INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / OCTOBER 16, 1990

 

 

Douglas College students unearth the facts

N ine Douglas College students
took a step back in time this
summer when they worked on an
archaeological dig at Fort Langley.

But uncovering the artifacts
hidden beneath the soil meant
more than getting a shovel and
digging a hole to see what they
could find.

Carefully trowelling, brushing
and sifting through the earth, the
students uncovered artifacts left
behind since the fort was built in
1839. Working behind the “Big
House” inside the fort, every
square centimetre of the area was
mapped out. Any object of sig-
nificance was photographed in
place and marked on the map for
position and depth. Among the
treasures found were clay pipe
stems, buttons, bottle glass and
pieces of old flint-lock rifles.

The Fort Langley dig is just
one of several archaeological field
schools operated as a co-operative
project by faculty and students
from Douglas College, Langara,
Capilano and Fraser Valley Col-
lege. The Fort Langley archaeologi-
cal site has been operating for the
past three summers.

Douglas College Anthropol-
ogy instructor Alan McMillan says
the field schools serve a valuable
purpose. “They give the students
the rare opportunity to put their
classroom theory into practice
while earning six credits in ar-
chaeology.”

“It’s a challenge because a lot
of things are important,” says
Douglas College student Barb
Stopa. “When you’re involved in
archaeology you have to combine
analytical thinking with spacial
thinking and theory. It’s a nice
mix. And I like the people.”

Stopa, the mother of a 19-year-
old son and a 17-year-old
daughter, first attended the field
school in 1988. She has worked at
a prehistoric native Indian site
where spear points, scrapers and
stone cutting tools suggested

 

 

 

 

Behind the Big
House at Fort
Langley, Douglas
,| College student Barb
‘| Stopa (left and
below) puts her
archaeology studies
to practical use.

 

 

aboriginal activity from at least
4,000 years ago.

This last summer Stopa
worked as a paid field assistant
and she plans to go to Simon
Fraser University to work on her

Bachelor’s degree in archacology.

“The students have a chance
to learn by doing, to see the
process hap-

are thinking about a career in ar-
chaeology a chance to participate
and find out what it’s really like.
McMillan cautions that there
is hard work involved, though.
“Students are expected to work in
the dirt, the rain and the mud.” @

 

pening. They
experience
the excite-
ment of dis-
covery as
they find out
what might
lie beneath
the next
scrape of the
trowel.”
This
hands-on ex-
perience
gives stu-
dents who