What’s that doing there!?: 2022 Excavations at GfOx-59 and GfOx-61 in Sir Winston Churchill Provincial Park.
Taylor Graham, M.GIS
Senior Project Archaeologist
Bison Historical Services Ltd.
Presented at the 55th Annual Meetings of the Canadian Archaeological Association, Membertou, Nova Scotia, May 2023
In the fall of 2022, on behalf of Alberta Parks, personnel of Bison Historical Services Ltd. completed Historical Resources Impact Mitigation studies of two archaeological sites (GfOx-59 and GfOx-61) on the Big Island of Sir Winston Churchill Provincial Park in Lac La Biche Alberta. These sites contained two different ceramic assemblages, with GfOx-59 producing Narrows Fabric Impressed Ware, first identified in the Buffalo Narrows region of Northwestern Saskatchewan, and the ceramic ware most common in the region. While GfOx-61 produced Avery Horizontal Corded Ware, first identified in southeastern Manitoba, and never before observed in northeastern Alberta. Both wares are discussed and their distributions across western Canada examined. It is posited that with the newly confirmed presence of Avery Corded ware within northeastern Alberta, past ceramic sherd identifications may have combined the relatively similar morphology of body sherds due to a superficial or untrained inspection, and that some previously collected assemblages could potentially contain unrecognized Avery Horizontal Corded Ware. If confirmed the presence of this ware across the region could then indicate a previously undiscovered cultural expression in the region, or a long distance trade and influence network stretching from southeastern Manitoba to northeastern Alberta.
