Indigenous artifacts found at the construction site of a contentious pipeline project in northern B.C. were likely not in their original location, according to the province's energy regulator.

A hereditary house group of the Wet'suwet'en Nation complained last month that supporters recovered two ancient stone tools and observed other artifacts at the site near Houston, B.C., where Coastal GasLink is building a natural gas pipeline.

The company suspended work on the line, which is a key part of a $40 billion LNG Canada project, while the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission investigated.

On Friday, the commission released a bulletin saying the artifacts had been moved before they were found.

"The soils upon which the artifacts were found would not typically contain any such cultural artifacts and this was likely not their original location,'' the commission said.

"However, a definitive determination on their exact location of origin cannot be made.''

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Supporters of the Unist'ot'en, part of the Wet'suwet'en Nation, agree the artifacts likely aren't in their original location — but they say the commission's bulletin is "deeply misleading" in insinuating supporters planted artifacts on the site to condemn the pipeline.

"When I read in the bulletin that this is likely not their original location, that makes sense because their original location would've been in the soil in what used to be a forest," said Anne Spice, a PhD candidate in anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate Centre, who supports the Unist'ot'en people.

"We didn't move them — [Coastal GasLink] bulldozers did," she said. "My concern is that this gets picked up by media and people think we've somehow been tampering with this site when, actually, the opposite is true: they've come in and tampered with the site."

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'Likely not their original location'

The commission said it sent a team of investigators to the site, including a senior archaeologist, a compliance and enforcement officer from the commission, and an archaeological specialist from the B.C. Ministry of Forests.

The bulletin said the team saw stone artifacts on top of frozen clay soils upon entering the site and clearing some snow, and that the artifacts were gathered for protection and examination.

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