Field School in Subarctic Archaeology and Ethnography
Excavations at the Little John Site at Ha Tuh Nahk'eet - KdVo-6
VIEW FROM THE LITTLE JOHN SITE TOWARDS THE SOUTHWEST OVER THE MIRROR CREEK VALLEY
Photo Credit: Arthur MacMaster
In collaboration with the White River First Nation of Beaver Creek, Yukon additional archaeological survey and excavations and related ethnographic research is planned in the Mirror Creek and Scottie Creek valleys of the upper Tanana River watershed in 2009.
EXCAVATIONS AT THE LITTLE JOHN SITE, 2006
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
Work in 2009 will include further test and area excavations at the Little John Site at Ha Tuh Nahk'eet, a historic hunting camp of the Scottie Creek Dineh which holds evidence of occupation through the past 14,000, as evidenced by radiocarbon dates and the presence of a Nenana Complex artifact assemblage, including the characteristic tear-drop or Chindadn point, shown below. Survey of additional sites in the region are also planned, as well as related ethnographic documentation of geographic place names and other aspects of the Upper Tanana and Northern Tutchone Athapaskan languages, traditional and contemporary land use, life and oral history interviews, and additional topics as opportunity allows. Prospective participants are invited to apply to Yukon College's Field School in Subarctic Archaeology and Ethnography, a six week-six credit university transfer field course, or as shorter term Reseach Interns.
THREE OF THE FIVE CHINDADN POINTS RECOVERED FROM THE LITTLE JOHN SITE
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
VIEW OF THE LITTLE JOHN SITE FROM THE SOUTHWEST
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
Site History
Borden site # KdVo-6 was first tested in 2002 during field survey associated with Easton’s long-term Scottie Creek Culture History Project (begun in 1992), which involves archaeological and ethnographic documentation of the region about the Yukon – Alaska borderlands, in collaboration with the White River First Nation of Yukon and the Village Councils of Northway, Tetlin, and Tanacross, Alaska. Controlled area excavations were undertaken in 2003-2004, and 2006-2008. In the local Scottie Creek dialect of the Upper Tanana Dineh language this geographic location is known as Haah Tu Taiy (roughly "trail at the end of the hill"). After recognition of its significance and consultation with the White River First Nation, it was named the Little John site in 2006 after Klaa Dii Cheeg / his hand drops /, called in English White River Johnny, and known affectionately as “Little John”, a respected ancestor of many of the contemporary members of the White River First Nation; like his ancestors before him, Little John often used the location as a hunting camp and lookout until his death in 1984, a practice continued by his descendents today.
This multi-component site contains evidence of use from the most recent past back to the Pleistocene Transition. The earliest identified component represents the first unequivocal identification of a Nenana complex assemblage within a stratified context to be found in Canada, and subsequent components range through the entire Holocene to the present. In addition, excavations in 2008 uncovered unassigned culturally modified bison and wapiti in association with flakes and cores dated to c. 14,000 years ago, as well as a well-preserved paleosol stratum dated to the Wisconsin inter-stadial, c. 44,000 years ago.
Site Location and Glacial Context
The Little John site is located just off the Alaska Highway, twelve kilometers north of the village of Beaver Creek, Yukon, about two kilometers from the international border with Alaska. It occupies most of the higher surface of a knoll overlooking the upper reach of Mirror Creek, known as Cheejil Niik / Grayling Creek / in the local Upper Tanana Athapaskan language. It overlooks the basin of the creek below from the north and lies within the most western extension of the Tanana River drainage.
PLEISTOCENE GLACIAL MAXIMUMS OF THE YUKON ALASKA BORDERLANDS
Adapted from Ecoregions of the Yukon
Pleistocene glacial advances in the region were thin piedmont glaciers extending from the Nutzotin – Wrangel – St. Elias Mountain chain, which begin forty kilometers to the southwest of the site. However the Wisconsin advance of ice ended at McCauley Ridge, some fifty kilometers to the southeast, and began a rapid recession at about 13500 BP; by 11000 BP the region was ice-free to at least the White River, some 150 kilometers to the southeast (Rampton 1971).
