Beneath shell middens lie the remains of 500,000 Tsimshian who could shed valuable insights into North America’s longest unbroken settlement.

Below is an article written by Leanne Ritche and published in the Daily News:

A world-renowned archeologist is urging the federal government to protect the unique history of the Tsimshian people before the expansion of any future port facilities.

Dr. George MacDonald is one of several researchers who attended a three-day seminar in Prince Rupert last week [Week 5; 2008] to discuss the future of archeological research on the North Coast. He is calling on the feds to include the Prince Rupert harbour on the World Heritage list in order to protect 10,000 years of history located in at least 200 sites, including villages and camp sites, in the harbour and Venn Pass area.

"It would be a national shame to lose what remains of this legacy as we prepare ourselves as a nation for a new role in global trade," said MacDonald.

There is evidence to prove the Tsimshian people have lived in the harbour for at least the past 5,000 years. It's the longest continuous occupation by a particular tribe that has been documented anywhere in North America.

"The record of human history in the Prince Rupert Harbour is unique in North America in terms of the quantity and quality of the evidence it holds on environmental change and artistic development," said MacDonald. "I strongly advocate that the cultural record that survives in the Prince Rupert Harbour be advanced by Canada for inclusion on the World Heritage List."

The UNESCO list identifies sites of significant cultural importance and includes such areas as SGang Gwaay, (Anthony Island) in the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, for its historical importance of the Haida people's art and way of life.

The seminar was hosted by the communities of Lax Kw'alaams and Metlakatla, known as the Coast Tsimshian, the descendants of people who have occupied the harbour for thousands of years.

They met in order to determine how they would participate in future archeological work.

According to the archeological researchers who attended the seminar, the shell middens ringing the Prince Rupert Harbour are one vast cemetery that include the burial remains of the Tsimshian people.

In a recent report done for the Coast Tsimshian, MacDonald notes that although many sites were disturbed during the construction of the city, port and railway in the early 1900s, portions of these sites still exist beneath the newer construction.

"Preserved in the shell deposits are the remains of at least half a million people who lived here over the past 5,000 to 6,000 years," said MacDonald.

Earlier sites in the area have been dated to 10,000 years, with an expectation of 14,000 years once sites higher on Kaien Island have been tested.

MacDonald, a Director Emeritus of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, said wet sites have been confirmed in the Phase II area of the Fairview container port expansion.

Construction is currently proposed to begin at this site in 2009.

However, the area repeats the conditions of a site impacted by the Phase I development back in the 1960s. More than 600 wooden and basketry items were found before bulldozers rolled onto the main part of the site.

MacDonald, who was working on numerous excavations in the city at that time, said that wet sites provide the kind of artworks in wood that trace the emergence of the Northwest Coast art form over thousands of years.

"This art form has been declared as significant to the heritage of mankind," said MacDonald.

When the city was founded in 1910, as many as a hundred intact human skulls were deposited at a local museum by the engineers and officials responsible for the preparation of the railway.

However, over the coming five decades many other remains were deposited in the local garbage dump because the value of information contained in bone fragments was unknown at that time.

Literally, every shell midden contains human remains, noted MacDonald.

The Tsimshian buried their deceased in bent wood cedar boxes that were placed behind homes in their villages, weighted with stacks of large rocks or in shelters of split cedar planks.

Over time, these burial boxes collapsed and were covered by shell refuse from the houses.

And these remains reveal rich details about the diet and lifestyles of the Tsimshian, as do the artistic and household items that have been found.

MacDonald was joined at the conference by other researchers, including Andrew Martindale of the University of British Columbia, and David Archer of Northwest Community College, who have been leading the Dundas Island research project for the past five years. The project involves a multi-disciplinary study of the settlements on five islands in the Dundas cluster, linking the oral history of the Tsimshian (Adawx) with archeological evidence from the past 4,000 years.

Also attending the conference was Dr. Jerome Cybulski, the author of numerous books on Northwest First Nations, as well as curator at the Canadian Museum of Civilization and an expert in studying burial remains.