American Antiquity ( IF 2.7 ) Pub Date : 2024-05-23 , DOI: 10.1017/aaq.2024.26 Bill Angelbeck , Chris Springer , Johnny Jones , Glyn Williams-Jones , Michael C. Wilson
Among Líĺwat people of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia, an oral tradition relays how early ancestors used to ascend Qẃelqẃelústen, or Mount Meager. The account maintains that those climbers could see the ocean, which is not the case today, because the mountain is surrounded by many other high peaks, and the Strait of Georgia is several mountain ridges to the west. However, the mountain is an active and volatile volcano, which last erupted circa 2360 cal BP. It is also the site of the largest landslide in Canadian history, which occurred in 2010. Given that it had been a high, glacier-capped mountain throughout the Holocene, much like other volcanoes along the coastal range, we surmise that a climber may have reasonably been afforded a view of the ocean from its prior heights. We conducted viewshed analyses of the potential mountain height prior to its eruption and determined that one could indeed view the ocean if the mountain were at least 950 m higher than it is today. This aligns with the oral tradition, indicating that it may be over 2,400 years old, and plausibly in the range of 4,000 to 9,000 years old when the mountain may have been at such a height.
中文翻译:
Líĺwat 登山者可以从 Qẃelqẃelústen 山顶看到海洋:通过米格山火山群在距今 2360 年喷发前的视域分析来评估口头传统
在不列颠哥伦比亚省内陆高原的 Líĺwat 人中,有一个口头传统讲述了早期祖先如何攀登 Qẃelqẃelústen 或米格尔山。该报道认为,那些登山者可以看到海洋,但今天的情况并非如此,因为这座山被许多其他高山包围,而乔治亚海峡是西面的几座山脊。然而,这座山是一座活跃且不稳定的火山,最近一次喷发大约是在距今 2360 年左右。它也是 2010 年发生的加拿大历史上最大山体滑坡的发生地。考虑到它在整个全新世都是一座被冰川覆盖的高山,就像沿海地区的其他火山一样,我们推测登山者可能已经合理地可以从先前的高度看到海洋的景色。我们对其喷发前的潜在山脉高度进行了视域分析,并确定如果这座山比现在高至少 950 米,人们确实可以看到海洋。这与口头传说相符,表明它可能已有 2,400 多年的历史,并且当这座山可能处于如此高度时,其历史可能在 4,000 至 9,000 岁之间。