220 
Certain archaeologists have attempted to calculate the antiquity 
of the shell-heaps on the coast of California by estimating the prob- 
able population of the sites and the number of empty shells an 
Indian would throw out each day; but such a method seems imprac- 
ticable, in Canada at least, where we can neither estimate the prob- 
able population nor the proportion of shell-fish in the native diet. 
\^ e can, however, obtain the minimum ages of a few heaps by examin- 
ing the forests that have covered them since their formath)n. ‘‘In ]8h7 
there stood on one heap that was eight feet high the stump of a 
Douglas fir that showed over four hundred annual rings. This heaj) 
must liave been abandoned before 14t)7; before an earlier date still, 
in fact, because there was a second stumj) on it larger and presum- 
ably older, although its rings could not be counted because the centre 
was hollow. A Douglas fir cut down on another and higher shell- 
heap many years ago showed four hundred and twenty annual rings, 
so that this heap was abandoned before 1500. We know neither how 
many years had elapsed between the abandonment of these shell-heai)s 
and the growth of the trees, nor the rate at which the shell-heaps 
themselves had accumulated; but if the upper layers are at least 400 
years old, the lower ones must be considerably more ancient. There 
seems no reason to believe that the two shell-heaps just described 
are the oldest along this coast. Others may be centuries older, ])re- 
ceding perhaps the Christian era. W e may derive from tree-growths 
minimum dates for a few, but unless we can obtain some geological 
indications, there seems little hope of discovering the true age of any 
heaps excej^t the most modern.”^ 
Let us now examine each region in turn and see what light 
archaeology lias been able to throw on its inhabitants during the long, 
dark period tliat precetled the coming of Kuropeans. We will begin 
our survey with eastern Canada. In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick 
and Bi’ince Edward Island, prehistoric shell-heaps, camping sites, and 
graves reflect almost the same culture as that of the Algonkian tribes, 
Micmac and Alalecite. who occupied this region in the seventeenth 
century. The coastal shell-heaps, however, rarely if ever contain 
gouges or grooved axes of stone, both of which are fairly common in 
the interior; and since these objects do not occur in post-European 
iSmilli, IFiuliiii I.: “ Kilchon-niiddeiis of tlu> Pafific Const of Caiiadti” ; Xtitional Muaoiiin of 
Canafin, Hull. .56, ji. 46 (OHawa, 1929). 
