Fossils are exceptionally rare in archeological sites. A few examples have been documented from sites in Europe; none has previously been reported from Canada. 

An Interior Salish (Nlaka'pamux) archeological site in the Fraser River canyon north of Yale in central British Columbia has yielded an assemblage of projectile points, scrapers and knives of basalt and nephrite which appears to date from the last 2000 years, but it may be as old as 5000 years. Among these lithic tools lay an unexpected prize -- a complete articulated trilobite 3 cm long, preserved in a peculiar fashion -- on a thick round nodule formed of parallel needle-like calcite crystals oriented perpendicular to the fossil. The trilobite is well preserved and readily identifiable as Labiostria, a rather obscure Late Cambrian trilobite known only from a few localities in western North America.

This trilobite could not have been picked up anywhere near the Fraser River or, indeed, from any locality in central British Columbia where the oldest rocks and fossils are Devonian in age. Cambrian rocks and fossils are widespread in the province, but only in the easternmost portion that was part of Laurentia, geological North America.

A rich assemblage of Upper Cambrian trilobites occurs at a single site on Tanglefoot Creek in the Hughes Range, in the south-eastern part of the province near Cranbrook. Virtually all trilobites found here are complete specimens preserved in the centre of individual wafers composed of needle-like crystals of calcite. The second most abundant trilobite in this fauna is Labiostria westropi, a species that is known only from one other site -- the archeological site on the Fraser River.

In all likelihood, the Fraser River trilobite was picked up from among the pebbles in Tanglefoot Creek hundreds or possibly thousands of years ago by a native traveler; presumably because it had curious and intriguing markings. It might have been considered a talisman, but in any case it must have been carried or traded person to person across the Columbia Mountains and the entire Okanagan Plateau; eventually ending up at the site on the Fraser River north of Yale -- 500 km away.

Further reading:

Chatterton, B.D.E. and Ludvigsen, R.
1998:  Upper Steptoean (Upper Cambrian) trilobites from the McKay Group of southeastern British Columbia, Canada. The Paleontological Society Memoir 49.