Abstract

Very little is known about pre-contact plant use in the Canadian Subarctic due to preservation poor conditions and a lack of archaeological work done in the region. This study focuses on industrial plant use of the southern Dene, carried out through ethnoarchaeological research of First Nations plant use in the Dene community of Patuanak. This research was employed to create a database of analogies useful when faced with interpreting archaeological plant remains. Paleobotanical remains had received little attention in the Canadian Subarctic and to combat this, a comparative collection of diagnostic wood and bark phytoliths as well as wood and charcoal thin sections was created. Approaches were developed to identify poorly preserved charcoal through plastic embedding and sectioning as well as to extract organic plant and phytolith residues from stone tools. These approaches allowed the recognition of plant species used for fuel in hearths and species processed by stone tools. Combined with previously developed plant use analogies, it was possible to hypothesize the function of hearths and stone tools and heighten an awareness of the scope of meaning that plant selection can possess.