DATING THE DENALI COMPLEX*

FREDERICK HADLEIGH WEST

ABSTRACT

Several recently~derived radiocarbon late Pleistocene-early Holocene events there. dates, principally rrom the Tangle Lakes dis­ The Denali complex, as represented at the trict, yield the first creditable time brack­ Site Mount Hayes 111 is dated to 10,150 B. P. + ets for the Denali complex of interior 280. Its disappearance appears relatable to Alaska. Dates are suggested too for certain environmental change.

In 1967, after the comparative examination mountain, the complex was given the name by of material recovered from the site of Donnelly which the Upper Tanana people call t hat peak. Ridge in central Alaska, I proposed the term Donnelly Ridge is situated on the north Denali complex to comprehend that assemblage slope of the Alaska Range (63°46'N.; 145°48'W.). and, as well, those from three other sites It is the highest of several morainal ridges (West 1967a). These are core and blade which abut Donnelly Dome, a major landmark of assemblages of a high degree of characteriza­ the region. The s ite is within two miles of tion sharing a number of highly distinctive Delta River which in turn occupies one of the traits. Included are wedge-shaped mi croblade major passes through the Alaska Range. The cores of a complex and highly consistent form, site as well overl ooks the ~riad lakes and multiple burins on flakes ("Donnelly burins") ponds of the Donnelly Flats. There is lit tle for which the same remarks hold ( cf. Mauger doubt that it was strategically placed with 1970) , side scrapers and end scrapers of dis­ respect to the movement of game animals tinctive f orms,· large blades, biracial knives , through t hat pass and probably also east and boulder chip scrapers (toi thos in Northern west across the front. of the mountains. The literature (Rainey 1940]), and the several site was unstratified and contained in a very products of core, blade and burin manufacture. shallow l oessial soil. In common with so While two of the four original constituent many other sites in the Interior having these sites showed the presence of some few other general physical characteristics, there was traits in addition to those enumerated, the no preservation of organic cul tural remains. presence in dominant percentages or these In fact, it would be wiser perhaps to say that elements in all served well t o indicate their there was no preservation of any organics , rel atedness. for in this connection there has come about The other sites included in the original some confusion over the probable age of the formulation were the Campus site near Fair­ site and thus the complex of which it is part. banks and two sites on the Teklanika River in In the 1967 paper there were reported two Mount McKinley National Park called Teklanika radiocarbon assays made at the University of West and Teklanika East. As all were within Bern. The material, when collected, gave reasonable radius of North America's highest l i ttle hope that it would provide a dating for the assemblage . It was coll ected and subse­ quently assayed simply on the outside chance *Over the past several years support for that it might be other than what it appeared this research has been generously provided by to be . (It was also the only such material the National Science Foundation and, more re­ encountered in our excavations.) At a point cently, by the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation. To some centimeters away, another apparent candi­ both these organizations I am deeply grat eful. date ror radiocarbon assay was round and in It is ~ pleasure too to record ~ thanks to this case it was possible t o trace the dark ~wife and all our associates whose thoughts woody piece. showing in profile. up to the and discussions over this time continue to present surface. The dark color was probably provide so much stimulation. the result of chemical reduction; the specimen

