Chronometry at Bear Creek, a ~12,000 Year-Old Site in Western Washington

Summary

Extant deposits at the Bear Creek site are highly compositionally variable, including fibrous peat, fluvial sands, volcanic tephra, and diatomaceous earth, reflecting a series of significant Holocene changes to the local environment. Multiple methods were used to directly date each of these sediments, including radiocarbon dating, single-grain IRSL dating of feldspar, OSL dating of fine-grained quartz, and tephra dating. Results from independent chronometric methods were then integrated with Bayesian analysis performed in OxCal 4.2 to allow statistical assessment of the stratigraphic compatibility of individual dates, to identify significant outliers, and to generate a comprehensive site chronology. Results show a high degree of success; individual dates were generally stratigraphically compatible, with excellent statistical agreement between independent chronometric methods. Results therefore firmly establish the antiquity of the early Bear Creek cultural component at ~12,000 years old and provide a detailed depositional history spanning roughly 9,000 years of local environmental change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paleoarchaic Settlement of the South Salish Sea during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene Transition: A View from Bear Creek (45KI839)   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17121