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April 2025
Jay Hilsden and Camilla Speller presented their research at the Society for American Archaeology meetings in Denver, Colorado April 23-27th. Jay presented on his Masters research entitled “Flatfish in Focus: Developing a ZooMS Reference Database to Identify Archaeological Flatfish on the Pacific Northwest Coast” while Camilla presented collaborative research on “The Origin of the Fuegian Dog: Reassessment of Taxonomic Identity and Domestication Process Using Whole Genome Sequencing”.
Jay Hilsden Presenting at the SAAs
April 2025
On April 4th, Camilla was the keynote speaker at the Université Laval’s ‘Biomolecular Archaeology Research Day’, presenting a talk on “Biomolecular Archaeology and Indigenous Fisheries: Uncovering the Deep History of Salmon Stewardship”
April 2025
ADaPT Master's Student Max Miner was invited by the UBC Center for Indigenous Fisheries to give a talk on his ongoing work with Gitga'at First Nation at the first annual CIF Indigenous Learners' Gathering. The talk, Learning from Lax Kwil Ts'iit: Research, Education, and Knowledge Sharing at 'The Place that Squirts', Clamstown summarized an ongoing collaborative field school program developed by Gitga'at First Nation, Max and collaborators at SFU, and the students and staff of the Hartley Bay School.
Max Milner Presenting at the first annual CIF Indigenous Leaners' Gathering.
March-April 2025
Supported by her National Geographic Explorer grant, Dr. Atmore recently traveled to Hokkaido to kick off her postdoctoral work. She conducted tissue sampling of Pacific herring in collaboration with the Hokkaido Research Organization and met collaborators in person for the first time. The team was also able to visit a herring hatchery, where larvae are raised on land before being released into the Sea of Japan. Photo: Inside an old herring camp longhouse now located at the Historical Village of Hokkaido in Sapporo.
February 2025
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship is a prestigious award offered as part of the EU's Horizon Europe programme. Dr. Atmore has been awarded a three-year fellowship that will be hosted at the Danish Technical University in Silkeborg, Denmark, under the supervision of Dr. Dorte Bekkevold. Part of this fellowship will involve an outgoing phase in which Dr. Atmore will work in the ADaPT lab at UBC. The project, named "PHANTOM", will bring together an interdisciplinary research team to address the question of historical and recent population declines in Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) in relation to climatic and anthropogenic forcing, and will culminate with the development of genetic tools and policy advice for Pacific herring management that integrates ancient DNA and local traditional knowledge.
December 2024
A big congratulations to graduate student Jay Hilsden, who has recently received a Peter Wall Legacy Graduate Student Award for his research creating a ZooMS database of flatfish on the BC coast. Jay's MA research will help to document the diversity of flatfish in BC's archaeological record to support reconstructing marine environments prior to the start of colonization and commercial fishing. Check out Jay's news profile here.
Jay Hilsden (Center) with UBC President Benoit-Antoine Bacon (Right)
November 2024
Dr. Lane Atmore has received a National Geographic Level II Explorer Grant, which will support fieldwork associated with historical ecology research of the Pacific herring in Japan and Alaska in partnership with the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. Part of the grant will also go towards film scouting for a documentary short about the history of herring in Japan and the role archaeology can play in cultural revival! Check Out Lane's Explorer page here!
October 2024
Dr. Lane Atmore has received a prestigious Banting Fellowship to support her postdoctoral work in the ADaPT lab untangling the co-evolution of herring and people in Hokkaido, Japan. Using ancient DNA and historical ecology, Lane will work with researchers and Indigenous communities in Japan to assess the impacts of industrial fishing on the famous Sakhalin-Hokkaido Pacific herring stock. Using ancient DNA will also allow the exploration of what the herring stock looked like over the course of thousands of years of sustainable exploitation prior to the 20th-century stock collapse. We look forward to seeing what this exciting research unveils!
On October 4th, the ADαPT Lab competed in SFU Archaeology's Palaeo-Olympics, participating in many exciting paleolithic-themed events including spear and atlatl throwing. While we faced a tough defeat, we look forward to another tight competition next year! Thanks to the SFU Archaeology Students Association for putting on a great event.
September 2024
Congratulations to ADαPT Undergraduate Research Assistant Kendra Leishman for her acceptance to McGill University's MSc program in Earth and Planetary Sciences. Kendra will be joining the McGill Isotope Biogeochemistry Lab (MIBL) in January 2025 under the supervision of Dr. Peter Douglas.
