Charles Edward Borden

Charles Edward Borden , also Charles Ernest Borden or Carl Borden (born May 15, 1905 in New York , † December 25, 1978 in Vancouver ) was an American-Canadian German studies scholar and archaeologist of German descent, known as the 'father of archeology in British Columbia' applies and has made an outstanding contribution to the prehistory and early history of the province in which he lived from 1939. The system used to designate all archaeological sites in Canada goes back to him and is therefore called the Borden system . In 1945 he undertook his first excavation. The most important of the sites he excavated was the Milliken site in Fraser Canyon , the oldest findings of which are around 9,500 years old. At that time it was the oldest known settlement in Canada .

life and work

Charles Edward Borden was born in New York on May 15, 1905. His mother was from Germany, his father, probably John Harvey Borden, had graduated from Yale University Medical School , but died in 1908. The mother took "Carl" - the name Charles preferred - and his younger sister to Germany. Due to the approaching World War I , only German was spoken there. His stepfather became Wilhelm Friedrich Rück (or Rieck), who was a city architect.

Carl first went to the preschool class of the boys' school in Eppendorf, then from 1913 to 1922 he attended the high school in Bergedorf near Hamburg , where the family lived. He left high school as a student at Obersecunda on October 23, 1922. He then began an agricultural apprenticeship, but decided at the age of 17 to go back to the USA . Working in the galley saved him the cost of the crossing; he arrived in New York practically penniless. In the middle of the war, his American birth certificate was met with suspicion by immigration authorities.

First, Borden tried to learn English again. He worked for a mining company in New York State . He then moved to Los Angeles , where he worked as a photo engraver , and when he was 23 he enrolled at the University of California for German literature . In 1932 he completed his studies with a bachelor's degree . In Berkeley he obtained his Masters in 1933 , then his Ph.D. in German studies , plus a degree in botany in 1937.

In Berkeley he met his future wife Alice V. Witkin. In 1938 he, his wife, and their son John Harvey moved to Oregon . He taught German at Reed College in Portland . He was appointed Assistant Professor from the University of British Columbia , a position he took up in the fall of 1939. The second son Richard Keith was born in Vancouver in 1944. It wasn't until 1972 that Borden took on Canadian citizenship.

Borden had already taken part in archaeological excavations as a student near Hamburg. A turning point is the fact that in 1943 he read Philip Drucker's Archaeological Survey of the Northern Northeast Coast . Lacking literature on the theory of drama at the university that had hired him to study German, Borden now read everything he could find on the archeology of British Columbia.

He found remains of camps near the University of British Columbia campus when he was investigating in 1945. In 1946 he found piles of mussels that had been piled up when a cellar was being expanded. There, at the Locarno Beach site , he dug until 1948, when the site was destroyed. The Great Fraser Midden was the only known site of its kind in the Vancouver area. Borden found that the material deposited was very different. A few kilometers upstream he found another clam mound known as the Marpole site . He was also only able to document these in a hurry before construction vehicles destroyed them.

Borden tried to set up a rescue program for archaeological sites in the fast-growing city. Neither Canada nor the province showed the slightest interest in their early history, so that Borden had to work with his own and small research funds. He could not convince any of the students at the university to take part in his excavations and research.

Therefore he turned to the University of Washington , more precisely to Professor Erna Gunther . The two set up a teaching program for the students in Seattle and carried out an initial trial campaign. In June 1950 they worked on the whale site at Point Roberts , in late summer Borden was digging at the protohistoric Carrier Indian house depression near Chinlac, north of Vanderhoof in the Dakelh area . It was the largest village in the area with extensive trade links. Borden found glass beads, metal objects, and even a coin from the Chinese Song Dynasty (960–1279). This place was destroyed by Chilcotin around 1745 . Emergency excavations dominated the picture from the start. So he and students examined the Tweedsmuir Park lake system before it was flooded.

