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The Blackfoot Medicine Wheel Project

Description

Medicine wheels are ceremonially significant boulder structures built on the plains by First Nations people. The Archaeological Survey of Alberta commissioned inventories on provincially and... More ≫

Description

Medicine wheels are ceremonially significant boulder structures built on the plains by First Nations people. The Archaeological Survey of Alberta commissioned inventories on provincially and federally owned lands to fully document their locations and statuses in an effort to provide stronger protection to these important sites. The Blackfoot Medicine Wheel Project addressed remaining unassessed lands in Alberta for medicine wheels: southern Alberta’s Blackfoot Reserves. Six previously known medicine wheels were revisited, one of which was found to have been destroyed. Five additional medicine wheels, known from oral tradition, could not be verified on the ground.

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Tertiary Hills Clinker in Alberta : a partially fused vesicular toolstone from the Mackenzie Basin of Northwest Territories, Canada

Description

This article is the first in the Alberta Lithic Reference Project series, the goal of which is to assist the identification of raw materials used for pre-contact stone tools in the province. Each... More ≫

Description

This article is the first in the Alberta Lithic Reference Project series, the goal of which is to assist the identification of raw materials used for pre-contact stone tools in the province. Each article will focus on one raw material; the current article discusses a partially fused, glassy, vesicular rock that originates in Northwest Territories called Tertiary Hills Clinker (THC). THC appears in archaeological sites in northern and central Alberta. A suite of techniques indicates that it can be geochemically sourced much like obsidian. The accurate identification of THC can reveal significant relationships between occupants of Alberta and the Mackenzie Basin to the north.

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Back on the horse : recent developments in archaeological and palaeontological research in Alberta. Introduction

Description

Introduces the 36th volume of the Archaeological Survey of Alberta Occasional Paper series, which has been revived after a 22-year absence. The revived series will focus on publishing short... More ≫

Description

Introduces the 36th volume of the Archaeological Survey of Alberta Occasional Paper series, which has been revived after a 22-year absence. The revived series will focus on publishing short articles on topics related to Alberta archaeology aimed at a wide audience including professional archaeologists, avocational archaeologists, and informed enthusiasts.

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An AMS radiocarbon age for the pathological vertebra of a bison from near Pibroch, north central Alberta

Description

For a number of years, the Royal Alberta Museum displayed a seventh cervical bison vertebra from north central Alberta that exhibited a severe pathology resulting from a humanly inflicted wound.... More ≫

Description

For a number of years, the Royal Alberta Museum displayed a seventh cervical bison vertebra from north central Alberta that exhibited a severe pathology resulting from a humanly inflicted wound. This article provides a detailed description of this specimen and the embedded projectile point fragment that caused the pathology to form.

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Archaeological investigations at Fort Vermilion : inside, outside, and further afield

Description

Archaeological investigations at the Northwest Company/Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Vermilion I started in 1999. This paper summarizes some of the major findings and results of the 2004-2014... More ≫

Description

Archaeological investigations at the Northwest Company/Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Vermilion I started in 1999. This paper summarizes some of the major findings and results of the 2004-2014 excavations, and concludes with a discussion about what future work should be done both inside and outside the fort.

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More than meat : residue analysis results of mauls in Alberta

Description

Mauls are a grooved ground stone tool found at archaeological sites in central and southern Alberta. Rarely studied as a valid tool category, the most commonly assumed function of mauls is the... More ≫

Description

Mauls are a grooved ground stone tool found at archaeological sites in central and southern Alberta. Rarely studied as a valid tool category, the most commonly assumed function of mauls is the processing of bone and meat. They are often assumed to be of Late Prehistoric date. This paper summarizes a systematic study of mauls in Alberta and focuses on those associated with datable artifacts or radiocarbon dates. Results show mauls were used for more than pounding meat and bone.

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New radiocarbon dates for early use of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

Description

Three new radiocarbon dates were obtained from the oldest deposits at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump , in southern Alberta in an effort to more accurately bracket the earliest utilization of this... More ≫

Description

Three new radiocarbon dates were obtained from the oldest deposits at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump , in southern Alberta in an effort to more accurately bracket the earliest utilization of this significant site. This paper reports on those dates and places the early use of the site by Mummy Cave complex cultures in a broader chronological context of bison jump use on the Great Plains.

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Geochemical characterization of tephra deposits at archaeological and palaeoenvironmental sites across south-central Alberta and southwest Saskatchewan

Description

The Mazama Ash is one of the mostly widely distributed tephra units in North America, present as a visible ash in sediments of early Holocene age. It is considered one of the most important... More ≫

Description

The Mazama Ash is one of the mostly widely distributed tephra units in North America, present as a visible ash in sediments of early Holocene age. It is considered one of the most important stratigraphic markers across this region and is commonly used to ascribe age control to sites. Here we present new major-element geochemical analyses from archaeological and sedimentary sites across south-central Alberta and Saskatchewan. We confirm Mazama at most sites, but the presence of Bridge River (and potentially Mount St. Helens) indicates that major-element geochemical data is an important, if not necessary, component to identifying tephra in this region.

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New records of late Quaternary Bison from southern Alberta, and comments on significance of Holocene faunal remains

Description

Recent fieldwork associated with flooding of major river drainages in southern Alberta produced several new records of Bison. Specimens reported range in age from late Pleistocene to late... More ≫

Description

Recent fieldwork associated with flooding of major river drainages in southern Alberta produced several new records of Bison. Specimens reported range in age from late Pleistocene to late Holocene, and come from localities along Tongue Creek and the Bow River. The finds come from non-archaeological contexts and highlight new collections initiatives at the Royal Alberta Museum, which includes focused collecting of Holocene vertebrates from non-archaeological contexts.

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Beaver River sandstone : a silicified toolstone from northeast Alberta, Canada

Description

This article is the third in the Alberta Lithic Reference Project series, the goal of which is to assist the identification of raw materials used for pre-contact stone tools in the province. Each... More ≫

Description

This article is the third in the Alberta Lithic Reference Project series, the goal of which is to assist the identification of raw materials used for pre-contact stone tools in the province. Each article focuses on one raw material; the current article discusses a silicified orthoquartzite sedimentary rock that originates in northeast Alberta called Beaver River Sandstone (BRS). BRS appears in archaeological sites in northern and central Alberta. This paper offers a description of BRS and comparable Montana materials, a photographic library for comparative purposes, a brief summary of BRS utilization in northeast Alberta, and data to facilitate the accurate identification of BRS in archaeological assemblages.

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