Ancient clam gardens suggest First Nations did more than hunt and gather

History | 207188 hits | May 10 1:04 pm | Posted by: Hyack

The discovery of an expansive system of historic clam gardens along the Pacific Northwest coast is contributing to a growing body of work that's busting long-held beliefs about First Nations as heedless hunter-gatherers.

Comments

by andyt
Sun May 10, 2015 9:14 pm
"Once you start calling someone a hunter-gatherer there's something implied ... about not really being connected to the land or sea and not needing much from it," she said.

What clam garden did she crawl under from? I would think most people would see hunter-gatherers to be about as connected to the land (or sea) as you can be.

Lepofsky said the "pervasive" idea that First Nations were hunter-gatherers made it easier for colonists to justify taking over the land because the resource management differed from traditional European methods.
I think somebody is trying awful hard to make a case here.

She also noted that colonizing governments concluded First Nations did not need a land base because of their supposed hunter-gatherer status.
That may be true, but only because the colonizers were idiots who thought putting Natives on welfare was a better idea.

Obviously the coast Natives were experts at exploiting their environment, hence allowing them to develop such sophisticated art - life was pretty easy on the coast.

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