Introduction

Information Sources

Pleistocene Archaeology

Stone Tools and Lithic Sites of the Holocene

Late Precontact Sites

Historic Sites

Inuvialuit Sites

Sites of Unknown Affiliation

Resource Evaluation

Appendix I Cultural Sites

Bibliography

STONE TOOLS AND LITHIC SITES OF THE HOLOCENE

The Holocene Epoch is the name given to the "wholly recent" period of time which extends from about 10,000 years ago to the present. By the beginning of the Holocene Epoch, the last Ice Age was coming to an end, many of the large mammals like the woolly mammoth had become extinct, and a new lithic technology (a technology of creating tools from stone) appeared in the northern Yukon, perhaps along with a new group of hunters moving into the area from eastern Siberia (McClellan 1987). "Lithic" simply means "of stone" and is used by archaeologists to refer to a technology and also to sites where stone artifacts or debris from their manufacture are the main type of object found.

In order to understand the terminology used by archaeologists, it is important to describe some aspects of the technology of stone tool making. There are two basic kinds of lithic technology, one which involves chipping or flaking stone, the other which is based on grinding or polishing stone. In the chipping stone technology, pressure or a blow to a stone core detaches a fragment called a blade or flake. Once a flake or blade tool has been detached it can be used directly or retouched using finely controlled pressure to remove smaller flakes and achieve a desired shape or sharp edge. Tiny blades or flakes made from a core are called microblades. A biface is a flake tool which has been retouched or worked on both sides. Other specific flaked tools of interest to this area include burins (a kind of awl), dihedral burins (a burin having two plane faces), and fluted points (a point with a shallow channel or groove running length-wise down both sides).

In comparison to the numbers of bone artifacts found along banks and sand bars of the Old Crow River, relatively few stone artifacts have been discovered (Morlan 1979). Among the dozen or so stone artifacts that have been found are well-made bifaces, a microblade, and several flakes, none of which can be dated. It is possible that some of these stone tools date back into the Pleistocene Epoch. Two artifacts, a chert flake and an obsidian biface were recovered from early Holocene terrace deposits which are believed to be at least 10,000 years old based on the dating of shells which occur in the deposits (Harington et al. 1975). Figure 13.2a shows a chert biface about 9 cm long, found with fossil bones on a gravel bar in the Old Crow Flats and an obsidian biface 5 cm long (Harington et al. 1975).

Archaeological sites that feature lithic remains have been found on the uplands that surround the Old Crow Flats. Many sites are located on old glacial beach ridges that formed when the Old Crow Basin was flooded by a glacial lake between 70,000 and 15,000 years ago. Unlike the fossil bone localities along the Old Crow River where the action of river or lake erosion has moved the fossils and artifacts from their place of origin, the lithic sites are typical archaeological sites, in that the artifacts are in their original position, at the site of a former human occupation or use, and they can be studied using standard archaeological field research procedures.

Unfortunately, few of these sites have ever been reported in detail and there is minimal information on them in the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) records (Greer 1991). Brief published references to these sites do exist however (Irving and Cinq-Mars 1974: 66-74; Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1979). Most of the sites in this grouping were discovered and investigated by Cinq-Mars and his crew by helicopter-based site survey during the NYRP project years. The majority of these sites are believed to be small lithic scatters, with minimal buried deposits. Investigations at these lithic sites has mainly been the collecting of artifacts found on the ground surface. The lithic remains at these sites are predominantly debitage (waste chips and flakes discarded during tool-making) and other by-products of the manufacture and maintenance of stone tools.

Major sites or site clusters in this grouping which occur within Vuntut National Park include the Kikavichik Ridge site (near Timber Creek), Dog Creek (near the junction of Dog and Black Fox Creeks), and numerous other smaller lithic sites in the Black Fox Hills area, on the north side of the Flats west of Black Fox Creek after it turns to flow almost due south ( Figure 13.3 and Figure 13.4). There is also a large cluster of lithic sites in the Sam Lake area in the extreme northeastern corner of the Park. Lithic sites are also found around various small lakes, including Bonnet Lake, in the headwaters of Johnson Creek basin, and around Surprise, Potato, and Schaeffer Creeks in the southwest corner of the Flats, within the Special Management Area.

Greer's (1991) review of the CHIN (Canadian Heritage Information Network) records shows about 129 sites in the lithic site category, of which approximately 56 sites likely lie within the Park boundary. About six thousand lithic specimens are believed to have been collected from sites in this category (Greer 1980).

Fairly extensive excavations were undertaken at the Dog Creek and Kikavichik Ridge sites which feature extensive buried deposits and are likely sites with evidence of occupation of more than one culture or time period (known as multicomponent sites).

