Friday, August 25, 2006

Short Friday Archaeology Blogging

I don't have much to say about this beyond, "Hooray"! Unlike the finds I mentioned last week, there doesn't seem to be any doubt whatsoever about the identification and significance of this site.

Long-lost Jacques Cartier settlement rediscovered at Quebec City
Kevin Dougherty, CanWest News Service
Published: Saturday, August 19, 2006

QUEBEC -- An archeologist called in to look for anything interesting in the path of a development commemorating Samuel de Champlain's 1608 founding of Quebec City has stumbled on an even older site.

Archeologist Yves Chretien has uncovered Jacques Cartier's long-lost 1541-1543 settlement.



A rather fanciful depiction of Jacques Cartier learning the word "Canada."

As the article goes on to point out, this is the second-oldest European site found north of Mexico, after the Viking settlement at Ainse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland.

2 comments:

scout said...

good gawdess, i'm so glad you mentioned the viking site!!! TOO many don't realize that part of Kanatah history, or that the chinese were here before the europeans.

Bazz said...

Yes, the full scale of Chinese contact with indigenous North Americans is only starting to become clear. That said, a lot of the Asian artefacts that have turned up on the west coast could very easily have arrived unaccompanied by Asian people. However, it's clear that, beginning in about the 15th century, contact between the West Coast Natives and Asians (primarily shipwreck victims) was a fairly regular occurrance.