Lithic Resource Utilization and Cultural Assemblage at the Wolf Willow (FbNp-26) Site
Date
2024-04-17
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
The Wolf Willow site (FbNp-26) is a multi-component Precontact campsite located within the Opimihaw Valley of Wanuskewin Heritage Park, two kilometers north of the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Excavations of the site began in 2010 and continued for another 10 years ending in the field season of 2020. These excavations involved a field school established by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Saskatchewan.
This thesis will focus on the 2015 to 2020 field season assemblage of cultural material including pottery, lithic debitage and stone tools. During the initial field season at Wolf Willow, four distinct archaeological cultural levels were identified and radiocarbon dated. These cultural levels include: Plains Side Notched, Prairie Side Notched, the McKean Series, and Oxbow Complex materials. In the later seasons (2015-2020) more cultural levels have been identified both in the field and also in the lab. This includes a Historic component, a Pelican Lake Complex component and a Mummy Cave Complex component thus adding new cultural elements to an already multicomponent site. The stratigraphy of the Wolf Willow site is complex and highly variable across the site area. This is the result of dynamic erosional and depositional activity as well as other environmental formation processes. These processes disturbed the original deposit of the archaeological material which in turn affected interpretations of the site occupations. An analysis of these environmental disturbance processes is discussed in relation to the stratigraphy at Wolf Willow.
Description
Keywords
Archaeology, Northern Plains, Multi-component, Wanuskewin
Citation
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
Archaeology and Anthropology
Program
Archeology