Thus, the Little John Site lay within Beringia, a proposition further supported by the recovery of Pleistocene fauna (Bison, Equus, Mammuthus, Rangifer, and possibly Saiga ) less than a kilometer from the site and elsewhere in the Mirror Creek and neighbouring Scottie Creek valleys. A local Equus lambei specimen has been RC dated to 20660 +/- 100 BP (MacIntosh 1997).
Site Stratigraphy
NORTH WALL PROFILE OF KdVo6 EXCAVATIONS OF EAST LOBE, 2004
Photo Credit: Arthur MacMaster
In general terms the geological stratigraphy of the site consists of a basal regolith overlaid with sparse glacial till representing a glacial maximum known locally as the Mirror Creek glacial advance, variously dated to the Late Illinoian - MIS 6, c. 140000 BP (Bostock, 1965; Krinsley, 1965) or the Early Wisconsin – MIS 4, c. 70000 BP (Denton 1974; Hughes et al., 1989). Above this are found loess sediments varying in thickness from a few to over sixty centimeters, and then ten to twenty centimeters of Brunisols typical of the boreal forest in the region. In most areas this B horizon is intersected by a volcanic ash layer of several centimeters deposited by what we believe to be the earlier White River volcanic eruption, c. 1900 BP (West and Donaldson 2002; Lerbekmo and Westgate, 1975). A thin (1 – 2 cm) A/O horizon caps the sequence.
DISTINCTIONS IN DEPTH OF STRATA AT KdVo6
West lobe strata (left, circa 30 cm); East Lobe Strata (right, circa 120 cm)
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
The discontinuous depth of these strata is accounted for by the undulating topography of the site, which ranges from over meter deep basins to eroding hillsides. The stratigraphy is also complicated by the action of both ancient and contemporary permafrost, solifluction, and what seems to be a mass wasting event over a portion of the site. Because of this differentiation in depth and nature of strata we have divided the site into four initial zones.
ZONAL LOBES AT KdVo6, WITH EXCAVATION UNITS THROUGH 2006
Illustration by N. A. Easton and G. MacKay
The West Lobe, where the strata are most shallow, occupies the southwestern hillside on which deposits range from five to thirty centimeters. The Permafrost Lobe, where frozen ground is encountered mere centimeters from the surface, occupies the north-facing slope of the knoll. The Rockfall lobe, where large boulders lie through the brunisol and loess deposits, runs roughly through the centre of the site on a north – south axis. The final area is the East Lobe, a large basin that troughs east from the site, and which contains the deep sedimentary deposits of one hundred centimeters and more and at least one, and perhaps two, paleosol strata near the bottom of the sequence. Capped by forty to sixty centimeters of loess below the B horizon, this paleosol complex contains a well preserved, culturally deposited faunal assemblage, in direct association with lithic artefacts. The level of faunal preservation is a significant feature of the Little John site.
WAPITI (Cervus spp) VERTEBRAE RECOVERED FROM EAST LOBE PALEOSOLS AT THE LITTLE JOHN SITE
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
Fauna and Radio Carbon Dates
Identified fauna from these paleosols include Rangifer - caribou, Cervus - wapiti, possibly Alces - moose (based on stable isotope data, Paul Mateaus, pers. com.), Lepus - hare, Cygnini - swan, and other unidentified Aves, Canis spp., and Rodentia.
CARIBOU (RANGIFER) TIBIA FRAGMENTS FROM THE LITTLE JOHN SITE
AMS Radiocarbon dated to 9530 +/-40 BP (Beta 217279; 2 sigma calibrated results range from Cal BP 11090 – 10930 and 10880 - 10690).
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
Three AMS radio-carbon dates on bone from the the paleosol complex have been processed. The first, on an unidentified large mammal fragment, was dated at 8890 +/- 50 BP (Beta 182798; 2 sigma calibrated results range from Cal BP 10190 to 9865). The second, on Rangifer, was dated at 9530 +/-40 BP (Beta 217279; 2 sigma calibrated results range from Cal BP 11090 – 10930 and 10880 - 10690). The third, on Cygnini, was dated at 9550 +/- 50 BP (Beta 218235; 2 sigma calibrated results had two intercepts at Cal BP 11080 – 10940 and 10870 – 10720). All the bones from which these samples were drawn displayed cultural modification in the form of cut marks or fracture; the swan bone was directly associated with a microblade fragment. A fourth sample from a Canis spp. humerus, recovered from just below the paleosol strata, was found to be lacking any collagen suitable for dating, suggesting greater antiquity than the upper paleosol fauna.
