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Aboriginal Defensive Sites Lime
Bay Defensive Site [the rocky bluff, mid-ground] in 
In recent years, I have had the opportunity to carbon-date
several local defensive sites.
In 1983, I excavated the Lime Bay Defensive Site on the north side of Victoria’s Inner Harbour. Two dates place the earliest occupation between 1,200 and 600 years ago. Historic disturbance of the surface made it impossible to determine when the site was abandoned. There is a large shell midden at Flemming Beach to the west of Macaulay Point. In 1985, when a housing development exposed an entire cross-section of the main shell midden, I extracted a charcoal sample and dated the deepest deposits of the midden to 4,151 years ago. Below this was deep beach sand in which I found a single pebble chopping tool from an earlier period. Two defensive sites adjoin this large midden. Near the eastern end of this site, separated only by a rock outcrop and a small area of midden, there was a trench which today is mostly destroyed. Excavating Lime Bay Defensive Site, 1983. 
At the western end of the main shell midden is a small
peninsula that once had a visible trench across it. Near this trench, I
exposed a soil profile where the owner of the property was digging a new
flower bed. Charcoal samples from 0.3 to 0.5 m (1 to 1.7 ft ) below the
surface dated to the period 1287 to 1333 A.D. The amount of refuse deposits
above and below these dates would suggest that the first occupation occurred
about 750 to 950 A.D. and lasted until at least 1400. It is clear that this
part of the site was used after or at a late time period in the history
of the larger shell midden.
In Conclusion Based on my familiarity with other sites in the Gulf of Georgia, this settlement pattern extends beyond my immediate study area in Victoria. This pattern may also have occurred in other time periods at different locations within the Gulf of Georgia region, as there are sites dating from an earlier period located for defense that are on bluffs several hundred meters back from the shoreline. West
Flemming Beach Defensive Site, photographed in 1928 
The change in settlement is not the result of changes
in the landscape or sea level. What situations might have created conditions
that lead to increased warfare and the need for defensive structures in
settlements? Changes might be due to more competition from either a natural
increase of population or decrease of population due to disease or warfare;
to changes in the availability or choice of food sources; or to new technology
and/or social organizations developing to exploit old or new food resources.
The very nature of a defensive village would demand greater social cooperation for group survival. The need to restrict one’s movements may have made necessary a more specialized focus on some food resources. Possibly reef-netting technology for large-scale salmon fishing was a result of these needs. The dating of non-defensive sites in the greater Victoria region suggests settlement expanded significantly within existing sites and to new site localities about 1,700 years ago. And artifacts discovered after this time period show a large-scale increase in the kind related to the fishing industry. This may be the result of a population increase and a reduction in other resources that were more easily over-exploited. We need to undertake more detailed dating and analysis of animal remains, features and artifacts at these sites before any final statements can be made about the role of defensive sites in the history of First Peoples on the southern coast and beyond. Grant Keddie is Curator of Archaeology at the RBCM. Grant Keddie discusses the Finlayson Point Defensive Site during the RBCM Eco-tour, Archaeology: Victoria Discoveries. See Eco-tour listings for dates.
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