Author: Administrator

An article from the Winter 2020 Issue of Popular Archaeology reproduced with the permission of the editor. Naxos is the largest island in the Greek Cycladic group, located in the Aegean Sea between the Greek and Turkish mainlands. The islands’ varied landscapes combine to give it a special character. Known for its rich land and bountiful crops as well as for… Read more →

Peru has been a country I’ve been interested in visiting for a long time. The images of Inca temples, women dressed in brightly coloured woven textiles, baby llamas and forest covered mountains didn’t prepare me for the diversity of the modern country I arrived in. One goal of the trip was to visit Machu Picchu and reach it by a… Read more →

Indigenous belief is that Cusco sits at the navel of the world. It certainly felt like we had traveled into the centre of Peru as we journeyed through the Andes to reach the city. Situated in the Huatanay river valley, Cusco is surrounded on all sides by mountains and many of its districts are accessed by steep steps. As the… Read more →

There are some sites that embody the concept of archaeology for me. I’ve been to a few (Acropolis of Athens, Chichen Itza) and still have some on my bucket list (Egyptian Pyramids, Stonehenge). This is the first in a series of four posts about my journey through Peru to one of these iconic sites: Machu Picchu. We arrived into Lima… Read more →

Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump; Le Précipice À Bisons Head-Smashed-In; Itsipa’ksikkihkinihkootsiyao’pi’ Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump was one of the first Canadian indigenous archaeological sites that I became aware of as a child. It was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1981 and the Interpretive Centre at the site was officially opened in 1987 by the Duke and Duchess of York (Prince Andrew… Read more →

It seemed that everywhere I turned in Québec City, the capital of the Canadian province of Québec, there was another National Historic Site.  I couldn’t decide which to focus on first – so instead chose the whole area of Old Québec (Vieux-Québec), declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. The historic district of Vieux-Québec is located on Cape Diamond… Read more →

Sometimes you end up visiting sites you never thought you would – sites that are off of the beaten track. It might be that you see a road sign that grabs your attention and you make a detour, you happen upon a site when you are in an area for another purpose, or that a trip is arranged for you… Read more →

On a warm day late last summer I went to explore Jasper House National Historic Site. The dry air smelled like a wood stove and the usually crisp Rocky Mountains that surround the town of Jasper were softened. We were in Jasper National Park in the province of Alberta, but the smoke from forest fires raging in the neighbouring province… Read more →

I recently moved to the Canadian Rocky Mountains and can’t say enough about the wild beauty of the landscape. It felt like home right away. There are so many sites to explore – natural and cultural – from mountain passes and river valleys to historic homesteads and POW camps. The story of this region began many thousands of years ago… Read more →

In February of last year, during my year of digs, I spent a few weeks in Tasmania with the Flinder’s University Historical Archaeology Field School run by Dr. Heather Burke. We were based at Willow Court, a large complex of buildings that functioned as a mental health institution from 1827 to 2000. The goal for that season’s fieldwork was to… Read more →