Finally, Borden was able to persuade his university to create the position of an anthropologist who should deal with ethnological and ethnohistorical questions. In addition to German studies, he also ran archeology courses. Although the Department of Anthropology and Sociology grew rapidly, it wasn't freed from the double burden until 1969, a year before his retirement. He got a full position as an archaeologist.

Borden spent many summers and even winters in the field and was often only able to put his notes down at night. In 1970 he retired and his wife died in the same year. Borden threw himself into the fields, but in 1973 he suffered a serious heart attack.

In 1976 he married a second time. His wife Hala (Helga) saw to it that he was relieved of many things that were detrimental to his health, but while contributing to Roy Carlson's work on Northwest Coast art, he suffered a stroke and died on December 25, 1978 in Vancouver.

The system used to designate all archaeological sites in Canada goes back to Borden and is therefore called the Borden system .

From 1956 to 1962 he wrote the section Notes and News of the journal American Antiquity , from 1963 to 1969 he wrote for the Encyclopedia Britannica . One of his greatest successes came in 1969 when, after ten years of work, the provincial parliament voted to pass the Archaeological and Historical Sites Protection Act . His most important colleague was Wilson Duff from the British Columbia Provincial Museum . The Archaeological Sites Advisory Board was created , with Howard Duff as Chairman until 1967. He was followed by Borden until 1977, who resigned under a new law on archeology. In 1970 a provincial archaeologist was appointed for the first time.

Borden's contribution to the creation of the Archaeological Society of British Columbia can hardly be overestimated. He was proud to be in close contact with several families on the reserve and was pleased with their support. With his students, many of whom embarked on a scientific career, he excavated a longhouse there.

In 1967 he received the Centennial Medal for his services to research , followed in 1977 by the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal . In 1975 he received an honorary degree of Literarum Doctor from the University of British Columbia, followed in 1978, together with Norman Emerson, the Smith-Wintemberg Award from the Canadian Archaeological Association . Emerson began digging at the Little John Site in the Yukon in 2002 and, like Borden, established close contact with the local First Nation .

Works

• Preliminary report on the archeology of Point Gray, British Columbia , Victoria 1947.
• An ancient Coast Indian Village in Southern British Columbia , in: Indian Time 2 (1955) 9-19.
• Results of Two Archaeological Surveys in the East Kootenay Region of British Columbia , in: Research Studies of the State College of Washington 24 (1956) 73-104 ISSN  0363-3829 .
• DjRi 3, An Early Site in the Fraser Canyon, British Columbia , in: National Museum of Canada. Bulletin 162 (1960) 101-118 (written 1957).
• West Coast Crossties with Alaska , in: John M. Campbell (Ed.): Prehistoric Cultural Relations between the Arctic and Temperate Zones of North America (= Arctic Institute of North America. Technical Paper, 11). Arctic Institute of North America, Montreal 1962, pp. 9-19, 170-181.
• Origins and development of early Northwest Coast culture to about 3000 BC , National Museums of Canada, Ottawa 1975.

literature

• The Early Period in Northwest Coast Prehistory CAA / SAA Symposium Organized by Roy L. Carlson in Honor of CE Borden , in: Canadian Journal of Archeology 3 (1979) 145-231.

Web links

• Charles E. Borden Fund , PDF
• Roy L. Carlson: Charles E. Borden , Canadian Archaeological Association, or Charles E. Borden , Association canadienne d'archéologie, Simon Fraser University
• Charles E. Borden. 1905-1978 (English). Archived from the original on June 3, 2010 ; accessed on January 22, 2014 . 

See also

• History of the Coastal Salish
• First Nations history
• History of British Columbia
• History of Washington

Remarks

1. ↑ I am grateful to Ms. Monika Dahl from Hansa-Gymnasium for this information and more about Bden's school days.
2. ↑ In 1927 he lived at 1101 Glen Arbor Avenue.
3. ↑ Tragic Chinlac still shunned , Vancouver Sun, November 9, 2007 ( Memento of the original from November 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.