Someone Before Us

Someone Before Us was the first book-length publication devoted substantially to the Prehistoric (pre-European Contact) archaeology of New Brunswick. Dr. George Frederick Clarke (GFC) undertook his archaeological work at a time when there was little other such research being conducted in the province. His period of active field research, from the mid-1920s to the early 1960s, fits almost perfectly between the demise of 19th-century, natural-history-style archaeology around 1914 and the development of national and provincial heritage regulations (marking the advent of cultural-resource-management archaeology) during the 1960s. GFC collected and excavated at some of the most widely recognized Prehistoric archaeological sites in New Brunswick for example, Meductic Flat, the Shiktahawk site and the Three Brooks site and many of the sites he investigated were subsequently inundated by waters ponded above hydro-electric dams constructed on the St John and Tobique rivers. For these reasons alone, GFC’s work occupies an important place in the history of archaeological research in Eastern Canada; his publications, notes and artifact collection warrant consideration in the context of modern archaeological research and in light of on-going and proposed developments in the central St John River Valley.