Dietary Change at K’etxelknaz, BC - ASA Calgary

Join us for our March Lecture Series talk, Dietary Change Revealed in Kitchen Refuse Pits from the Ancient Floors of Housepit 54, Bridge River Site (K’etxelknaz), British Columbia, as part of the ASA Calgary Lecture Series! Secure your spot now!

Presenter: Dr. Anna Marie Prentiss

Date: March18, 2026

Time: Lecture start at 7:00p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

ABSTRACT:

Dietary change in traditional fishing and foraging societies has been examined from standpoints of resource accessibility, population demands, and social needs. Typically, scholars focus on singular models to explain diet choice including those from optimal foraging theory, socio-ecology, and political ecology. It is far less common that we are able to evaluate multiple factors affecting shifting diets and associated cooking procedures within a singular archaeological context. In this talk, I develop data from the contents of deep pits filled with kitchen refuse from the 15 stratified anthropogenic floors of Housepit 54, Bridge River Site (K’etxelknaz), British Columbia. I distinguish refuse pits from sequentially re-used cache pits drawing on sediment micromorphology, isotopes, and general pit contents. Then, focusing on the refuse-filled pits, I develop insights into kitchen activities by examining variation in faunal and floral remains. Temporal change in kitchen regimes is compared to house and village-wide socio-demographic trends to assess alternative explanatory models. Results implicate the effects of variation in prey populations as related to climate and foraging pressures

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER:

Anna Marie Prentiss

Regents Professor

Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Montana

Anna Marie Prentiss is Regents Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Montana, Missoula. She earned her PhD in the Department of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University in 1993. Her research focuses on the histories of ancient fisher-forager villages in the greater Pacific Northwest and western Arctic regions of North America. She has partnered with Xwísten, the Bridge River Indian Band, to pursue archaeological survey and excavation projects focused on the K’etxelknáz, the Bridge River housepit village since 2003. This has led to the publication of multiple books and articles covering demographic history, technological evolution, subsistence ecology, and social change in the Bridge River context. Recent research has focused on Housepit 54 at Bridge River, a long-lived house with 16 intact anthropogenic occupation floors.

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