Abstract

Three (accelerator mass spectrometry - AMS) 14C dates on butchered bison bones, together with other available lines of evidence from the lower stratigraphic units of the 'Buffalo Pit ', at Engigstciak, on the Firth River, northern Yukon, converge to support the notion that a form of bison procurement was being implemented by hunters along portions of the Yukon Coastal Plain between 9 800 and 9 400 B.P., i.e., in early Holocene times. These data allow us to stress the importance of the site in our understanding of cultural history in this region and to contemplate the possibility of investigating further poorly known aspects of cultural adaptive systems in a northwestern Arctic environment shortly after the end of the late glacial.