Introduction

Archaeological Excavation

Introduction to Archaeology
Rain Forest Vegetation
Buried Streams
Shell Middens
Hearth
Food Cache
Dog Burial
Warrior Cache
Petroglyphs and Pictographs

Tsimshian Society and Culture

Tsimshian Villages

Archaeological Excavation

Warrior Cache

Warrior Cache
  1. Goat horn core
  2. Killer whale jaw club
  3. Hammerstone or braining stone
  4. Copper bracelets
  5. Whalebone club
  6. Slate spear point or dagger
  7. Copper-wrapped cedar cylinders

Warrior Cache This is a special discovery of objects that were hidden in a burial ground in the Prince Rupert Harbour area about 1,800 years ago. The clubs, spear point and other objects in this "cache" may have belonged to a warrior.

The cedar cylinders wrapped with copper may be remnants of rod armour similar to that worn by Tsimshian warriors some 1,500 years later. Other objects likely represent weaponry for hand-to-hand combat. A human female skull and jaw found in the same pit as the artifacts - possibly trophies of war - were partially stained blue-green by copper salts in the soil. The skull and jaw were not directly associated with other human bones or graves in the immediate area, some of which date to about the same time as this cache of artifacts and others which date to about 1,600 years ago.

This warrior cache is one of the more intricate discoveries of cultural history recorded from the shell middens of Prince Rupert Harbour.
 
Up

Credits