Definition:
Bear Cove is an important Northwest Coast site of the Archaic period, located on an intermittent creek on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, at the mouth of the Hardy Bay.
The earliest phase deposit at Bear Cove coincides with a shell midden. A later context, dated between 8000 and 4000 B.P, included artifacts such as flakes and other tools made from beach pebbles. Faunal remains included salmon, rockfish, sea and land mammal bones, birds. As it happens in other contemporary sites, such as Namu, Hidden Falls and Ground Hog Bay, Bear Cove doesn’t show yet the predominance of salmon exploitation over other resources. Other fish remains, such as rockfish, for example, greatly outnumber salmon bones.
Archaeologists suggested that the site represented a special purpose site, maybe specialized in the hunting and processing sea mammals such as porpoise, dolphin, seal lion, seal and, in smaller proportion, sea otters. Land mammals included deer, dogs and river otter.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Northwest Coast, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Ames Kenneth M. and Herbert D.G. Maschner, 1999, Peoples of the Northwest Coast. Their Archaeology and Prehistory, Thames and Hudson, London
Carlson, Roy L., 1979, The Early Component at Bear Cove. Canadian Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 3, pp.177-194.
Carlson, Roy L., 1998, Coastal British Columbia in the Light of North Pacific Maritime Adaptations, Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 23-35