HOLOCENE LANDSCAPE CHANGE AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE FORMATION IN THE CYPRESS HILLS, SOUTHEASTERN ALBERTA

The Cypress Hills of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan display an array of ecological, geomorphic and climatic characteristics that differ markedly from those in the surrounding prairies. As a result, they contain a range of resources that are largely unavailable in the adjacent areas, a feature that may have encouraged heavy utilization by precontact human groups. Furthermore, the landscape history of the region suggests that, over the Holocene, the meltwater channels running around and through the Cypress Hills have experienced an ongoing cycle of intermittent deposition from upslope areas, alternating with periods of landscape stability characterized by the development of vegetation and soils. This pattern provides an optimal scenario for the formation and preservation of archaeological sites, since this type of periodic deposition would have ensured the burial of cultural material left by precontact groups. Moreover, in instances where a locality was used on multiple occasions, this pattern is likely to have resulted in the formation of valuable multicomponent archaeological sites.

A program of subsurface testing, involving auger tests, shovel tests and coring, was conducted in the Alberta portion of the Cypress Hills to determine if the meltwater channels have experienced this kind of geomorphic history. The testing program has shown that the channels contain extended sequences of buried soils that are consistent with a pattern of episodic deposition separated by periods of landscape stability. Furthermore, these sequences frequently yield archaeological material. These findings suggest that the diverse resources of the Cypress Hills were very attractive to precontact groups, generating a high density of archaeological material. Also, the dynamic geomorphic history of the meltwater channels has permitted the preservation of this material in stratified buried contexts. The combination of relatively intense human use and a history of landscape change that favors archaeological site formation suggests that the Cypress Hills are a potentially rich focus for deep multicomponent sites, an important finding given the paucity of such interpretively valuable sites in the Canadian Plains.