CANIS spp. HUMERUS - THE LACK OF COLLAGEN IN THIS SPECIMEN SUGGESTS AN ANTIQUITY GREATER THAN 9,500 RADIO-CARBON YEARS
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
Overall, the faunal assemblage seems to represent a broad-spectrum subsistence strategy, similar to the few other late glacial sites in the Tanana Valley which have preserved fauna (see Holmes 2001; Yesner and Pearson 2002).
SMALL MAMMAL REMAINS FROM THE KdVo6 PALEOSOLS
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
Much of the fauna bear evidence of cultural modification in the form of butchering cutmarks and crushing to remove marrow. A number of the bones have been further modified to form finished tools, including a piercing awl form on an ulna, and two similarly modified pieces which have been ground to form chisel-like ends, both of which exhibit a very high degree of polish, presumably from use.
MODIFIED BONE TOOLS FROM THE KdVo6 PALEOSOLS
Ulna Awl (left); Ground and Polished Chisel-form
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
Archaeological Components
For the purposes of our analysis of the material remains recovered at the Little John site, we have divided the assemblage into seven archaeological components. Their identification is tentative to the extent that a full suite of radio-carbon dates and detailed artefact analysis is not yet complete. However, they do allow an initial chrono-stratigraphic organization of the assemblage. For the late glacial components we use terminology developed and applied within southwestern Beringia, while for post-glacial components we use the southwest Yukon cultural chronology developed by Workman (1978) and refined by Hare (1995).
From earliest to youngest these components are the Nenana and Denali complexes of late glacial Beringia; the Little Arm Phase of post-glacial Yukon; the Northern Archaic Tradition (or Taye Lake phase) of mid-holocene age until the White River volcanic eruption, c. 1,900 – 1,200 years ago, the Late Prehistoric Period (or Aishihik phase) which post-dates this eruption, the Transitional Contact Period (Bennett Lake phase), and the Historic (20th century) Period, which includes occupation of the site by non-native builders of the Alaska Highway. An eighth component might be identified as the Contemporary, as the site is still used today by the local aboriginal Dineh as a hunting lookout and campsite.
The Nenana complex component present at the Little John site is currently undated, due to a lack of suitable organics. Formed tools include large bifaces, a variety of scraper forms, large blades and large blade core tablets, and tear-drop shaped Chindadn points, by which the complex is characteristically identified. Its distribution to date is within the loess deposits immediately above the regolith in the shallower Western lobe and extending east to the middle Rockfall lobe.
SELECTED ARTEFACTS FROM THE LITTLE JOHN SITE
Illustration Credit: Rea Postoloski and Kawina Robichaud
The Denali complex component is found over the entire extent of the site explored thus far. Formed tools are dominated by microblades. Several core tablets and irregular core fragments with microblade removal scars have been recovered but thus far no wedge-shaped core ubiquitous to this complex. Scrapers and burins are present, as well as two bifaces of a form alternatively categorized as “bifacial biconvex knives” (West 1967), “bipoints” (Hare 1995), “leaf-shaped” (Hefner 2002), and “foliate biface” (Carlson 1996a). Based on the radio-carbon dates and the presence of bipoints, as well as a single proximal fragment of a microblade, we have provisionally assigned the buried fauna-rich paleosols present in the Eastern lobe to the Denali complex.
Regional Significance of the Site
There are two opposing positions regarding the relationship between assemblages of the Nenana type and assemblages of the Denali type. The first, held by the original proponents of the Nenana Complex (Powers and Hoffecker 1989) and others (e.g. Goebel and Ponnti 1992; Pearson 1999), is that the Nenana complex represents the first inhabitants of the Nenana and Tanana Valley basin by a non-microblade producing people and that assemblages containing microblades and other assigned Denali assemblage material (including bipointed bifaces) represent a subsequent migrant population or diffusion of this technology into the basin about one to two thousand years later. This position is based on the documented stratigraphic and temporal separation of most assemblages representing the two complexes, with Nenana material being consistently older and underlying the younger and stratigraphically higher Denali material at most sites in the region.
