The following is contact information on Darcy Mathews
(MA Candidate) University of Victoria, Department of Anthropology
Supervisor: Quentin Mackie
Topical Areas of Interest: Burial cairns, mortuary theory and monumentality, social identity, wetsite archaeology, Culture history of the Northern Strait of Georgia
Geographical Areas of Interest: Greater Victoria, the northern Strait of Georgia

Working Title of Thesis: The Late Prehistoric Mortuary Landscape of Southern Vancouver Island"
Burial cairns on southern Vancouver Island are a short-lived and localized phenomenon of the Late Prehistoric Period, occurring between 1500-1000 years before present. Early historic accounts tell of cairns occurring in the hundreds in the Victoria area, however, burial cairns have received little archaeological attention. Large intact burial cairn sites in Metchosin have been recently inventoried and these sites form the basis of Darcy’s research into Late Prehistoric social relationships. By examining the regional distribution of cairn sites, the location of cairns within the landscapes, and the layout of individual cairns, Darcy is exploring how the ancestral Straits Salish peoples may have constructed, maintained, and contested their social relationships using burial cairns. Based on ongoing field research, he theorizes that the arrangement and use of mortuary space and the structure of individual cairns are the material expressions of changing social identity at the regional, local and site-specific levels.