I thought readers of this blog would find some of CMLC's more recent archaeological findings in East Village interesting. We have been working on documenting archaeological sites throughout East Village for several months now in preparation for development, and recently we have been working within the parking lot across from the Orange Lofts on the NW corner of 8th Avenue and 4 Street SE.
Within this parking lot operated by CPA, a former site of a Safeway grocery store, CMLC has uncovered evidence of three teepee rings to date that have been carbon dated to be over 3000 years old! This is a rare find in an urban area like the core of downtown Calgary, and this past week we have uncovered the best example to date, the third teepee ring found on the site.
You can see that only a few feet below the surface of the asphalt parking lot, and visible from City Hall and numerous other buildings downtown, this partial ring has survived intact! This ring is thought to be originally constructed as a partial ring, where the sides of the teepee only provided shelter from the north winds, and was exposed on the south side with only anchor rocks used. The rocks you see in the circular shape were used to hold down the ends of the materials used to form the teepee's sides.
The archaeologists in the pictures are carefully searching for tools, fire broken rock, rock chips and other evidence of habitation to give them data for further analysis. The picture below shows a better view of the entire shape of the third teepee ring.
The orange flags you see in the picture indicate places where the archaeologists found tools, bits of bone, fire broken rock or pieces of rocks (chips) created from making tools.
When the archaeologists finish documenting all of the evidence, we have asked that they carefully survey all of the rocks, and their orientation and position such that the ring could be re-created in the future, perhaps as an exhibit along the RIverwalk or another downtown park space.
Keep posted on our archaeological work in East Village by visiting our website at www.calgarymlc.ca, and click Projects, then "Archaeological Research Project".
We find it very interesting just how long East Village and downtown Calgary have been a desirable place to live: over 3000 years!
Chris Ollenberger, CMLC
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