Ancient Beer! ADαPT PhD candidate and UBC Lab of Archaeology lab technician Lindsey Paskulin recently published exciting shotgun proteomics results in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Her work characterizes the protein composition of beerstone, a residue produced during the ale brewing process. Read the article here: Leave no stone unturned: Exploring the metaproteome of beerstone for the identification of archaeological beer production
August 2024
Mammoths on Vancouver Island! SFU Archaeology PhD candidate Laura Termes' recent research provides a new resolution on the timeframe mammoths inhabited Vancouver Island, over 24,000 years earlier than previously known. ADαPT was delighted to assist with ZooMS identification to confirm species for this project. Check out the exciting media release here: When mammoths roamed Vancouver Island: SFU and Royal BC Museum delve into beasts’ history in our region.
Our lab group had a bittersweet send-off lunch this month for Dr. Courtneay Hopper. Thanks to Courtneay for spending the last year with us as a post-doc. Safe travels and best wishes on your bright career ahead at the University of Alberta!
Congratulations to Meaghan Efford alongside ADαPT lab members Jay Hilsden, Jennifer Zhu, Pengpeng Chen, Lindsey Paskulin, and Camilla Speller for their recent publication, "A Fish-Focused Menu: An Interdisciplinary Reconstruction of Ancestral Tsleil-Waututh Diets". Read their Journal of Ethnobiology article, here.
See also the insightful related news story from The Narwhal, written by Steph Kwetásel’wet Wood, "What dinner in Burrard Inlet looked like 500 years ago."
July 2024
Doctors Courtneay Hopper and Camilla Speller along with colleagues Louisa Hutten and Dr. Emma Loftus were recently awarded a Social Sciences Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant (SSHRC IDG), for research entitled "Disentangling the diets of early South African food producers through biomolecules preserved in ancient pottery". The project seeks to understand how archaeological herders and farmers in South Africa responded to environmental change, migration, and socio-economic shifts in the past. Similar forces now threaten the future of modern low-intensity herding and farming. This research will contribute to the broader debates on climate-resilient landscape and human resilience while empowering low-intensity food producers to use traditional solutions to solve current problems
Postdoc Dr. Courtneay Hopper has also recently been hired as an Assistant Professor by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta and will begin in early 2025. Huge congratulations Courtneay!
June 2024
Our lab team had another wonderful National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21st, celebrating with kind and generous xʷməθkʷəy̓əm hosts. Thank you for inviting us to your celebration!
May 2024
Congratulations to Hannah P. Wellman and ADαPT lab members Max Miner, Zara Evans, and Camilla Speller for their recent publication. This piece helps us to gain an understanding of Indigenous Human-Whale relationships on the pre-contact Oregan coast using ZooMS and aDNA analyses. Read the paper in The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, here.
April 2024
In April, ADαPT graduate researcher Nicholas Jacobs presented a paper at the Society for American Archaeology 89th annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. His paper, on pre-contact Salmonidae abundance at a site on Washington's Skagit River delta, is unrelated to his work with ADaPT, but went over very well.
Postdoc Courtneay Hopper and undergraduate student Kendra Leishman both shared research at the SAA session 'Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective'. Courtneay presented "Paleoproteomic perspectives on subsistence decisions: Preliminary results from Ha Makotoko, Lesotho", while Kendra's work was presented by co-author and professor Dr. Aleksa Alaica, titled "Material Wealth and Herding Culture: A Pastoralist Perspective on Divine Lordship from Pashash, Peru."
March 2024
The ADαPT lab team took a field trip to the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary, where we had the opportunity to meet several different species of birds and learn about the migratory patterns of birds native to British Columbia.
For more information regarding the species of birds that we observed at Reifel Bird Sanctuary, check out our ebird Checklist: (https://ebird.org/canada/checklist/S163618379#share-checklist)
January 2024
Max Miner spent a week in Prince Rupert and Hartley Bay, kicking off the new year with a series of clam workshops and community research presentations with collaborators and partners from Gitga’at First Nation, Simon Fraser University, and Coast Mountain College. It was very cold but a lot of fun! Work was supported by the UBC Indigenous Strategic Initiatives Fund, Gitga’at Ocean and Lands Department, and Simon Fraser University.
September 2023
Lindsey Paskulin and Camilla Speller presented at the International Symposium for Biomolecular Archaeology conference in Tartu, Estonia. See the ISBA 10 program here.
