Revisiting Kelly Forks (10CW34): Current and Future Research at a Western Stemmed Tradition Occupation in the Nez-Perce Clearwater National Forest, Idaho

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Kelly Forks Work Center Site (10CW34) is located in the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, Idaho, and has an occupation sequence spanning the terminal Pleistocene (Western Stemmed Tradition or WST) through the historic period. The site is within the homelands of the Nimíipuu (Nez Perce) Tribe, in an upland area traditionally important for late summer and early fall subsistence activities. The WST component at Kelly Forks offers an opportunity to investigate the antiquity of Nimíipuu upland subsistence practices, seasonal land-use patterns, and the age of the WST in the Intermountain West. Previous research at the site recovered WST projectile point fragments in potential association with charcoal dating to 13,700 cal yr BP. However, questions remain about the association between these artifacts and dates. In 2021 and 2022, we revisited the site and opened a new 3 x 2 m excavation block to clarify the stratigraphy and geochronology. Here, we present preliminary results of ongoing geoarchaeological and archaeological research. These data suggest that Kelly Forks contains buried, well-stratified, and intact deposits, with potentially four buried surfaces spanning the Late Pleistocene to Holocene.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36646.0