Roundtable Abstracts
Archaeology on Parliament Hill Roundtable/Panel Discussion
Organizer: Ian Badgley
A pre-contact stone knife was recovered during archaeological excavations carried out in 2019 for the Centre Block Rehabilitation project, on Parliament Hill. This archaeological discovery aroused keen interest on the part of Public Service and Procurement Canada, the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn First Nation and the Kitiigan Zibi Anishinabeg, fostering a new partnership between the Parliamentary Precinct Branch of the department and these two Anishinabe Algonquin communities. Among the initiatives flowing from this partnership are an Indigenous Archaeological Field School proposed by PSPC and to be operated by the two communities in the Capital region and expanded emphasis on telling the Anishinabe Algonquin story on interpretive panels surrounding the Centre Block construction work. The implications of these and other initiatives for the more direct and active Anishinabe Algonquin stewardship of archaeological resources in the region are discussed in this roundtable.