Abstract

Discovered in 1990, a potentially old site located on a marine terrace of the Goldthwait Sea was the subject of a particular investigative approach because of its temporal placement within the cultural history of the region. Because the site was directly under a proposed section of Highway 20 behind Rimouski, a salvage operation, sponsored by the Ministére des Transports du Québec, was conducted in August and September 1991.This project involved a multi-disciplinary team composed of archaeologists, as well as a palynologist, pedologist, geomorphologist, geologist, and a physicist. Of the several objectives, the dating of the site was essential because of the lack of relevant dates for the Plano Tradition in Québec and in the Northeast. The archaeo-magnetism approach, undertaken prior to the beginning of the dig, was chosen to discover areas on the site that can be related to features like hearths. We will describe the experiment, the results and present some considerations about archaeo-magnetism for future research. Finally, a brief presentation of the archaeological findings will follow.