Archaeology demonstrates sustainable Ancestral Coast Salish salmon stewardship over thousands of years pre-contact

<b>Abstract</b><br/><p><span lang="EN-CA">Salmon are an essential component of the ecosystem in Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory, centred on present-day Burrard Inlet, BC, Canada</span><span lang="EN-CA">, where Tsleil-Waututh people have been harvesting salmon, along with a wide variety of other fishes, for millennia. Tsleil-Waututh Nation is an ancestral Coast Salish community that has called the Inlet home since time immemorial. This research assesses the continuity and sustainability of the salmon fishery at təmtəmíxʷtən, an ancestral Tsleil-Waututh settlement in the Inlet, over thousands of years before European contact (1792 CE). We apply Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) analysis to 245 archaeological salmon vertebrae to identify the species that were harvested by the Tsleil-Waututh community that lived at təmtəmíxʷtən. The results demonstrate that Tsleil-Waututh communities consistently and preferentially fished for chum salmon (<em>Oncorhynchus</em> <em>keta</em>) over the period of almost 3,000 years. The consistent abundance indicates a sustainable chum salmon fishery over that time and a strong salmon-to-people relationship through generations. This research supports Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s stewardship obligations under their ancestral legal principles to maintain conditions that uphold the Nation’s way of life.</span></p>

摘要
鲑鱼是斯莱尔-沃图思民族（Tsleil-Waututh Nation）传统、祖先传承且未被割让的领地（以加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省（British Columbia，简称BC省）现今的伯拉德湾（Burrard Inlet）为核心）生态系统的重要组成部分，该民族数千年来一直与其他多种鱼类一同捕捞鲑鱼。斯莱尔-沃图思民族是一个古老的海岸萨利希（Coast Salish）族群，自亘古以来便以该海湾为家园。本研究评估了欧洲接触（公元1792年）前数千年间，位于该海湾内的斯莱尔-沃图思祖先定居点təmtəmíxʷtən的鲑鱼渔业的延续性与可持续性。我们对245块考古出土的鲑鱼脊椎骨开展了质谱考古动物学（Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry，简称ZooMS）分析，以鉴定当时定居于təmtəmíxʷtən的斯莱尔-沃图思族群所捕捞的鲑鱼物种。研究结果显示，在近3000年的时间跨度内，斯莱尔-沃图思族群始终优先捕捞狗鲑（*Oncorhynchus keta*）。其种群丰度的持续稳定表明，该时段内狗鲑渔业具备可持续性，也印证了世代延续的鲑鱼与族群间的紧密联结。本研究契合斯莱尔-沃图思民族依据祖先法律原则所承担的生态管护义务，有助于维持支撑该民族生活方式的生态条件。