Archaeology and Human Habitation
People in Ottawa are once again impassioned about the fate of a wooded area that is slated to be developed for housing. The Ottawa Valley is about as green as it gets and all those forested and wetland areas are vitally important for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the health of the environment and those living within that environment, human beings included.
The Ottawa area has seen a number of encroachments on forested areas, including the greenbelt surrounding the City of Ottawa.
Growth in population numbers, more working people determined to own their own homes, and homes that are less expensive in suburban areas than closer in to the city, let alone within the city proper, propel that growth in new housing starts, and the clearing of tracts of forested land. The City of Ottawa has given its approval, and so has the Ontario Ministry that overlooks and gives permission to new developments.
A contested area in Kanata, an already approved building site, is being held up to a kind of social ransom by nearby residents who resent that their urban forest is set to be disturbed, to be extinguished and the animals that live there and the wonderful recreational opportunities that have been available to them are to be replaced by more housing. The tedium of it all. More than that, though, it is destructive to the natural environment.
And as such, it destroys something deep and meaningful for us all, our close and appreciative proximity to nature. But as populations increase this is what happens. The people who live in the areas of Kanata and who appreciate their homes and their proximity to nature that is being disturbed once again are living on land that was once comparable what they're attempting so strenuously now to protect.
They have their homes built on formerly forested areas, but at the time their homes were built there was no one there to protest the gradual disappearance of yet another valued forested area. And now, in their desperation to prevail, they have enlisted the support of archaeologists. One who is convinced he has found an important area representing pre-European-contact artefacts at the Beaver Pond Forest site.
Artefacts in fact that are so elemental in nature as to have presumably seen use once at most, as a handy means of achieving something. Artefacts, meaning stone, quartz, with a sharp edge that might have been used to scrape something down, then discarded. Just as any casual visitor to the area, curious about something might have used a shard of stone. And of course just about anywhere one looks or digs it is likely that a primitive human once existed.
Another, more seasoned archaeologist after having carefully undertaken extensive digs in the very same area reached the conclusion that there was nothing whatever of archaeological value to be found: "We found nothing prehistoric, even though it would have been interesting, actually, and a lot less trouble for me, to have found something", he said.
The "expedient" tools may be nothing more than a figment of someone's hopeful imagination; a minuscule proportion of those "tools" may have been 'modified' for use, the others simply picked up as is, and used briefly, then discarded. One needs a great deal of fervent imagination in this case. And all for the prevention of uprooting a lovely green, live-giving swath of trees and animal habitation.
To give way to human habitation. On the other hand, in Fort Erie, Ontario, in a working gravel pit already well known to paleontologists as a prime area for fossils of extinct primitive organisms, a near-perfect 417-million-year-old fossil of a creature resembling an ancient scorpion has been found. The quarry, despite its reputation, has never been closed down.
We are forever discovering indications of our predecessors, both human and other types of organisms, but life at the present goes on, as it must. We should preserve what we can and what is needed and feasible, and use common sense to resign ourselves to the fact that what is needed at the present time and for the future to support our human populations be done and be done with it.
The Ottawa area has seen a number of encroachments on forested areas, including the greenbelt surrounding the City of Ottawa.
Growth in population numbers, more working people determined to own their own homes, and homes that are less expensive in suburban areas than closer in to the city, let alone within the city proper, propel that growth in new housing starts, and the clearing of tracts of forested land. The City of Ottawa has given its approval, and so has the Ontario Ministry that overlooks and gives permission to new developments.
A contested area in Kanata, an already approved building site, is being held up to a kind of social ransom by nearby residents who resent that their urban forest is set to be disturbed, to be extinguished and the animals that live there and the wonderful recreational opportunities that have been available to them are to be replaced by more housing. The tedium of it all. More than that, though, it is destructive to the natural environment.
And as such, it destroys something deep and meaningful for us all, our close and appreciative proximity to nature. But as populations increase this is what happens. The people who live in the areas of Kanata and who appreciate their homes and their proximity to nature that is being disturbed once again are living on land that was once comparable what they're attempting so strenuously now to protect.
They have their homes built on formerly forested areas, but at the time their homes were built there was no one there to protest the gradual disappearance of yet another valued forested area. And now, in their desperation to prevail, they have enlisted the support of archaeologists. One who is convinced he has found an important area representing pre-European-contact artefacts at the Beaver Pond Forest site.
Artefacts in fact that are so elemental in nature as to have presumably seen use once at most, as a handy means of achieving something. Artefacts, meaning stone, quartz, with a sharp edge that might have been used to scrape something down, then discarded. Just as any casual visitor to the area, curious about something might have used a shard of stone. And of course just about anywhere one looks or digs it is likely that a primitive human once existed.
Another, more seasoned archaeologist after having carefully undertaken extensive digs in the very same area reached the conclusion that there was nothing whatever of archaeological value to be found: "We found nothing prehistoric, even though it would have been interesting, actually, and a lot less trouble for me, to have found something", he said.
The "expedient" tools may be nothing more than a figment of someone's hopeful imagination; a minuscule proportion of those "tools" may have been 'modified' for use, the others simply picked up as is, and used briefly, then discarded. One needs a great deal of fervent imagination in this case. And all for the prevention of uprooting a lovely green, live-giving swath of trees and animal habitation.
To give way to human habitation. On the other hand, in Fort Erie, Ontario, in a working gravel pit already well known to paleontologists as a prime area for fossils of extinct primitive organisms, a near-perfect 417-million-year-old fossil of a creature resembling an ancient scorpion has been found. The quarry, despite its reputation, has never been closed down.
We are forever discovering indications of our predecessors, both human and other types of organisms, but life at the present goes on, as it must. We should preserve what we can and what is needed and feasible, and use common sense to resign ourselves to the fact that what is needed at the present time and for the future to support our human populations be done and be done with it.
Labels: Heritage, Human Relations, Ottawa, Politics of Convenience
posted by Pieface | 6:54 PM
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