The Emerging Picture of Human Occupation at the Cooper's Ferry Site During the Bølling-Allerød Interstadial

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Current Perspectives on the Western Stemmed Tradition-Clovis Debate in the Far West" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological excavations conducted from 2009-2018 at the Cooper's Ferry site in west-central Idaho revealed a long record of repeated human occupation encompassing the late Pleistocene to early Holocene periods. Lithostratigraphic unit 3 (LU3) is a loess deposit found near the bottom of the site that contains archaeological evidence predating and spanning much of the Bølling-Allerød interstadial period, dated here between ~14,957-13,213 cal BP. Archaeological evidence associated with LU3 includes three pit features containing Western Stemmed Tradition projectile points and other lithic artifacts that originate from its surface, previously dated to ~13,213-13,256 cal BP. Another Western Stemmed Tradition projectile point base was recovered in situ below the surface of LU3. Deeper in LU3, excavation uncovered hundreds of lithic artifacts and bone fragments that represent earlier episodes of site use that are now seen to date between ~14,957-14,380 cal BP. Lithic artifacts and bone fragments found at the base of LU3 may predate 14,957 cal BP. These results provide further evidence that the Western Stemmed Tradition overlaps in time with the Clovis Paleoindian Tradition and also indicates that humans were present in the Columbia River Plateau region at some time before the start of the Bølling-Allerød interstadial.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Current Perspectives on the Western Stemmed Tradition-Clovis Debate in the Far West   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25320