Historical Ecology & Coastal Archaeology Lab, University of Victoria
New paper led by Banting Post doc Kristina Barclay:
Barclay, Kristina M., Julia K. Baum, Denis St. Claire, and Iain McKechnie 2025. Merging coastal archaeology and conservation paleobiology to evaluate shellfish resilience to Indigenous harvest over the past 3000 years. Biological Conservation 307:111186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111186
New paper led by PhD Candidate Dylan Hillis:
Hillis, Dylan, Kristina M. Barclay, Erin Rechsteiner Foster, Hannah M. Kobluk, Taylor Vollman, Anne K. Salomon, Chris T. Darimont, and Iain McKechnie 2024. Estimating size-at-harvest from Indigenous archaeological clamshell assemblages in coastal British Columbia. Facets 9(1):1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/facets-2023-0128
Robert Gustas Defended his dissertation entitled “Midden Volume, Harvested Fish Biomass, and Pre-contact Minimum Population Estimates for Nuu-chah-nulth Territories in Barkley Sound” He is shown below hoisting the UVic trophy mug of dissertation defenders! Congrats Robert!
Congratulations to award winning Kathryn McKenzie for completing and defending her fabulous Masters thesis entitled: “Converging open science and respecting Indigenous knowledge to enrich capacity of zooarchaeological comparative collections: An example from the University of Victoria“ check out her linked in profile and GBIF collection.
Amazing to be a part of a new paper on the genetics of mutton the woolly dog collected by the Smithsonian in 1859 published Dec 15, The history of Coast Salish “woolly dogs” revealed by ancient genomics and Indigenous Knowledge by Audrey Lin and team link: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adi6549
some follow up news coverage is in INDIGINEWS Article by Kayla MacInnis as well as the Smithsonian Magazine as well as on Facebook
Halibut hooks made it onto the Cover of Arctic Anthropology thanks to the journal for this honour and commissioning this composite artwork! Congratulations to lead author Jacob Salmen-Hartley on taking the long view on this paper emerging from his 2018 masters thesis including taking part in a Halibut Derby with the help of field assistant Johnny.
HECA lab made it all the way down to Cairns in Queensland Australia for the 2023 International Council of Archaeozoology meetings including well attended presentations by graduate students Dylan Hillis & Kathryn McKenzie pictured below – & Kathryn’s presentation won THE OPEN ZOOARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE!
New paper on the human predatory niche led by collaborator Chris Darimont made some news including the BBC, the Globe and Mail, Scientific American, and more including this nice write up by Emily Harwitz for Hakai Magazine.
New paper on Indigenous approaches to biodiversity out in ‘Philosophical Transactions B‘ with PhD student HECA Lab member Dylan Hillis fellow UVic Anth colleague Tommy Happynook part of our RESNET project along with a great illustration from Arianna Augustine.
Salomon et al. 2023
PhD Candidate Robert Gustas led an exciting new publication on estimating the archaeological site sizes available open access here (infographic below). Please be in touch with any thoughts/questions.
PhD student Dylan Hillis led a publication on climate change and marine fisheries featured in the National Observer newspaper which can be read at this link and many thanks to co-authors, Tseshaht and Huu-ay-aht First Nations for their support.
A publication led by former HECA member Erin Slade made the cover page in the journal Ecosystems. This paper features research into preindustrial Sea Otter abundance and was covered in Hakai Magazine. SFU helped put out a 45 second video about this work and a photo from the Kiixin Village and National Historic Site of Canada speaks to the importance of Indigenous management of sea otters and California mussels.
New publication on Indigenous use of Oysters out in Nature Communications involving HECA grad student Taylor Vollman along with Indigenous scholar Marco Hatch at Western Washington University.
new working space @UVicAnthro
New paper on Vibracoring in American Antiquity is hopefully getting read and considered as a next level method for understanding fisheries in deep complex shell middens – paper is open access and available at https://doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2021.113
Steller Sea Cow paper published in Global Ecology and Biogeography led by Cam Bullen and featured in Hakai Magazine!
New Publication on Grizzly Bear DNA and Indigenous language groups is featured in Science Magazine, Hakai Magazine, and republished in Sapiens Magazine.
