Provincial archaeologists and paleontologists say the 2013 flood uncovered over a hundred historic sites and over the last three years teams have been working to record and preserve them.

The McKinnon Flats project, southeast of the Calgary, dates back about 500 years and scientists have determined that it was likely a seasonal camping spot for First Nations.

“What we see in portions of the site are where bison, that were probably killed nearby, are actually being butchered up so what we see, the big leg bones and a number of other things and some of the tools used to smashed them apart, we see that in some places in the site and in other areas we see places that have been burned heavily but we don’t find a lot of artifacts. Those look like they might be places where activities were happening such as maybe smoking, smoking meat or hides and then we find some other areas that were also very heavily burnt where we find a lot of fragmentary bison bone and that is where, again, the bison have been made into food,” said Dr. Daniel A. Meyer, archeologist.

The site along the Bow River has revealed all kinds of buffalo bone fragments and archaeologists are now excavating three to six metres down.

“The fact that we have 500 year old material, 300 year old material, two, three, four metres below surface is very unique. Very, very few sites like this in Alberta, probably very few altogether in western Canada,” said Dr. Meyer.

Darren High Eagle from the Siksika Nation took part in a three-week, archeological field skills training program last year and has heard stories from his ancestors about sites like this.

“It was my grandpa that got me into this, he’s the one that showed me the course, so I took it and now they’re pretty proud,” he said. “The first site I worked on was actually almost 10,000 years old and that was very interesting to work that and I guess it’s pretty rare for those old sites in Alberta,”

“He struck us right away and we found he’s a hard worker. We were actually much surprised last year, when one site we were working on, he has a very good eye for artifacts and he managed to find a class of artifacts, which you don’t find much in Alberta, pottery, and he found very small fragments of it. He didn’t know what they were at the time but he knew that they were not natural so the fact that we had never shown it to him before and he managed to pick those artifacts up, shows he’s got a good eye,” said Meyer.

The area is historically important because many of these sites are found on the surface and have been affected by development and industrialization.

“This one was damaged very badly and it is still eroding to this day and so in terms of the priorities of getting work done, this site may not be here whatsoever in ten years so the idea was to try and rescue information from those sites in greatest danger and this is one of the ones in greatest danger,” said Meyer. “The unique thing about this site is that sites that are 5000 years old are normally at the surface, and there are very few of them, unfortunately, intact because we’re all using that same surface today and so whether it’s through agriculture or industrial activities, recreational activities or where your house is, you’ve probably disturbed it.”

The province has identified 140 historic sites and so far has worked to preserve 10 that were identified as the highest risk.

The three year project is part of Alberta Culture and Tourism’s efforts to address the impacts of the 2013 floods and wraps up this year.

(With files from Kevin Fleming)