Mount Rainier’s Oldest Artifact: Temporally and Geographically Contextualizing Early Microblade Technology

Summary

The temporal distribution of archaeological sites bearing differing microblade technologies in North America suggests that microblade technology spread from what is today central Alaska onto the Alaskan Panhandle and the British Columbia coast before extending across the continent’s western territory. By the end of the early Holocene, microblade technology had reached present-day Southern California. In 2007, excavations at the Buck Lake open-air site in Mount Rainier National Park revealed a microblade core located in pre-Mount Mazama strata and several microblades located in younger stratigraphic layers. These artifacts provide new data on the southern temporal and geographic scope of microblade technology, but they have yet to be included in major considerations of the distribution of this technology. This paper examines similarities between the Buck Lake microblade core and other lithic artifacts in the Buck Lake assemblage, particularly those which are associated with the earliest occupation of the site, as well as how the technological and stratigraphic characteristics of the Buck Lake core compare to microblade technology at other southerly located sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16332