'16 ~atia Anthropology XII-1~ 19'15 West: Dating the DenaU Corrplex 77 itself probably the root of dwarf birch. Full-scale description of these sites is in Naturally there was some strong suspicion that preparation, but some noti ce of the first dis­ the specimen collected for radiocarbon test coveries appeared as early as 1967 (West was of similar origin. Thus, there was dis­ 1967b) . appointment, but no great surprise, when the Of the Tangle Lakes Denali sites, six con­ two assays were found to range into the tained in situ the preponderance of the mater­ Christian era. In briefer form, the reasoning rial recovered. These are the sites Mount here was presented in 1967. Hayes 92 (hereafter "MH"}, MH 103, MH 111, Just as it is encumbent upon the investi­ MH 133 , MH 136, MH 146 and MH 149. In addi­ gator to report such results as apparently tion Mount Hayes 95 and 136, while almost en­ erroneous radiocarbon dates, so too, I think, tirely surface collections, show some small is it encumbent upon the informed reader to quantities of artifact material in place in weigh judiciously all the data presented which the little soil that occurs on each site. aims at achieving an age estimation for the In every respect these sites conform to assemblage in question. Archaeologists cus­ the original definition of the complex. tomarily do, or in any event should, use all Every one of the si tes referred to occurs other lines of evidence available to place their just above the foreshore of an old lake which materials in time . One of the lines of reason­ lay about 100 feet higher than the present ing employed in 1967 was t hat of comparative lakes, or at an elevation of about 2900 feet. typology. I want to reassert my belief that These are stratified sites. Each is charac­ not only is this one of the archaeologist's terized by the presence of a remarkably well­ principal tools, but, viewed more broadly, preserved buried soil and in every case the constitutes a piece of one of the major tasks Denali material is found in the ~ and B hori­ with which he is charged. Clearly too, when zons but the A of the buried soil. below 1 two assemblages are compared and found similar The buried soil is not found below the 2900 in a high degree, the investigator is implicit­ foot level. That this singular and consistent ly making assumptions about relatedness which occurrence has implications for environmental are strictly of a probabalistic nature. Though change is apparent when examined in the con­ an overtly statistical demonstration might add text of late glacial-Holocene chronology in some degree of elegance to the final formula­ the Alaska Range (West 1974b). tion, in many cases that would appear to be a The· soil in which the Denali material gratuitous operation-even i f the attribu­ occurs is the primary one that formed on the tional wherewithal were present to allow its glacial till surfaces above the former lake, accomplishment. In any event, in addition to These sites are not found on surfaces which the problems which were intrinsic to the radio­ became habitable following t he lowering of carbon samples themselves, comparative stu.dy the old high lake, i.e., they occur only of the Donnelly Ridge assemblage wit h such· above 2900 feet. Moreover, and of surpass­ other s i tes as were available at the time ren­ ing importance in the present connection, dered it highly unlikely that the estimations this i s the only context in which Denali so obtained actually r eferred to that- assem­ materials occur. Thus, there are several blage. notched point sites in the Tangle Lakes of On these indirect grounds then, it was which two are well-dated. These occur in suggested that the Denali complex should date the modern soil, and date in the second mil­ somewhere in the same time bracket as those lenium B.C.--corresponding to the upper end Siberian sites with which its ties seemed of Anderson's Palisades II (notched point) closest. Inasmuch as the lower level of the complex at Onion Portage (Anderson 1968). Ushki site in Kamchatka had produced a Cl4 To further emphasize the significance of the estimation of 8725 B.C. + 1360 (Mo 345, [Chard Denali occurrences here, there are some 220 and Workman 1965:150]) , the lower end of that sites of various affiliations now known in 5000-year time bracket (13,000 B.C. to 8000 the Tangle Lakes • B.C. ) was suggested as appropriate, with the In 1968 another approach was started to notation that there seemed "no compell ing rea­ bracket the time of the Tangle Lakes Denali son to suppose that the Denali complex is any occupations and thus the complex. On the bank more recent t han Ushki" (West 1967a:378). of Rock Creek, a major stream entering one Fortunately, important additional evidence of the Tangle Lakes, there exists a "fossil" bearing on the time placement of the Denali beaver dam now high and dry above the creek. complex is now available and it is hoped that The importance of this organic-rich exposure its presentation will lay t o rest some of the was first noted by Donald R. Nichols of the possible misconceptions on this point. U.S. Geological Survey in 1964 (Nichols: From the Tangle Lakes district (some 60 