FUMDHAMentos VII- Jiri Chlachula 225 Late pleistocene peopling of western interior

Systematic geoarchaeological investigations have provided multiple evidence for the Late Pleistocene peopling on the Western Canada Interior Plains and the adjacent Rocky Mountain Foothills prior to the last glacial maximum (>21 ka BP). The cultural records found deeply buried in the late Quaternary stratigraphic sections beneath the last glacial deposits (10-50 m below the present surface) are manifested by percussion-flaked stone artefacts reminiscent of the Siberian palaeolithic. Two principal excavated sites located in situ below the Glacial Lake Calgary formation in the Bow River valley, SW Alberta, indicate disruption of the occupation by the Late Wisconsinan advance of a valley glacier from the Rocky Mountains (ca. 23-21 ka BP). The locality was re-occupied after the Cordilleran ice retreated prior a subsequent inundation of the area by a proglacial lake dammed by the continental (Laurentide) ice. Other sites discovered in “pre-glacial ” (Mid- and Late Wisconsinan) geological contexts in the Western Alberta (Athabasca, North and South Sasketchewan, Belly) river valleys indicate a chronologically and spatially broader Pleistocene inhabitation of Western Canada prior to the last glacial and provide clear indices for the palaeolithic peopling of North America. Survey and research approaches integrating glacial geology and geoarchaeology are of principal relevance for mapping the earliest human presence in the formerly glaciated areas of East Beringia, particularly in Yukon and Alaska. FUMDHAMentos VII- Jiri Chlachula 22