Charlie Lake Cave
| Charlie Lake Cave
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| Location: | at Fort St. John in British Columbia , Canada | |
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Geographic location: |
56 ° 16 '22.3 " N , 120 ° 56' 39.6" W | |
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| Particularities: | Archaeological site | |
The Charlie Lake Cave (English Charlie Lake Cave ) is an archaeological site in the Canadian province of British Columbia . According to the Borden system , it bears the signature HbRf 39 . In a garbage pit in front of the small cave, artefacts up to 11,000 years old were found, as well as buried ravens , which are considered the oldest evidence of ritual acts in Canada.
location
The Charlie Lake Cave is located six kilometers northwest of the city Fort St. John , in the suburb about Charlie Lake , which is on the south bank of Charlie Lakes each side of the Alaska Highway stretches. About 100 meters from a rest stop, the cave is in a steep wall of the wooded embankment above Stoddart Creek , which serves as a drain from Charlie Lake and flows into the Peace River .
excavation
The cave itself, which measures only 4.5 × 6 m, did not contain any artifacts , but in a kind of garbage pit in front of the cave entrance they go back up to 11,000 years. These finds provide evidence of the immigration of hunters and bison from south to north, as well as two buried ravens , which are the oldest traces of rituals in Canada.
Knut R. Fladmark first examined the site in 1974 and returned in 1983. 14 excavation areas, each one by one meter in size, were opened, revealing remains of paleo-Indian stone tools and animal bones. The excavation layers proved to be undamaged and it soon turned out that the oldest layer contained representatives of the megafauna . This first excavation identified five layers.
In 1990 and 1991 further investigations were carried out under the direction of Fladmark and Jon Driver, who distinguished four layers, a classification that has only now been established, which must be taken into account when reviewing the publications. The number of excavation areas of the same size was increased to 23 and now also included the entrance to the cave. 13 of them covered the plains of the Paleo-Indian era. The cave itself was unproductive, as it was used as a playground well into the 20th century, and local residents remembered having found boulders there, which, even if found again, would be beyond dating. No artifacts were discovered below the rock opposite the cave or above the cave.
The cave is the only one in Canada where the oldest layers have certainly not been altered by external influences and thus allow reliable dating based on the organic remains. The four layers in total could be roughly dated. The lowest layer did not contain any organic finds, layer II was 8500 BC at the latest. A, layer III ranges from 7500 to 2600 BC. BC, layer IV until the 20th century. Since 1990, Layer II has been divided into four sub-zones, and Layer III into eight. Layers IIa to IIIa represent the Paleo-Indian era.
meaning
In the wall opposite the cave there is a large boulder which, by sliding more than ten feet, exposed the cave entrance. Apparently the inhabitants of the cave threw their waste into the twelve-meter-long pit between the steep wall and the boulder, which was located below the cave entrance. The site was visited again and again until the construction of the Alaska Highway began in 1942, and so the mine contains waste from over ten millennia. Apparently hunters and gatherers regularly used the cave as a shelter.
The lowest excavation layer (IIb), and thus the oldest layer with human traces, contains stone artefacts that can be determined to be 10,770 ± 120 years old. These include a notched projectile point , retouched tees and a small stone ball . In this layer there were also bones of bison , snowshoe hares and hares, ground squirrels and fish. The bison bones show traces of processing that go back to humans.
Since the cave is located in the middle of the so-called ice-free corridor, which it was long assumed that the first settlers of America moved south on it, the indications that the first people in the region did not come here from north to south are of particular importance came, but vice versa from south to north. The stone tools are very similar to those discovered much further south, such as those from the Indian Creek site and the Mill Iron site in Montana . These two localities show older pieces in very similar technology, so that it is assumed that this technology migrated from south to north. It was very similar to the technique of the Clovis culture .
The bison DNA confirmed this finding because the bones found in Charlie Lake Cave came from animals that were more closely related to those in the south than to those in the north. So they too had migrated from south to north, and the hunters probably followed them. This, in turn, has to do with the fact that after the last ice sheets had melted and the glacial lakes that followed them receded, a spacious grassy landscape was created where forests now stand. The bison antiquus , which was considerably larger than today's American bison, lived on this grass . An indication of the transitional character of the landscape is the discovery of a collar lemming , a species that was probably on the retreat to the north at the time, where it can still be found today.
Finally, two ravens, 12,000 and 11,000 years old, were found, apparently buried. Its exact spiritual meaning can no longer be determined, but this is the oldest find in Canada, which is based on cultic acts in connection with the ravens, which are still significant for the First Nations today. The ravens are the oldest find that allows conclusions to be drawn about the early beliefs.
Layer IIc, which is around 10,000 years old, contained 30 chips , three tools that had not been further processed, which were probably used to break bones, and a chip core.
Layer IIIa, around 9,500 years old, contained the second raven, around 160 cuts, two so-called bifaces , i.e. tools sharpened on both sides, as well as traces of microblades , very small blades. The associated core was at the raven's feet.
From these excavation findings it can be concluded that the early visitors only stayed briefly, initially brought their tools, and only occasionally reworked some of them or knocked off new blades. There are also special features for the remains of the animals. Parts of the legs predominate by far, especially thighs, parts of the hips or the head are less common. There are no vertebrae, ribs or horns at all.
In 2000, Vallières came to the conclusion in their work, which compared other cave finds, that the cave had neither been used as a warehouse nor as a slaughterhouse, but rather was used for storage, game viewing and religious ceremonies.
literature
- Knut R. Fladmark, Jonathan C. Driver and Diana Alexander: The Paleoindian Component at Charlie Lake Cave (HbRf 39), British Columbia , in: American Antiquity 53/2 (1988) 371-384.
- Jonathan C. Driver: Raven Skeletons from Paleoindian Contexts, Charlie Lake Cave, British Columbia , in: American Antiquity 64/2 (1999) 289-298.
- Jonathan C. Driver: Stratigraphy, Radiocarbon Dating and Culture History of Charlie Lake Cave, British Columbia , in: Arctic 49/3 (1996) 265-277, online, PDF, 592 kB .