personal communications) . He correlated this airmiles southwest of Donnelly Ridge) there feature with the old _high lake level and ob­ are now known 20 core and blade sites of which tained a radiocarbon date of 7770 B.C. + 320 half are assignable to the Denali complex. (W-975) on the beaver dam. It was but a step ?8 Aratia Anthropology XII-1 further in reasoning for us to suggest that Assays on the humic acids and residual the human occupation of that lakeshore should organic materials contained in the buried A1 share the same approximate age dating. Subse­ soil horizon from several sites are now being quently, Charles E. Schweger made a more de­ made by Dr. Robert Stuckenrath at the Radio­ tailed study of the exposure, constructed a carbon Laboratory of the Smithsonian Institu­ pollen profile from it and obtained two more tion. These, when completed, should provide radiocarbon dates which, suggestively, date a time fix on that event which led to the the sequence of this exposure. These are lowering of the old high lake and the inunda­ 9850 B.C. + 750 (UCLA-1859) and 7150 B.C. tion of the surrounding country above 2900 + 80 (UCLA:l858) (Schweger 1973, West 1974b). feet by loess. That fix will be of particu­ The question of the exact nature of the de­ lar interest here, for following that time posits which include and overlie the beaver the region came to be occupied by bearers of dam remains debatable, but that there is an a different cultural tradition which we association with the old lake level seems recognize by its salient feature, the notched quite clear. projectile point . In these notched point or From the several lines of evidence in the Northern Archaic (Anderson 1968) s ites there Tangle Lakes, the sequence of events seemed is no hint of a carryover from Denali complex. to be one which would have seen the Denali There is no ves t ige of core and blade tech­ hunters establishing their camps on the sho.res nology in this new tradition. The two are of the 2900-foot lake shortly after deglacia­ as different as though they occurred half a tion. The many sites attest the popularity world apart. of the area. Environmental change, or de­ Preliminary findings of these current terioration, began--probably in the prey assays performed on humus material from Mount fauna--leading to their abandonment of the Hayes 111 presumably indicate a time when the area. This process of change continued and buried soil here had well achieved its mature culminated in the draining of the lake and profile and presumably supported a climax the exposure, for a short time , of bare sur­ shrub tundra or forest tundra such as charac­ faces from which loess was picked up and de­ terizes the region today. The two runs of posited over the existing soi l at elevations interest are 3150 B. C. + 60 (SI-2171B-2) and of 2900 feet and above. In the long interval 3790 B.c·. ~ 110 (sr 217lB-l) . The former is between deglaciation and the fall of loess, on humic acids; the latter on the residuum, the older soil, housing the Denali materials, i . e., the fraction insoluble in NaOH achieved its mature profile-but clearly after (Stuckenrath: personal communication). To the. Denali occupation had terminated. reiterate, the Denali material occurs in the There are now available several new radio­ ~ and B horizons of the soil in question; carbon dates which serve to place some of these tBese dates do not, therefore, pertain to events on an absolute time scale. Fro~ the B that occupation but rather to full development horizon of the site Mount Hayes 111 we now have of the soil. They are of particular interest an assay (on charcoal) of 8200 B.C. + 28o · chronologically because they serve to pinpoint (UGa 572). The sample was presumably of the time of this primary soil's burial. natural origin. The nearest artifacts were The evidence presented here suggests that two to three centimeters above the sample in the Denali complex had terminated its occu­ the buried B horizon. The vertical distance pation in the Tangle Lakes at least by 6200 to the base of the ~ horizon, in which the B. C. Exactly how long that occupation may greater part of the artifacts were found, was have lasted cannot now be determined with about five centimeters. That sample was accuracy. Two assays seem to pertain to de­ described by University of Georgia Geochronol­ glaciation of the Tangle Lakes-upper ogy Laboratory personnel as being shot through Maclaren River valley. (The latter, lying 15 with hair roots and they interpreted their miles due west, was the source area for ice assay to be a minimum one (Brandau: personal that covered the Tangle Lakes lowland [West communication). Backed with further evidence, 1974a)). These are the 9850 B.C.