Archeologists discover pieces of old village site during construction at Williams Lake mall

Archeologists with the Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN) say they have discovered components of a historical village site during excavation work at a local mall.

General contractors working for the Janda Group, owner of the Boitanio Mall, with representatives from WLFN and Sugar Cane Archaeology, were present last week when crews began digging a trench and discovered a projectile point and other archeological materials, including animal bones.

The mall is currently being renovated to include an 82-unit housing complex on the upper level.

Whitney Spearing, the WLFN's senior manager for title and rights, said the First Nation was aware that the mall was built over an important archeological site when when it was originally constructed in 1974, but they were skeptical they would find anything intact during the new project.

"It's rare that we find things intact, especially underneath the development that's already happened," Spearing told CBC News.

"There's been a biface, which is likely the end of a spear point, some faunal materials [animal bones] ... and there's been a hearth exposed as well, which is an ancient fire pit."

She said the projectile point is made of fine-grain volcanic rock and will be analyzed by X-ray in hopes of determining its origin.

The hearth, which was fully intact, and the animal bones will provide archeologists with more information like what people were doing at the time, what kind of tools they were using and what kind of food sources they had.

"I was literally in awe. There's a full mall on top of this intact archeological site," said Spearing.

Site contained pit houses, human remains

WLFN Chief Willie Sellars said the First Nation has always know the site contained pit houses. About 13 human skeletons were unearthed during the original construction of the mall.

"The whole city of Williams Lake currently resides on our historical village lands that people used to flourish back over thousands of years ago," Sellars said on the CBC's Radio West on Monday.

"We're starting to see that there is artifacts and there is an archeological site there, as we had continued to say over the decades."

Spearing said that after those 13 disarticulated skeletons were discovered, they were placed in the back of a truck dumped in a ravine without the involvement of the WLFN or other Indigenous communities.

"It was an onlooker who actually noticed that they were human bones and phoned the provincial Archaeology Branch at the time," she said.

All the earth removed during the current excavation will be examined, she said, and screened for other archeological materials.