In opposition to this view, West (1996) and others (e.g. Holmes 2001; Hefner 2002), maintain that the two complexes represent separate tool kits of the same over-arching techno-complex, known variously as Denali, the Eastern Beringian Tradition, or the Beringian Tradition. This position is based on some temporal overlap between the later occurrences of Nenana sites and the earlier occurrences of Denali sites, as well as the evidence from one site, Swan Point (Holmes, et al. 1996), at which it is reported that a well-defined microblade assemblage underlies a non-microblade bearing “Nenana” stratum.
COMPARISON OF DENALI AND NENANA COMPLEX ARTEFACTS
Illustration Credit: Adapted from West (1996)
This view creates a distinction between short-term hunting camps with a limited range of hunting activities - thus lacking microblade technology for functional reasons - and longer-term village sites, where microblade technology was mobilized to perform a wider diversity of activities. Yet, as Yesner and Pearson (2002) aptly point out, the Broken Mammoth site (Holmes 1996), lacks microblade technology in its early components, but does contains evidence of a longer-term encampment, including "[T]ool manufacture and resharpening, caching behavior for both artifacts and meat sections, both primary and secondary butchering, and both hide preparation and skin sewing are reflected by the tools and fauna…"(Yesner and Pearson 2002:152, sic), which does not support explaining the difference between Nenana and Denali complex assemblages on the basis of functional distinctions created by short-term occupation.
All told, the culture-historical patterns evident in the Nenana and Tanana Valleys of interior Alaska, which provide the context for the interpretation of the Nenana and Denali components at the Little John Site, likely represent a complex suite of causes – perhaps relating to shifting economic adaptations, population movements and/or technological diffusion and expressions of cultural identity - yet to be fully unraveled. The influence of the accompanying Younger Dryas climatic event during the latter portion of this period in late glacial Beringia also needs to be taken more fully into consideration but we do no more than note this here (but see Hoffecker and Elias 2006, Carlson 2007).
Evidence from the Little John Site does not unequivocally resolve this debate, but the presence of a non-microblade assemblage bearing Chindadn points and other tools characteristic of the defined Nenana complex stratigraphically, and therefore temporally, separate from an overlying microblade bearing assemblage lends support to the notion that Nenana and Denali assemblages are separate techno-complexes, at least at this time in this place.
We finally note the possible relationship of the Little John biface assemblage to areas outside of Beringia. Carlson (1996a, 2004, 2007) has suggested that the Nenana complex may be antecedent to the early pre-microblade occupations of the Northwest Coast of North America. This possibility is based on the presence of foliate (what we here have termed bipointed) and Chindadn-like teardrop bifaces in the earliest documented archaeological components on the coast, dated to c. 9500 at Namu. Carlson (2007:2) argues that bearers of the Nenana complex, adapted to caribou hunting, may have “spread to the northern Northwest Coast…from interior Alaska through the Yukon between 11000 and 10000 BP during the Younger Dryas”, at a time at which the tundra environment may have extended from interior Alaska through the Yukon and onto the coast, a proposition supported by the presence of caribou on the coast during this period. The presence of foliate or bipointed bifaces and Chindadn points in the Yukon at the Little John Site and KaVn-2 in the far southwest Yukon between 10500 and 9000 BP provides support for this hypothesis. Interestingly, Bever (2006) notes that the Younger Dryas event might also be implicated in the disappearance of the Nenana complex from the Nenana Valley and its reappearance in the Tanana Valley, as manifested in the unequivocal Nenana components at Broken Mammoth - Component III and Swan Point - Component III, which taken together date to between 10800 and 9700 BP. If this movement continued onto the coast via the Yukon, the Little John Site and KaVn-2 are perfectly positioned geographically, and in the right range chronologically, to have been locations across which this migrant population passed. A detailed technological comparison between early coastal bifaces and those found in the far southwest Yukon, further excavation and dating of the Little John Site, and excavation of new sites to more clearly delineate the early culture-historical framework of the southwest Yukon - Alaska borderlands will help to address these questions. Fortunately the Scottie Creek and Mirror Creek valleys are rich in additional archaeological sites which we have identified through our Cultural-Geographic component of the Scottie Creek Culture History Project, and we look forward to additional survey and excavation at a number of these, pictured below, in years to come.
