Toward a Dated Chronicle of Events in the Oral Record of the Tsimshian, Gitksan, and Nisga’, 4200–1200 BP

Abstract

The historical relevance of adawx, the oral histories of the Tsimshian and Gitksan, is frequently dismissed with the predetermined conclusion that they are essentially fictitious. This chapter begins with the alternative presumption, namely that the adawx are a record of major events in the history of Northwest Coast Nations. Four decades of research, with a view to identifying these historical events, identifying their inherent sequence, and using archaeological and geological evidence to date them, has resulted in a chronicle of major events and the identification of key periods in the Holocene era. This chapter identifies and dates the major events in one of these periods, a mid- to late Holocene period of massive migration into and within Northwest Coast Nations. This period corresponds to the Meghalayan age that the International Commission on Stratigraphy in 2018 officially added to the International Geologic Time Scale.