Late Pleistocene-Holocene (LPH) Paleogeography of the Bear Creek Site (45KI832), Puget Lowland, Western Washington

Summary

Stratigraphic and soil horizon sequences within the boundaries of archaeological sites are remnants of formerly more extensive paleolandscapes. Since these fragments have both spatial and temporal boundaries extending beyond the site boundaries, the sedimentary and soil bodies defined within an archaeological site represent segments of past landscapes and reflect, sometimes indirectly, relationships with the broader surrounding paleoecosystem. In order to further our understanding of LPH human-land interaction, we develop here a preliminary model of the landscape elements in the vicinity of the site utilizing offsite legacy geotechnical data coupled with retrieval of additional core data to document the dynamics of the changing LPH landscape surrounding the Bear Creek site. During the LPH, the site vicinity experienced numerous landscape changes including inundation from Glacial Lake Bretz, ending about 15,000 cal B.P.; high-energy recessional channeling; significant fan-delta formation; multiple post-Bretz lake-level changes; and early to mid-Holocene alluvial flooding and channel migration during emergence of the Bear Creek and Sammamish River fluvial systems. As a result of this study, we can begin to correlate the Bear Creek site depositional history to major postglacial events in the surrounding Lake Sammamish basin, and begin assessing local buried landforms for potential to contain archaeological materials.

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): 16308