historical narratives crafted by heritage power brokers (archaeological consultants, regulators) often limit landscape-scale considerations, and pale in comparison to the referents and scale of histories known among, for example, Gitxsan Wilp (House) territory owners, teachers, and knowledge holders. In reviewing historical-ecological and House-based approaches to heritage conservation in British Columbia, this research will assess the strategies and opportunities involved in re-defining the Lax’yip (territories, waters) as cultural keystone places. We consider keystone places as a potential avenue for non-Gitxsan power brokers to better understand biocultural phenomena as both heritage and historically contingent inheritances.

Our research focuses on the remains of Kapoho, a loko iʻa kalo (fishpond that also grew taro) located at Waiheʻe, Maui. Incorporated within the Waiheʻe Coastal Dunes and Wetlands Refuge, which is managed and owned by the Hawaiʻi Land Trust (HILT), the 277-acre wildlife and cultural preserve has 93 archaeological features, remnants of native vegetation, and the most extensive fringing coral reef in west Maui.Our research program has completed the first season of fieldwork and laboratory analyses dedicated to the archaeological and microbial investigation of the fishpond, with the goal of exploring and understanding the antiquity of fishpond management, and Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) knowledge of critical biological processes. Our research has also sponsored workshops with the goal of lending archaeological and microbial information to the community-led effort to rebuild and restore the fishpond. Our research is part of a collective effort to restore ecological resilience in Hawaiʻi as part of traditional (and sustainable) cultural practices.

This presentation reflects and honours the history of the Snuneymuxw Coast Salish Peoples of the east coast of Vancouver Island, along the Salish Sea, as reflected in land-based stories, haunting images carved into rock, and the memories of contemporary knowledge holders extending over their lands and waters. Snuneymuxw territory has changed drastically since the first Europeans arrived, with vast areas being damaged over the decades by mining, clearcut logging, road construction and urban development. C’tasi:a, now an Elder, has witnessed many of these changes, but has taken immense efforts to identify, maintain and share Snuneymuxw place-based oral history and precious cultural heritage that she learned about from her own Elders. Here we provide examples of some key places that capture the past of the Snuneymuxw Peoples and hold it for future generations.