A year ago, Crossroads principal Rick Budhwa received an unexpected email: His master’s thesis, 15 years after its completion, had caught the attention of Gesa Mackenthun, a professor at the University of Rostock and organizer of anthropological conferences around the world. Dr. Mackenthun invited Rick to present the paper at her symposium, Decolonizing “Prehistory”: Deep Time and Topological Knowledge in the Americas, held in Rostock, north of Berlin, this month.
This spring, Crossroads conducted a recovery in Moricetown, BC. The site (which had previously been disturbed) revealed bone fragments and cultural artifacts when machinery was brought in to install a staircase. Digging on reserve can be tricky business — the recovery of bone fragments and artifacts requires working closely with the community for a better understanding of cultural concerns. This three-minute video offers a glimpse of life on an archaeological excavation, along with highlighting the challenges and rewards that come with cultural resource management work.
As much as we’d like to try, it’s hard to turn away from what’s happening south of the border. It’s even harder not to see the US’s cultural divisions and ask ourselves, “Could it happen here?” It can. It does. Indeed, it has.