Archaeolo No. 42 ISSN 0701-1176 Spring 2005 ilfllilllf WMMSvmmMk lii llillllll^lllllll IPS Road cut ihrcuMU vVsf»cv Point Wmm lor Moiirrt ysth«rs&! starts •••' ''•••:v,:--r:::~y« IIIPI yll Abraham Lake 111 Illil lllllli 111!! ^iliiiiiiliiliil Hill ilil Contents 2 Provincial Society Officers 2004- Features 2005 5 Alberta Fieldwork News 2004 10 SCAPE Report of Activities 2004 News & Short Reports 15 Searching for David Thompson 3 Editor's Note 20 Alberta Archaeological Review 3 In Memory Index: Issues 1-41 4 Scanning the Literature 30 A History of the Archaeological Society in Lethbridge ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ALBERTA Charter #2805, registered under the Societies Act of Alberta on February 7, 1957 PROVINCIAL SOCIETY OFFICERS 2004-2005 RED DEER CENTRE: President: Karen Kehoe President Dr. Shawn Bubel 3706-43 Avenue Department of Geography Red Deer AB T2N 3B6 University of Lethbridge Phone: 403-358-2391 Lethbridge AB T1K3M4 [email protected] Phone: 403-329-2531 Provincial Rep: Jean Kaufmann [email protected] SOUTHEASTERN ALBERTA Past-President Kate R. Chapman ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY: R.R.#2, Lacombe AB President: Janice Andreas T4L 2N2 46 Rossland Crescent SE Phone: 403-885-2924 Medicine Hat AB T1B 2B6 k_r_chapman @ hotmail.com Phone: 403-526-3346 Provincial Rep: Ray Lusty Executive/ Jim McMurchy Secretary/ 97 Eton Road West STRATHCONA CENTRE; Treasurer Phone:403-381-2655 President: George Chalut [email protected] 14716-65 Street Edmonton AB T5A 2E1 Alberta Dr. John Dormaar Phone:780-431-2329 Archaeological Research Centre Email: Review: Agr. & Agri-Food Canada [email protected] Editor PO Box 3000 Provincial Rep: Lethbridge AB T1J4B1 [email protected] Alberta Archaeological Review Alberta Carol McCreary Editor: John Dormaar ([email protected]) Archeological Box 611 Layout & Design: Sonia Zarrillo ([email protected]) Review: Black Diamond AB TOL OHO Distribution: Carol McCreary ([email protected]) Distribution Phone:403-933-5155 [email protected] Members of the Archaeological Society of Alberta of Al­ berta receive a copy of the Alberta Archaeological Re­ REGIONAL CENTRES & MEMBER SOCIETIES view. Non-members and institutions may subscribe to the AAR for $15 per calender year. Cheques should be BODO ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY made payable to the Alberta Archaeological Review and President Kim Larson sent to Carol McCreary, Box 611, Black Diamond, AB c/o Leila Grobel TOL OHO. P.O. Box 1436 Provost, AB TOB 2S0 The AAR welcomes submissions concerning Alberta ar­ [email protected] chaeology or of special interest to practising or avoca­ Provincial Rep: Beth Mann tional archaeologists in Alberta. Contributions may be submitted to the AAR Editor at the address above. Arti­ CALGARY CENTRE: cles should be submitted on disk together with a hard President: Brian Vivian copy in either WordPerfect or Microsoft Word. A clean 48 Cumberland Drive NW typewritten copy is also acceptable. Please contact the Calgary AB T2K 1T1 Editor for information of formatting, etc. The Editor re­ Phone:403-276-5910 serves the right to send out the paper for review. Email: [email protected] Provincial Rep: Anne English Communications regarding membership in the Archaeo­ logical Society of Alberta or other Society matters should LETHBRIDGE CENTRE: be addressed to the Executive Secretary/Treasurer at President: Dr. Shawn Bubel the address given above. Department of Geography University of Lethbridge Views expressed in the ARR are those of the writers and Lethbridge AB T1K3M4 do not necessarily reflect those of the Archaeological Phone: 403-329-2531 Society of Alberta. We welcome healthy debate. [email protected] Provincial Rep: Jim McMurchy Our Cover: See article on page 15 2 The Alberta Archaeological Review Editor's Note Robson Bonnichsen (1940-2004) By John Dormaar Rob died in his sleep on December 25, 2004 while holidaying in Bend, Oregon. He was born in Twin Falls, Most of you will by now be aware of the exciting work Idaho on December 3, 1940. He received his bache­ that Dr. Shawn Bubel and students are carrying out at lor's degree in anthropology from Idaho State Univer­ the Fincastle site (see Issues No. 40 and 41). Unfortu­ sity in 1965 and his doctorate from the University of nately, looters are a real problem. "Bones are tossed Alberta in 1974. At one point in his studies he took a around willy-nilly. They're destroying the site and the year off to master the art of flint-knapping. He directed scientific knowledge in the process", even though loot­ the Centre for the Study of the First Americans, which ing an archaeological site is illegal under the Alberta's he moved to Oregon State University in 1991 from the Heritage Resources Act with fines up to $50,000 or a University of Maine. In 2002 Bonnichsen relocated the year in jail. It is truly disheartening. centre to Texas A&M University, where he was profes­ sor of anthropology. Visit the Archaeological Society of Alberta During the past 46 years Bonnichsen conducted ar­ Website: www.debitage.ca chaeological investigations in the United States, Can­ ada, South America, Russia and China. He authored This Website ought to be another venue for the ar­ or co-authored 34 refereed journal articles, 31 refereed chaeological community here in Alberta to learn about book chapters, five books and edited five books. In what is going on in Alberta, archaeologically speaking. 