B.C. researchers found sign of 14,000-year-old settlement in Canada

Researchers using a robotic underwater vehicle off British Columbia’s northern coast believe they may have found the earliest evidence of human habitation in Canada.

Unfortunately, the site that could date back almost 14,000 years lies beneath hundreds of metres of water in the ocean around the Haida Gwaii archipelago.

Archaeologist Quentin Mackie from the University of Victoria and his team returned earlier this month from a research trip to the archipelago, where they used the autonomous underwater vehicle to scan the sea floor in search of evidence of ancient civilization.

“We’re not quite ready to say for sure that we found something,” he said. “We have really interesting-looking targets on the sea floor that, as an archeologist, they look like they could be cultural.”

Mackie has studied the area for 15 years, and came to believe that ancient residents would have harvested salmon near the coast of what was then a single island that stretched well across Hecate Strait toward the mainland.

At the time, the sea level was about 100 metres lower than it is today and the main island of the archipelago was twice as large.

Stone tools or evidence of campfires would not be possible to see on the ocean bottom. They’re too small. [...] canada.com


Actualización 21-12-14: Archaeologists Discover 13,800-Year-Old Underwater Site at Haida Gwaii