Archaeological excavation at Calgary park reveals ancient Blackfoot artifacts

Beside a gravel footpath that winds along the top of a hill on the east side of Nose Hill Park in Calgary, lies a circle of stones. 

Until recently, only parts of the circle were visible to passersby, many of whom unknowingly walked straight through a site that is now the subject of an archaeological excavation aimed at uncovering more about the life of the Blackfoot people.

The University of Calgary's archaeology field school and public archaeology program, in partnership with Calgary Parks and Open Spaces, broke ground on the project on May 13. Over the next few weeks, students, university staff, and volunteers will work together to retrieve fragments of history hidden beneath the soil. 

The stone circle itself is a remnant of a Blackfoot camp, a place where a lodge would have once been erected.

Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary who's heading up the excavation, says the circle is one of about a dozen in the area. 

"The site itself is not confined to where we're digging. It actually extends quite a ways over the top of Nose Hill here, kind of over to [that] break and slope," she says, gesturing over the open park fields.

Amundsen-Meyer said this specific site was chosen, in part, to protect it — the city rerouted the nearby footpath in 2006 to give the stone circle a wider berth, but park-goers have continued to walk over it, which was leading to its gradual erosion.

It also presents a unique learning opportunity. 

"We dig a lot of places where there's really dense material, like a bison kill or processing site because they're so dense, those are archaeologically rich," said Amundsen-Meyer.

"But those are actually activities that occur for like a few weeks every year, right? That is not the daily life of the people of the past." 

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By comparison, a stone circle, while not always offering the same quantity of artifacts, can provide insight into what individuals were doing on a regular basis. 

So far, the dig has been fruitful. Pieces of stone tools, and even shells have been discovered, which Amundsen-Meyer says were used to make beads and other decorative objects.