Early Occupations and Cultural Sequence at Moose Creek: A Late Pleistocene Site in Central Alaska

Abstract

Early investigations at the Moose Creek site in 1979 and 1984 recovered stone tools within and below paleosol stringers dated between 8160 ± 260 14C yr BP and 11730 ± 250 14C yr BP. Although questions remained regarding the absence of diagnostic artifacts and the validity of the radiocarbon dates obtained from soil organics, this assemblage was tentatively assigned to the Nenana complex. Excavations at the site were resumed in 1996 in hopes of solving persisting problems associated with the culture-historical positions of its components. Microstratigraphic excavation techniques identified two superimposed microblade components associated with the Denali complex. Hearth charcoal dated the deepest microblade occupation at 10500 ± 60 14C yr BP, while a geological sample dated the second at 5680 ± 50 14C yr BP. The oldest microblades lay 15 cm above a Nenana complex occupation that contained a hearth dated at 11190 ± 60 14C yr BP. Artifacts associated with this feature included a large scraper-plane, two side scrapers, a biface, an exhausted flake core, a hammerstone, and anvil stones, as well as a sub-triangular point and a teardrop-shaped Chindadn point. The majority of these tools were manufactured from a large basalt cobble reduced using a bipolar technique. Subsurface testing at several localities around the site did not uncover new late Pleistocene occupations. The chronostratigraphic positions of the diagnostic artifacts found during the re-excavation support previous culture-historical sequences observed for Nenana and Denali complexes in the region. Results from this latest research confirm that the Nenana and Denali complexes are chronologically, stratigraphically, and technologically distinct in the Nenana Valley.