Winnipeg museum site holds 400,000 aboriginal artifacts!
Tools, pieces of ceramic pots and other artifacts dating as far back as 900 years are shedding new light on the role an area of modern-day Winnipeg played in aboriginal lives.
Officials with the Canadian Museum For Human Rights, along with archaeologists, revealed Wednesday some of the 400,000 artifacts retrieved during construction of the building, which sits at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers — a place where aboriginals gathered for centuries.
Some fragments of ceramic pottery include a mixture of styles seen in First Nations pieces to the south and west. The discovery reinforces the idea that The Forks, as the site is known, was a meeting place of different cultures, said Mireille Lamontagne, the museum’s manager of education programs.
“So we start to ask questions as to how were people travelling, were they inter-marrying and then sharing those traditions?”
The dig also uncovered 191 hearths or fire pits, which may suggest The Forks was more than just a gathering place — it may have also seen seasonal habitation.