AERIAL VIEW OF NAAGAT K'AIY /FOX DEN/ VILLAGE SITE
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
'PEPPER' LAKE VILLAGE SITE, UPPER SCOTTIE CREEK VALLEY
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
Site Summary
The Little John site presents us with the first recovery of an unequivocal Nenana complex assemblage from within a stratified context in Canada, overlaid by a microblade bearing assemblage we assign to the Denali complex. The site also contains a buried paleosol complex rich in culturally modified fauna, indicative of a broad spectrum subsistence strategy, and dated to c. 9500 – 9000 BP, in itself a rare occurrence in Yukon - Alaska and thus important in it's own terms (Hutchinson, et al. 2007). We have also assigned this paleosol complex to the Denali complex, based on its association with bipointed bifaces and some evidence of microblade technology. Unfortunately, no material suitable for dating the Nenana complex component has been recovered but, if our separation of the site assemblage is correct, it would predate the fauna and date to c. 10,000 + BP, which would be in general accordance with similar Nenana complex assemblages in the nearby Tanana and Nenana river valleys.
On the other hand, as our regional comparisons and discussion shows, the apparent is no longer as straight forward as cultural-historians would like, and there are several possible ways to interpret the assemblage of the Little John site at this time. Only further excavation may lead us to more definitive answers to the complexities of the culture history of the Late Glacial period in this region and its relationship to subsequent developments elsewhere. Fortunately, the Little John site is large, and we are also confident that additional related sites in the borderlands region will soon be revealed, which together will undoubtedly provide additional data on the Terminal Pleistocene occupation of Canada’s far northwest in years to come, contribute to the resolution of some of the questions we raise here, and undoubtedly present us with new questions to ponder.
Some of the textual above material has been adapted from Norman Alexander Easton and Glen MacKay, 'Early Bifaces From the Little John Site (KdVo-6), Yukon Territory, Canada', to be published in Projectile Point Sequences in Northwestern North America. Roy Carlson, editor. Burnaby, B.C.: Simon Fraser University Press (in press - 2007).
Leek'ath /MUDDY WATER/ VILLAGE SITE, MIDDLE SCOTTIE CREEK VALLEY
Photo Credit: N. A. Easton
Further Information on the Little John Site and the Scottie Creek Culture History Project
One of my students, Arthur MacMaster, has made a website on his work at this site in 2004.
You can view it at: http://dl1.yukoncollege.yk.ca/anth220pp/stories/storyReader$10
A powerpoint presentation on our work at the site through 2004 is available for downloading by clicking on the link below. It is 18 mb in size. http://ycdl4.yukoncollege.yk.ca/frontier/files/anth225/2004aaaKdVo6wComments.ppt
A pdf of our work in the Scottie Creek valley in 2001 is also available at: http://ycdl4.yukoncollege.yk.ca/frontier/files/anth225/SCreek19942001FinalRep.pdf
Acknowledgements
The Little John site was first identified to me by the late Mrs. Bessie John and her brother Mr. Joseph Tommy Johnny, children of Little John. Financial and logistical support for the excavations at the Little John site and subsequent analysis has been received from the White River First Nation of Beaver Creek, Yukon, the Arts and Science Division and The Northern Research Institute of Yukon College, the Tanana Chief’s Conference, Fairbanks, AK, the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge, US Department of the Interior, and the Heritage Resources Board of Yukon. Peter Schnurr, Ken Hermanson, Duncan Armitage, Arthur McMaster, Patricia Young, Camille Sanford, Eldred Johnny, and Derrick Peters have all provided extensive volunteer field assistance over the years of excavation. Grant Lowey, Charlie Roots, Tammy Allen, and Steve Isreal of the Yukon Geological Survey, Yukon Territorial Government, Whitehorse, identified the lithology of the artifacts. Excavations in 2003 were supported by the Yukon College Field School in Subarctic Archaeology and Ethnography, while those in 2005 by the Community Development Fund of the Yukon Government and youth workers of the White River First Nation.
SANCTIONED BY ARCOM-SUPREME COMMANDER