Late Pleistocene Archaeological Discovery Models on the Pacific Coast of North America

ABSTRACT

The Pacific coast of North America is a hypothesized route by which the earliest inhabitants of the Americas moved southwards around the western margin of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet just after the last glacial maximum. To test this hypothesis, we have been using a stepwise process to aid in late Pleistocene archaeological site discovery along the coast. The steps involved include: (1) creating localized sea level curves; (2) generating detailed bare earth digital elevation models; (3) creating archaeological predictive models; (4) ground truthing these models using archaeological prospection; and (5) demonstrating that archaeological materials found date to the late Pleistocene. Here, we consider the use of these steps and how they have been employed to find late Pleistocene archaeological sites along the Pacific Coast of North America.

KEYWORDS:

• Peopling of the Americas
• coastal entry theory
• paleo-coastline reconstruction
• stemmed projectile points

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Wilson Fund at the Center for the Study of the First Americans, Tula Foundation, and Hakai Institute for organizing and supporting the Stemmed Point Workshop and putting us all in the same room to talk about our research and compare results. Many archaeologists, First Nations members, students, and scientists have worked in the field and laboratory to help pull together the results we present here. We are grateful to them all.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Duncan McLaren is affiliated with the Hakai Institute, the University of Victoria, and Cordillera Archaeology. Recently his work has focused on patterns of long-term land use and occupation on the central coast of British Columbia, northern Vancouver Island, and Stave Watershed.

Daryl Fedje is affiliated with the Hakai Institute and the University of Victoria. His work has focused on late Pleistocene environments and archaeology on Haida Gwaii, Banff National Park, and most recently Quadra Island.

Quentin Mackie is an associate professor at the University of Victoria. He is a specialist in the archaeology of the Northwest Coast culture area with a particular interest in late Pleistocene and early Holocene time periods.

Loren Davis is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Oregon State University. His research focuses on early archaeological occupations in Idaho, the Oregon coast, and Baja California.

Jon Erlandson is the director of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History and professor emeritus at the University of Oregon. He has conducted research in California, Oregon, Alaska, and Iceland.

Alisha Gauvreau is a PhD student at the University of Victoria. Her dissertation research is focused on investigations at the Triquet Island site (EkTb-9) on the central British Columbia coast.

Colton Vogelaar recently completed his MA at the University of Victoria in the Department of Anthropology. His research focused on site discovery models on Quadra Island, British Columbia.

ORCID

Duncan McLaren http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8319-8881

Quentin Mackie http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4231-0678

Additional information

Funding

Funding for the Stemmed Point Workshop, during which the writing of the paper was planned, was provided by the provided by the Wilson Seminar Series (Center for the Study of the First Americas at Texas A&M University) and the Hakai Institute.