With the support of the Baum lab, Dr. Kristina Barclay has joined the lab as a Banting post doc! A warm welcome to Kristina and her work on conservation palaeobiology (also check out her great 2022 paper)
Happy to be a small part of a successful application for large NSERC Strategic Partnership Grant for Networks led by Elena Bennett at McGill focusing on ecosystem services and sustainability across Canada https://www.nsercresnet.ca The landscape I am part of is co-led by Anne Salomon at SFU and Coastal First Nations and aims to bring archaeological data forward to support Coastal First Nations in exploring the consequences of long term climate change for fisheries. Masters student (now PhD) Dylan Hillis is taking this on this project specifically. https://www.nsercresnet.ca/landscape-6—pacific-coast.html
RESNET project makes the national news on earth day https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-with-planets-future-on-the-line-scientists-seek-a-full-accounting-of/
New paper on Culturally modified trees in the Great Bear Rainforest https://medium.com/facets/indigenous-knowledge-and-remotely-sensed-data-inform-landscape-suitability-models-for-a-1e2c97f667c CMT in Kitasoo/Xai’xais Territory. Photo: Bryant DeRoy
Hakai Magazine has a long form article that includes this amazing commissioned art from Jeffrey Veregge https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/the-dogs-that-grew-wool-and-the-people-who-love-them/
HECA lab member Dylan Hillis presented to the Archaeological Society of British Columbia seminar series (Jan 2021) with his presentation available online: https://vimeo.com/504891585
UVic has covered the publication of two HECA lab publications on domestic dogs in ‘The Ring‘ newspaper
Listen to an additional interview with Dylan and Darrell Ross on CBC Radio 1’s All Points West with Kathryn Marlow HERE and a read a CBC News story
Read a story in the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/science/dog-wool.html and Ha-shilt-sa the Nuu-chah-nulth newspaper https://hashilthsa.com/news/2020-10-08/extinct-breed-wooly-dog-found-tseshaht-archeological-dig
Archaeological research on sea otter recovery and contemporary Indigenous food security was discussed in this BBC article written by science journalist Dr. Lesley Evans Ogden.
Dr. McKechnie was designated one of 20 Leaders for Sea Change and will get to learn from these amazing folks and be mentored by highly skilled COMPASS staff.
Katie Dierks (JCURA/honours student and former NSERC USRA) presented on her research at the Jamie Cassels undergraduate research award and no other than Jamie showed up to view it. Congrats Katie!
Our field project in Barkley Sound is featured in this story by Lorraine Boissoneault https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/first-nations-archaeology-in-canada
News Coverage for the Barkley Sound Field School: Excavations in Tseshaht Territory
The Nuu-chah-nulth newspaper came out to the excavation and reported on our big encounter with Geoduck here. This story was picked up by The Tyee features an article about ‘a fancy clam’:) which is republished by the Smithsonian Magazine
The 2018 field school received CHEK Television news coverage including an interview with students Jen Hogan and Larissa Dixon, and co-director of the project and Tseshaht representative Denis St. Claire. Below are some atmospheric photos from this field season. More news to come.
I am honoured to be part of a multi-authored editorial introducing a special issue in Ecology & Society on Coupled Human-Coastal Ecosystems: Building Resilience through Teaching and Research Partnerships along with SFU resource and environmental management faculty (A. Salomon, K. Lertzman D. Secord) and Kelly Brown director of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department and Haida matriarch Ḵii’iljuus Barb Wilson.
PhD Student Antonia Rodrigues and I co-led a study of ancient rockfish from archaeological sites just inside and out of marine protected area and national park reserve on western Vancouver Island with the support of Dongya Yang‘s ancient DNA lab. This archipelago is a phenomenal fishing ground and heavily targeted by commercial and recreational fishing efforts. Archaeological sites throughout the islands provide a comparison to modern fishing efforts and extend perspective on conservation area management.
On a sort of snowy afternoon in February, four HECA lab affiliates travelled to Bamfield to present on their archaeological research in Barkley Sound and elsewhere at Pacific Ecology & Evolution Conference PEEC. Very exciting to see this work come together.
Dr. McKechnie was fortunate to attend a very cool Santa Fe Institute workshop on human uses of animal and plant species via archaeological and ethnographic sources. This was organized by Jennifer Dunne, Spencer Wood and Stefani Crabtree & included several cool folk including ASBC President Jacob Earnshaw. Along the way, I got to visit Taos Pueblo where I took this photo of the dyes used in traditional weaving practices.
In 2017, Dr. McKechnie was fortunate to get an invite to attend a special UVic event where Canada’s Minister of Science was announcing new Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) funding. The lab is very grateful to have been among several projects at UVic to receive NSERC ‘Discovery Grant’ funding for 5 years to support a Marine Historical Ecology research program. It was swiftly pointed out to me on twitter that the term ‘discovery’ is highly awkward in Indigenous contexts and a worthy reminder of the care and respect that needs to be taken in archaeological research.
The UVic archaeology field school has been featured in the a new video produced by the university with footage from the Hakai Institute.
Chelsey Armstrong from SFU and Anna Shoemaker from Uppsala co-led an international effort to consolidate research questions on Historical Ecology. This paper is available for free at this: link and this also generated some news coverage
Hakai Blogged about my recent publication on the archaeology of Indigenous fishing practices with Madonna Moss here. Here is a link to the open access paper and a wonderful infographic put together by Josh Silberg below.
A video about our HECA Lab research with the Hakai Institute’s geospatial team — documenting coastal archaeological landscapes in Barkley Sound with the support of the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre and Huu-ay-aht First Nations. In addition to this great video, this effort was also featured in a blog post by Josh Silberg and in a…
HECA Lab @UVic 
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