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kitchen-middens that fringe the coast-line of British Columbia, have 
been investigated sporadically for half a century. The shell-heaps 
vary in length from a few yards to one or two miles, and in depth 
from a few inches to nine feet. The smaller ones are often entirely 
modern, and a few of the larger ones have grown within the last hun- 
dred years, for the Indians of this region still consume large quan- 
tities of clams and cockles; but the giant heaps now buried in dense 
forest certainly date from many hundreds of years ago, in some cases 
perhaps even thousands. 
One would naturally suppose that in such a region archa'ologists 
could find a seciuence of remains that would permit a reconstruction 
of the cultural history back to and beyond the beginning of the 
Christian era. Yet the researches of fifty years have added very 
little to our knowledge. No doubt difficulties of excavation have 
militated against any great success. No archieologist has ever pos- 
sessed funds enough to remove a heavy stand of timber, and then 
excavate carefully, layer by layer, a solid mass of refuse and earth 
measuring perhaps three hundred yards long, seventy feet wide, and 
five feet deep, to take only a moderately large shell-heap. They 
have run trenches in different places and in various directions; 
occasionally they have tried to follow the operations of workmen who 
were razing part of a shell-heap to make a new railway track^ or a 
site for a lumber-mill; but hit-or-miss operations of this character 
can never ijroduce the same results as systematic and complete 
excavations. We must remember, too, that in the moist, warm 
climate of the British Columbia coast everything made of wood, horn, 
skin, or vegetable fibre, the materials most commonly used by the 
historic natives, decays completely within a century, that the Indians 
of this region were ignorant of pottery, and that the only specimens 
we may expect to find in the shell-heaps are stray objects of bone 
or antler, shell, or stone. Two men may dig for a week without 
uncovering more than a dozen specimens that are worth carrying 
awav. 
A few words, then, will sum up all that we have learned from the 
prehistoric shell-heaps of the British Columbia coast and from the 
stone cairns that seem to be more or less contemporary with them. 
1 At Ebiinie, for example, now called Maipole, within the city limits of Vanconver. 
