Corridors, Coasts, and Connections: Human dispersal in North America

Session Hosting Format:

in-person session

Organizer(s):

Jack Ives, University of Alberta (Emeritus)
Robin Woywitka, MacEwan University

Contact Email:

Session Description (300 word max):

The questions of when and how human beings entered North America endure as keystone themes of Quaternary science. Although intrinsically archaeological questions, addressing them has spurred significant advances in many social and natural science disciplines for over a century, inquiry of human dispersal into and within the North American landscape also provides a space where Indigenous ways of knowing and scientific principles can intertwine, although this remains a developing practice.

These epistemological connections mirror the geographic, cultural, and biological connections observed in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene archaeological record. What appeared to be a simple story of ice age journeys between two ice sheets has turned into a complex web that ties Asia to America, coast to interior, and most importantly, humans to each other. These bonds also resonate through time, ranging from scientific, narrative, and spiritual pasts into the studies and stories of today.

The aim of this session is to examine the entry of humans into North America and the legacy of that arrival. Studies from archaeological, Indigenous, anthropological, geoscientific, paleoenvironmental, genomic, historic, and any other relevant perspectives are welcome.

Presentations

Possible Mesa and Sluiceway Projectile Points in Northern British Columbia ( Martin Magne )

Presentation format: In-Person

Author(s):

Martin Magne - Ecofoc Consulting BC Limited, Retired Parks Canada
Zebedee Kawei - Ecofor Consulting BC Limited
Joss Clifford - Ecofor Consulting BC Limited
Bob Dawe - Royal Alberta Museum

The Tlingit Homeland Energy Limited Partnership is building the Atlin Hydro Expansion Project in northwestern British Columbia to supply the Yukon energy grid. Ecofor Consulting BC Ltd. has undertaken archaeological impact assessment and mitigation studies within the Surprise Lake - Pine Creek project corridor since 2021, recording 59 new sites, revisiting 8 previously recorded sites, and undertaking mitigative excavations at 32 of these. The assemblages include several with well represented microblade technology, others with Northern Archaic material, and a few with intriguing lanceolate points strongly comparing to Mesa and possibly Sluiceway complexes from Alaska. These complexes are thought to represent a Late Pleistocene/ Early Holocene “Paleoindian” tradition that dates 12,900 to 11,200 years Cal BP. This paper offers morphological and metric data for the THELP project Mesa/Sluiceway projectile points and discusses implications of a possible focus of these complexes in this region.

The Fletcher Site: Another Look at a Cody Period Bison Communal Hunting Site ( Grace Kohut )

Presentation format: In-Person

Author(s):

Grace Kohut - Lifeways of Canada Limited, Calgary, Canada
Vanessa Ockerman - Department of Anthropology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
Tatiana Nomokonova - Department of Anthropology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

The Fletcher Site, a well-known Cody occupation in Southeastern Alberta, is one of the oldest bison communal hunting locations in the province. It has been subject to multiple phases of excavation over the decades, including the earliest headed by Richard Forbis in the 1960’s. Our study, and the topic of this presentation, revisits the materials recovered during excavations from 1963-1964 in which nearly 56,000 fragments of bone have been unassessed until now. Through zooarchaeological analysis, insights into Cody Period peoples’ reliance on bison are explored, including herd demographics, bone modification, and skeletal portion quantification. Additionally, we present an updated radiocarbon date for this site, directly on bone, establishing the Fletcher Site as one of the oldest among Cody Complex sites at 11,600-8,785 cal. BP. These findings represent an important record in understanding Indigenous peoples’ relationship to bison in the Early Holocene.

The Socio-Demographic Implications of Toolstone use in the Postglacial Ice-Free Corridor ( John Ives )

Presentation format: In-Person

Author(s):

John Ives - University of Alberta

One might expect early Clovis or stemmed point populations moving northward into the deglaciating Corridor to create a lithic “founder effect” as toolkits made with high quality Idaho obsidians, Montana cherts and porcellanites, and North Dakota Knife River Flint entered the archaeological record. With one exception, a Montana chert assemblage from Ni’taiitsskaa (DhPg-8, the Lone Fighters site, formerly known as Wally’s Beach), the opposite is true: fluted and stemmed points are overwhelmingly made of locally sourced, generally poorer quality toolstones in southern and central Alberta; tools were heavily maintained. In northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia’s Peace Country, the pattern shifted to extravagant use of regionally available high-quality cherts and quartzites. Despite these patterns, there are isolated early period instances of Alaska, Idaho and Oregon obsidian occurring within Alberta. A contrary trend is apparent by Cody Complex times: Knife River Flint becomes a dominant raw material, even at distances of more than 1,000 km from the source area. Terminal Pleistocene populations entering the Corridor from the south seem quickly to have been relatively isolated in attractive new settings they inhabited permanently, although not without some extraordinary instances of long-distance obsidian transport. The Cody Complex era featured sustained, far-ranging social interactions.