August 2023
Congratulations to Meaghan Efford and ADαPT lab members for their contribution to understanding Indigenous salmon fisheries at təmtəmíxʷtən, an ancestral Tsleil-Waututh settlement in modern day Burrard Inlet, Vancouver. We feel privileged to have worked alongside Meaghan and Tsleil-Waututh community members to undertake this analysis. Read the paper in PLoSOne here.
May 2023
Jay Hilsden received the Russ Patrick Arts Undergraduate Student Research Award, given to undergraduate students in the faculty of Arts to recognize achievements in research writing, for his research entitled "Preliminary Problems with Pleuronectiformes: Interim ZooMS Report on the Analysis and Characterization of Pacific Flatfish".
Congratulations to our recently graduated students, Jay Hilsden, Kara Ren, Pengpeng Chen! Pengpeng Chen was recognized by CASCA with the Outstanding Graduating Student Award, and Jay Hilsden received the Julie Cruikshank Prize for the best paper submitted to an anthropology/archaeology course for the 2022-2023 academic year.
Kara Ren and Dr. Camilla Speller
Dr. Camilla Speller and Pengpeng Chen
Pengpeng Chen received Outstanding Graduating Student Award
Apr 2023
Our PhD Candidate Lindsey Paskulin presented at the SAA conference in Portland! Her talk entitled "Taking a Closer Look: Biomolecular Insights to Foodways among the Moche of North Coastal Peru" explored cuisine as an expression of identity, and discussed how the analysis of ancient proteins preserved in ancient cooking pots (ollas) molecular can help to reconstruct past recipes.
Oct 2022
Francesca Standeven and Gwyn Dahlquist-Axe are two visiting students from Bradford Archaeology and Forensics. They aim to recover genomes of oral bacteria in ancient dental calculus dating to the Industrial Revolution.
Kayla Shaganash, a visiting student from the University of Manitoba, is conducting ZooMS research in Manitoba in our lab.
Our lab joined the EcoEvo Symposium in Squamish on October 23rd. Dr. Speller gave the closing talk “Digging for Biodiversity: the power of archaeological archives for reconstructing past environments and ecosystems”.
Francesca Standeven and Gwyn Dahlquist-Axe
Kayla Shaganash
Our lab team at the EcoEvo Symposium
Sep 2022
Musqueam Indian Band and the Laboratory of Archaeology received the Indigenous Strategic Initiatives (ISI) Fund on project "Developing new platforms for reciprocal training between Musqueam (xwməθkwəy̓əm) Indian Band (MIB) and the Laboratory of Archaeology (LOA)". To learn more about the project, please check: link
Camilla, Aeli Black (Musqueam Archaeology Department), Jay, Pengpeng, Max and Kendra.
Aug 2022
Our students had a great time today at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum gathering samples for ZooMS database building.
Jay, Max and Doris sampling at the Beaty. Happy faces!
July 2022
Our student Pengpeng Chen was featured on China Central Television (CCTV) as part of the excavation at the World Heritage Site, Huanbei Shang City, the ancient capital of the middle Shang Dynasty. Link to full video: https://t.co/yDh4h6ynn3
June 2022
Our lab team had a great time celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day with our incredible hosts Musqueam. It was great to reconnect with collaborators and community members on this land where Musqueam people have lived since time immemorial.
May 2022
Max Miner was awarded an Ocean Leaders grant to coordinate a fieldschool in partnership with Coast Mountain Community College in Gitga'at traditional territory. This fieldschool, led by Dr Bryn Letham, and in partnership with the Gitga'at First Nation, will investigate the history and culture of Indigenous peoples of Northwestern BC.
April 2022
Lindsey Paskulin and Camilla Speller attended the UK Archaeological Science Conference in Aberdeen from April 20-22nd, presenting posters on recent ancient proteomics work.
March 2022
Lindsey Paskulin was awarded a Student and ECR Research Support Award by the Society for Archaeological Sciences (SAS) for her upcoming fieldwork at the Mayan archaeological site of Ka’kabish, Belize.
Camilla Speller was a UBC Killam Accelerator Research Fellowship to support ongoing research on Indigenous fisheries resources management.
Feb 2022
Max Miner presented his MSc research at the CCFFR-SCL Annual Conference 2022 in Vancouver, Feb 24-26th. The CCFFR-SCL theme this year was "Aquatic Systems Stewardship: Crisis, Change, and Cooperation".
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