The following brief site descriptions serve to introduce the best known of the lithic sites.

i) Athrai Site (NcVh-6) (?38Y54?)

This site is located just northeast of Dog Creek, near the eastern boundary of Vuntut National Park. Situated on a northwest trending ridge, the site was named Athrai, meaning "windy place" or "place of wind" by an Old Crow Elder (Cinq-Mars pers. comm. 2000). The site contains only lihic material, most of which is found on the surface, although there is some buried material. Cinq-Mars (pers. comm. 2000) believes the site has good potential for research and the discovery of important material. Morlan and Cinq-Mars (1982) tentatively date the Athrai site at from about 9,000 to 11,000 years ago ( Figure 13.5). Greer (1991) believes that about 1000 specimens were collected from the Athrai site.

ii) The Dog Creek Site (NcVi-3 and 38Y58, 77Y)

Located on a large bench comprised of two ridges, the Dog Creek site was found by Cinq-Mars in 1975, tested in 1977 and 1978 as part of the NYRP investigations, and revisited in 1991 (Greer and Le Blanc 1992). The most noteworthy of the tools found at Dog Creek is the basal section of a fluted point ( Figure 13.2b, from photo in Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1982), as fluted points can be important in assigning dates to northern sites. The Dog Creek site is tentatively dated at from about 9,000 to 10,000 years ago (Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1982). Various types of awl-like burins, including a dihedral (having two plane faces) burin have also been collected from the Dog Creek site. Minor disturbance is occurring at both the Dog Creek and Kikavichik sites due to digging by arctic ground squirrels (Greer and Le Blanc 1992). Ray Le Blanc has continued work at this site up to 1998, but no recent publications are available.

iii) The Kikavichik Ridge Site (NcVl-1 and 38Y74)

This site is named after Joe Kikavichik of Old Crow, also known as Big Joe (or Joe Kay), who told Irving about it in the late 1960s. It is located on two benches at the southeastern tip of the limestone ridge called Kikavichik Ridge ( Figure 13.3). One partial fluted point ( Figure 13.2b) was collected from this site (Irving and Cinq-Mars 1974, Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1982).

An extensive paleo-arctic microlithic assemblage (Anderson 1970) has been recovered from the Kikavichik Ridge site. Microlithic elements (tiny stone tools) are also known from other sites in the lithic site category. This site is tentatively dated at from about 8,000 to 9,000 years ago (Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1982). A variety of rock types are represented in the collections, including obsidian, however, chert-related materials are most common. The Kikavichik Ridge site has yielded one of the best collections of paleo-arctic artifacts ever found in Canada, and is therefore of considerable importance (Greer 1991).

Dating Problems

A wide range of occupation dates may be represented by these lithic sites. None of the occupations has yet been radiocarbon dated, but comparisons of artifacts with other better known sites would suggest that some of the artifacts, such as the fluted points, could be from the end of the Pleistocene. Although fluted points are elsewhere used as indications of a specific time period, in eastern Beringia they are generally of unknown age (Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1982). In the northern Yukon and Alaska, fluted points have usually been found only in shallow or surficial deposits. The few finds of these points in sites that have been excavated have not provided any clear indication of age. Additional excavation of buried components at many of these sites could help resolve the chronology issues.

The components of the archaeological record characterized by the microblade and microcore technology, and certain forms of burins and bifaces have been assigned to the "American Paleo-Arctic Tradition" (Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1982). These paleo-arctic materials are likely late Pleistocene-early Holocene in age (about 10,000 to 8,000 years ago). Archaeologists believe that, like the Bluefish Caves occupations, some of these sites or site components may relate to the Pleistocene-aged fossil bone artifacts recovered from within the Old Crow Flats (Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1979). Some may also result from land use activities by groups ancestral to the post-contact Gwitchin. The relationship between the lithic sites and caribou fences that the Vuntut Gwitchin believe may have been used earlier than the Late Precontact time is unknown.

Three sites in the upper Firth River valley, just 5 km north of the boundary between Vuntut and Ivvavik National Parks, have been identified with the Flint Creek phase, a poorly-known cultural entity adapted to tundra-taiga conditions, which may date to between 6000 and 2200 B.C., however this suggestion is not generally accepted (Neufield and Adams 1993). A fourth site in the same area was assigned to the New Mountain phase, also known as the Denbigh Flint complex, part of the Arctic Small Tool tradition which dates to about 2200 to 1600 B.C. (Neufield and Adams 1993). Sites similar to these may well exist along the northern part of Vuntut National Park.