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March 7, 2017
Julie Nookum, Indigenous midwife
International Women’s Day is March 8th this year. One aspect of this day is the celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. In honour of this day, we’re going to profile a few women from Alberta’s history. Today I’ll be profiling Julie Nookum. Unfortunately, very little information about Julie Nookum is
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March 6, 2017
Flores LaDue, First Lady of the Calgary Stampede
International Women’s Day is March 8th this year. One aspect of this day is the celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. In honour of this day, we’re going to profile a few women with ties to Alberta and its history. We’ll begin with Flores LaDue, the FLOTCS. Flores LaDue was born
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March 6, 2017
Ground Stone Artifact
At our Archaeology Roadshow in Lac La Biche, AB in fall 2015 a local resident brought in an interesting artifact that was found on a farm near Camrose, AB in the 1940s. The artifact is a 5 and 1/2” round stone with a wide, shallow depression on one side and a smaller lipped depression on
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February 21, 2017
Visiting the Terracotta Army Museum
In a continuation of our posts in honour of “Mysteries of China” playing at the Telus World of Science for the months of February and March, I decided to look back on my trip to the Terracotta Warrior museum just outside of Xi’an. We visited the Terracotta Army Museum in the winter of 2014. This
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February 20, 2017
Finding Archaeological Sites from the sky using high-tech advances in archaeology
In recent months, news feeds have been erupting with stories of “Lost Maya Cities discovered using LiDAR”, “revealing the secrets of Stonehenge using LiDAR”, “LiDAR uncovers ancient city near Angkor Wat”, and the popularity of “space archaeologist” Sarah Parcak, but this technology is not limited to finding the remnants of “lost civilizations” in far reaching
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February 15, 2017
Visiting the Great Wall of China
In honour of the Mysteries of China IMAX series currently playing at the Telus World of Science, I decided to look back on my trip to the UNESCO World Heritage Site in February of 2014. We took a tour to Mutianyu organised by our hostel in Beijing. This portion of the wall is in a
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February 6, 2017
Introduction to CRM Part 5: Reporting
Once we have surveyed our targets and evaluated any sites we have found, it is time to return to the office. All of our notes are taken on an ipad in the field. Now all we have to do is export our notes into a database which eliminates the hours spent on data entry. Note
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January 30, 2017
Introduction to CRM Part 4: Evaluating a Site
When we identify a site, we conduct further evaluative testing to determine the type, character, and extent of the site. This is done according to government guidelines, and depends on the type of site, and the type of landform. If the landform allows for it, testing occurs in each cardinal direction or in a grid.
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January 23, 2017
Introduction to CRM Part 3: Archaeological Survey
Using information compiled in the office, the next step of an HRIA is to leave the comforts of home behind and to venture into the field. Although there is a perception of archaeologists working at large excavations, often dressed in khakis and maybe wearing a fedora, archaeological survey is the most common type of field
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January 18, 2017
Atlatl Point
This little quartzite projectile point comes from a small site near Wabasca-Desmarais, Alberta. We found it on a small hill that was next to a lake, along with several chert and quartzite flakes. This point likely was fitted to an atlatl dart, a type of feathered throwing spear that uses a hooked throwing stick to help propel
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