Serpentine Hot Springs, Alaska: results of excavations and implications for the age and significance of northern fluted points
Introduction
The source of Clovis, the earliest well-recognized and widespread complex of archaeological sites known in the Americas (Goebel et al., 2008), has long puzzled archaeologists. Although fluted points diagnostic of Clovis occur in numerous sites dating to ∼13,000 calendar years ago (cal BP) across a large part of temperate North America (Haynes, 2002, Meltzer, 2009, Waters and Stafford, 2007), their origin remains unknown. Doubts concerning the earliest radiocarbon-dated Clovis occupations prevent definite identification of a starting point for the dispersal of Clovis technology (Beck and Jones, 2010, Fiedel and Morrow, 2012, Hamilton and Buchanan, 2007), and an obvious precursor to Clovis has yet to be defined—in either temperate North America or Alaska—despite many proposals (Hoffecker et al., 1993, Kunz and Reanier, 1994, Stanford and Bradley, 2012, Waters et al., 2011).
One avenue of Clovis-origins research has been the search for fluted points in Beringia, the area that today constitutes northwestern-most Canada, Alaska, northeastern-most Russia, and the now-submerged shelves of the Bering and Chukchi seas (Hoffecker and Elias, 2007). The first fluted point from Alaska was found in 1947 (Solecki, 1950), and since then they have turned up at more than 20 archaeological sites, mostly in northern Alaska (Clark, 1983, Clark, 1984, Clark, 1991, Dixon, 1993, Dumond, 1980). Nowhere in Beringia, however, have fluted points been found in reliably radiocarbon (14C) dated contexts (Bever, 2006b). At some sites, for example Putu/Bedwell and Batza Téna, fluted points were from very shallow contexts without clear hearth features (Alexander, 1987, Clark and McFayden Clark, 1994), so that 14C dates could not be unequivocally tied to artifacts (Bever, 2006a, Reanier, 1995), while at other sites, like Healy Lake and even the Uptar site in the Magadan region, northeast Russia (Cook, 1996, King and Slobodin, 1996), artifacts originally proposed to be fluted points upon closer scrutiny were later dismissed as points with invasive basal trimming or severe impact scarring (Reanier, 1995, Waguespack, 2007). As a result, archaeologists have not been able to ascertain whether Alaskan fluted points were older than, the same age as, or younger than Clovis, such that the historical relationship between these fluted-point industries could not be judged.
Three alternative hypotheses were developed to explain the relationship between Alaskan and temperate North American fluted points (Bever, 2006a, Bever, 2006b, Clark, 1984, Dixon, 1993, Dumond, 1980, Kunz et al., 2003, Morlan, 1977, Reanier, 1995): Alaskan fluted points represent (1) an antecedent Clovis population that dispersed southward from Beringia at the end of the Pleistocene; (2) a post-Clovis, late Paleoindian northward migration of people or transmission of technology from temperate North America to the Arctic; or (3) a non-Paleoindian, locally developed mid-Holocene phenomenon. The second, late Paleoindian northward-spread hypothesis is not a new one (see the early projections of MacNeish, 1956, MacNeish, 1963, Willey, 1966, Wormington, 1957), and it has found support in the recovery of similar fluted-point technology at Charlie Lake Cave, British Columbia, dating to about 12,500 cal BP, as well as secure dating of other (typically non-fluted) “Northern Paleoindian” bifacial technologies at Arctic sites like Mesa and Engigstciak (Cinq-Mars et al., 1991, Hoffecker and Elias, 2007, Kunz and Reanier, 1994). The lack of firmly dated fluted-point sites in the far north, however, continues to stymie Beringian archaeologists' efforts for confirmation of the northward-spread hypothesis.
A new archaeological site in Bering Land Bridge National Preserve (Seward Peninsula, western Alaska) provides the first empirical evidence needed to resolve the place of Alaskan fluted points in the origins-of-Clovis debate. This archaeological site, numbered BEN-192 in official records and informally called the Serpentine fluted-point site, is located about 2 km north of Serpentine Hot Springs and 150 km north of the city of Nome (65°52′N, 164°43′W) (Fig. 1). National Park Service archaeologists Chris Young and Bob Gal discovered the site in 2005 when they recovered a basal fragment of a fluted point from the ground surface (Young and Gilbert-Young, 2007). Their initial test excavation confirmed that stone flakes occurred in a buried context loosely associated with wood charcoal 14C dated to about 12,000 cal BP. Our team returned to Serpentine for three field seasons in 2009–2011 to conduct a comprehensive field study and excavation. We recovered four fluted points in a stratigraphic context associated with charcoal- and bone-rich features repeatedly dated through accelerator 14C methods to less than 12,400 cal BP, the very end of the Pleistocene and more than 500 years younger than the time of Clovis in temperate North America. Here we report the preliminary findings of the site's excavation—its context, age, and artifact assemblages—focusing attention on the sample of eight fluted-point fragments recovered.
Section snippets
Site setting
The Serpentine fluted-point site is situated upon a southeast-facing granite bedrock ridge overlooking the tundra of a broad upland valley, ∼145 m in elevation. It is 9 km northwest of the continental divide, about 50 km southwest of the Chukchi Sea shore. The vista from the site includes a small unnamed creek immediately below the granite ridge, its confluence with Hot Springs Creek about 1 km to the south, and Serpentine Hot Springs itself, 2 km southeast (Fig. 2). Shrub-tundra vegetation on
Serpentine's fluted points
Eight fragments of fluted points have been recovered in the Serpentine Hot Springs area, seven at the main site (BEN-192) and an eighth at nearby BEN-170. Four of the BEN-192 points came from the south-locus excavation.
The four fluted-point fragments from the excavation are basal fragments on four different kinds of cherts/chalcedonies (Fig. 10e–h). They have multiple flute scars on both faces, typically three, sometimes two. The points are relatively small, averaging just 21.86 mm wide at the
Discussion
Given the evidence recovered thus far from the Serpentine fluted-point site excavations, we make the following conclusions about the site and its contents. First, its main cultural component occurs in a deposit of wind-blown silt that was sealed across the south locus of the site by 15–40 cm of grussy silt colluvial in origin. Second, although cryogenically disturbed and in places deflated, this cultural component remains intact and excavatable. Third, archaeological materials recovered from
Acknowledgments
We thankfully acknowledge Jeanette Pomrenke, Fred Tucktoo, Eileen Devinney, Ted Birkedal, Linda Hasselbach, and Michael Holt, National Park Service, and Matt Ganley, Bering Strait Native Corporation, for providing important logistical, consultation, and/or administrative support. Special thanks to Harvey Tucktoo and Aluki Brower for participating in field work. Five anonymous reviewers provided much-appreciated constructive criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper. The project was funded by
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