1999 he organised the "Clovis and Beyond" archaeo­ The various Chapters will be able to advertise what is logical conference in Santa Fe, NM, which drew more going on in their various corners of the Province. than 1,400 participants. He helped spur huge ad­ vances in molecular archaeology. He also helped pio­ As I look out of the window, there are many signs of neer a technique for using single hairs to get DNA se­ spring, such as the gulls and robins are back, the quence carbon dates. Rob, mostly bald, found laughs weeping willow starts to show a light green tinge, the in the irony that so much of his work was based on pigeons are courting. That means that soon we will be hair. able to get around, learn more about Alberta's land­ scape and how people used it, traveled over it, and Rob was committed to sharing the story of the first lived on it. When you come across something that was Americans and the excitement associated with the of interest to you, submit your observations and im­ quest for this knowledge with the public. He was a ages on paper and share them with other members of dedicated teacher. Jim Chatters, an anthropologist the archaeological community in Alberta via the Re­ who collected the Kennewick bones in 1996, remi­ view. nisced that "when he was only 12 years old, and many of those working there treated me as an annoying little kid, Rob was very patient with me and taught me a lot; In Memory he helped influence me to get into this field." Joan (June) Winnifred Carpenter (1915-2005) Bonnichsen was one of eight anthropologists who led Charter Member and former Secretary, Newsletter edi­ a successful eight-year legal battle to study the 9,300- tor, and amazing recaller of the affairs of the Alberta year-old skeleton called Kennewick Man. They argued Archaeological Society - Lethbridge Centre. She also that Kennewick Man was a national treasure that could received the Alberta Archaeological Society Distin­ provide important information about the peopling of the guished Service Award in 1993. June was also pas­ Americas and should not be turned over to tribes for th sionate about music and was involved with the Kiwanis burial without being studied. The U. S. 9 Circuit Court Music Festival in Lethbridge for over 40 years. Last of Appeals ruled in the scientists' favour last year, and year June started to compile a history of the Archaeo­ negotiations about a study are continuing. logical Society of Alberta - Lethbridge Chapter. The reader will find it on page 30 in this issue. Rob is survived by his wife, Peggy Hays, and three sons, Sven, Shield and Max. The Newsletter of the Archaeological Society of Al­ berta, Lethbridge Centre further comments on the life of June Carpenter. June and her husband were found­ ing members, hard workers and very staunch support­ ers of the Lethbridge Centre. They worked closely on The Calgary Chapter reports that Marshall Dzurko, all the projects the club worked on and published. This past Calgary Centre and Provincial President, passed included typing and reproducing the results of the away on the 14th April, 2005. Our sympathies go to mappings into written reports and generally creating his family. A full obituary will appear in the Fall Re­ entire publications into booklet form. view. No. 42 Spring 2005 3 SCANNING THE LITERATURE some palaeontologists have long thought, people were not to blame, at least not initially. It is not argued that Science 12 November, 2004 early human populations had no impact on bison popu­ Pleistocene brown bears in Mid-continent of North lations, but it is suggested that whatever events insti­ America. gated the decline of bison populations occurred well Matheus, P., Burns, J., Weinstock, J., and Hofreiter, M. before large numbers of humans had settled in the region. DNA analyses depict a large diverse population A well-preserved cranial fragment of a brown bear, until around 37,000 years before present, when the retrieved from fluvial gravels near Edmonton, Alberta, population's genetic diversity began to decline dramati­ in 1997 and housed in the Provincial Museum at Ed­ cally. This timing correlates with the onset of the last monton, has shed light on the ancestry of modern glacial cycle. The presence of large populations of hu­ brown bears (Ursus arctos).