492 REPORT — 1900. 



special importance. This is that the shores and hays of Burrard Inlet 

 and English Bay have been occupied by rude communities of people for^ 

 very considerable period of time. The midden heaps here — the chief monu- 

 ments of the past in this region — are of two kinds or classes, and clearly 

 belong to two distinct periods. There is the class represented by the 

 refuse heaps seen in the vicinity of every camp site on the coast, and 

 which, generally speaking, are composed almost wholly of the shells of 

 various bivalves, mostly of the clam and mussel kind, and which are 

 clearly of modern or comparatively modern date ; and there is the class 

 composed of fewer shells, which are mostly fractui'ed and partially decom- 

 posed, numbers of calcined stones and large quantities of ashes and other 

 earthy matter. The latter accumulations bear every characteristic of age, 

 and are undoubtedly of ancient date. I believe these two classes of 

 middens are to be found everywhere on this coast. Wherever I have 

 gone I have always met with them ; and Dr. G. M. Dawson has also 

 mentioned them as occurring on the Queen Charlotte Islands in his 

 paper on the Haidas. At all events they are particularly characteristic of 

 this region, and are perhaps the most interesting feature of its archreology. 

 Evidence of an anatomical kind has been secured from the middens of 

 this older class in the neighbouring district of the Eraser, which leads us 

 to believe that a pre-Salishan race once occupied these shores and bays 

 and formed these heaps. Crania, of a type Avholly different from those 

 recovered from the burial-grounds of the modern tribes, have been dug 

 up in some of these older heaps. The Sk'qo'mic territory is particularly 

 rich in these evidences of a distant past. On both shores of Burrard 

 Inlet, on English Bay, and around False Creek, the remains of many of 

 these ancient middens are to be found. In some instances they have 

 been partially Avashed aWay by the tides, owing to a subsidence in the 

 land since the heaps were formed. In some places the decaying stumps 

 of old cedar and fir trees of immense size are seen embedded in the midden 

 mass. There can be no doubt that many of these stumps ai-e over half a 

 millennium old. They are the remains of what is locally known as the 

 first forest. In numerous instances I have found them and tlie middens 

 overlying the glacial gravels and claj's with no intervening mould or soil 

 between them, while all around in the same vicinity the vegetable mould 

 covers both the gravel and the middens themselves to a depth of from 

 six to twelve inches. Indeed tlie presence of these old camja sites can 

 often only be discovered by examining the strata of the banks facing the 

 tides. 



There is a second reason which leads me to regard these older heaps 

 as prie-Salishan formations. They are not included by the Sk'qo'mic 

 among their old camp sites in the enumeration of their ancient o'k-irumriq, 

 or villages. There is nothing in the Sk'qo'mic traditions which indicates 

 that they were ever occujiied by members of the Sk'qo'mic tribe. In my 

 ov/n mind there is no doubt whatever that they are centuries older than 

 the oldest known Sk'qo'mic refuse heaps or camp sites, and were formed 

 by a preceding race. The relics recovered from these ancient middens 

 are not, however, distinguished in any marked manner from those found 

 elsewhere on more modern sites. They represent the usual specimens 

 of bone and stone weapons and utensils, rough and crude specimens being 

 found side by side with finely wrought and polished ones. But if they 

 do not differ in any special manner from known Sk'qo'mic specimens 

 neither do they, for the matter of that, except in the kind of stone 