+ 750 (UCLA- it may be taken to provide a reasonable esti­ 1859) cited above and another of 8615 B.C. + mation of the age of the Mount Hayes 111 225 (Gx- 0249 [Pewe 1965:91] ) from a pingo i; assemblage. the Mac l aren Ri ver valley. As the earlier de­ A charcoal sample from the A (buried 1 rives from a. point near the presumed terminus humus) level at Mount Hayes 111, overlying the of this late Wisconsinan ice and the l atter cultural material, has yielded an estimation at a point approximately 30 miles upstream of 6205 B.C. ~ 265 (UGa 927) . This mS¥ be and closer to the source, the differential tentatively accepted as a date beyond which seems acceptable and argues against averaging Denali does not occur. It should not be neces­ the two runs. The base of the Denali occupa­ sary to qualify this by SS¥ing "at this site" tion in the Tangle Lakes then may be as early as in all sites the buried humus overlies the as 10,000 B.C. (9850 B.C. representing full cultural deposits. deglaciation in the occupation area). They Weet: Dating the Denali Compl.u ?9 were, in any case, in residence by 8200 B.C. Teklanilta West. The information is taken By 6200 B.C. they were gone, but had perhaps from Anderson {1968, 1970a, 1970b) . been gone for some time. A perhaps needless caution might be en­ Should there be the need still to counter tered here as these various data are con­ the view that the Denali complex is either alto­ sidered. There are two Denali s ites on the gether late or persisted until virtually recent Teklanika River; in the Tangle Lakes there are times, and that thus the Tangle Lakes data must ten vith an addi tiona! ten core and blade be considered exceptional, additional argument sites, some of which will probably ultimately may be marshalled from the site of Teklanika be assigned to Denali. The evidence f'rom West, one of the original four Denali components . these places cannot be assessed as though it Although originally interpreted otherwise· (West were derived f'rom a single site. Archaeologi.­ 1965, l967a), this is a stratified site in which cally, the Tangle Lakes district is one of the the single occupation zone is overlain by a most remarkably endowed in all the North. palaeosol. From the latter, runs have been ob­ The evidence with which it provides us should tained of 1870 B.C. + 115 (UGa 527), 1515 B.C. be interpreted with due regard tor its very + 120 (UGa 253) and 1680 B.C. + 150 (I- 5710). abundance. These estimations do not pertain t o the time of occupation. They may be interpreted as having climatic or environmental significance but they BIBLIOGRAPHY are not archaeol ogical. The age of the abun­ dant Denali material at this site must be in­ Anderson, Douglas D. ferred from other lines of evidence. That evi­ 1968a A Stone Age Campsite at the Gate­ dence suggests its dating is at one with the rest we:y to America. Scientific Ameri­ of the complex and will not support any conten­ can, Vol. 218-2:24-33. tion of its having lasted, at Teklanika, until 1970a Akmak: An Early Archeological the second milleniuro B.C. However, for the Assemblage from Onion Portage, present purpose, perhaps the more significant Northwest Alaska. Acta Arctica, observation is that even the most determined ad­ Vol. 16. vocate of the long continuation of Denali cannot 1970b Microblade Traditions in North­ bend the radiocarbon estimations to that end. western Alaska. A~ctic Anth~o ­ The recently- discovered site at Dry Creek (near pology, Vol. 7- 2:2- 16. Teklanika) will bear import~tly on this ques­ tion. According to Holmes, the material fits Chard, Chester s. and William B. Workman the Denali description and its date of 8740 1965 Soviet Radiocarbon Dates: II. B.C. + 250 (SI-1561) has cl ear significance Arctic Anthropology, Vol, 3-1: in the present consideration (Holmes 1974). 146-50. There have been those who have read their , or more often, others', evidence as indicating Hadleigh-West, Frederick a iate continuity of Denali complex. I do not See West, Frederick Hadleigh wish to put too fine a point on this observa­ tion, but it appears to me that this has Holmes, Charles E. probably resulted from two principal causes, 1974 New Evidence for a Late Pleistocene one being errors of classification, and the Culture in Central Alaska: Pre­ other the unwise dependence on a single liminary Investigations at Dry radiocarbon date, while failing adequately to Creek. Paper given at the 7th assess all other evidence (cf. West 1973). Annual Meeting of the Canadian Although lying some 4oo airmiles to the Archaeological Association. northwest, it must be concluded that in the Whitehor se, Y.T. past the environment of Onion Portage was not greatly different f'rom that of the Tangle Mauger, Jeffrey E. Lakes. They are not greatly different todq. 1970 A Study of Donnelly Burins in The major value of that remarkable site is the Campus Archaeological the presence there of its many stratified Collection. M.A. Thesis, archaeological components. The deep and re­ Washington State University, peated burial of each living floor seems ef­ Pullman. fectively to rule out the possibilities of mixing, whi.ch must alwqs otherwise bedevil Pewe, Troy L. and others shallow Northern i nterior sites . Because of 1965 Guidebook fo~ Field . Confe~ence these several circumstances Onion Portage as­ P. Central and South Central sumes even greater importance for comparative Alaska. International Associa­ purposes. The accompanying Fig. 1 compares tion for Quaternary Research, some data from Onion Portage with those dis­ VIIth Congress. Fairbanks, cussed above from the Tangle Lakes sites and Alaska. 80 Arctic Anth~po~ogy XII-1

Fig. l. Archaeological and Environmental Sequences from Sites in the Tangle Lakes and Teklanika West Compared to the Archaeological Sequence at Onion Portage. Attention is drawn to the general parallelism between Denali complex and the Onion Portage Akmak and Kobuk. This is completely in accord with the close similarity of these complexes. Events shown in brackets are extrapolations, lacking as yet radiocarbon estimations.

Tangle Lakes Sites (Upper) Teklanika West Onion Portage

Archaeological Environmental Archaeological Environmental Archaeological Sequence

A.D.

0-

B.c. Later Cultures Later Cultures

1000-

? 2000- Palaeosol [Active stone (1870 + I rings at lower 115) - Northern Archaic elevation?] (Portage) 3000- [Lake drains; Northern Archaic l loess fall; old Palisades II) soil covered] ? 4000- Lower soil still subaerial (3790 l :!:. 110) 5000- [Hiatus] No later Hiatus occupation I 6ooo- ? Lower soil matures ( 6205 :!:. 265) Kobuk Complex (6491 ~ 7000- [Abandonment ] ? 288) ? I 8000- l Akmak Complex Denali Complex [Denali (7907 ~ 155) (8200 B.C. + Compl ex] 280 Deglaciation 9000- Maclaren Valley (8613 + 225) [Lower-soil developing] 10,000-- ? Deglaciation N. ? end T.L.; pro­ [Amphitheater glacial lake Mt • Complex] forms (9850 + 750) West : Dating the DenaU Complex 81

Rainey, Froelich 1973 Late Palaeolithic Cultures in 1940 Archaeological Investigations in Alaska. In Proceedings of the IXth Central Alaska. Ame~ican Antiquity, Con~ss of the Inte~ational Union Vol. 5-4:299-308. of AnthPOpological and Ethnological Sciences. Chicago (In press). Schweger, Charles E. 1974a The Significance of Typologically 1973 Late Quaternary History of the Early Site Collections from Tangle Tangle Lakes Region, Alaska: A Lakes, Central Alaska: A Preliminary Progre ss Report. Department of Consideration. In International Ant hropology, University of Conference on the P~history and Alberta, Edmonton. Mimeographed . Palaeoecology of Weste~ North American Al'ctic and Sub~ctic. West, Frederick Hadleigh Department of Archaeology, Uni ­ l967a The Donnelly Ridge Site and the versit y of Calgary. Definition of an Early Core and Blade 1974b Archaeological and Palynological Complex in Central Alaska. American Evidence on the Pl eistocene- Antiquity, Vol . 32-3:360- 82. Holocene Boundary in the Alaska 1967b New Evidence on the Time Placement Range. In Abstrocts of the Thil'd and Affinities of the Denali Complex Biennial Meeting, American Quater­ in Central Alaska. Paper given at ~y Association. Madi son, Wisconsin. t he 32nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeol ogy. Universi ty of Wisconsin Ann Arbor. Mad ison , Wisconsin