Pollen and charcoal studies at the Wolf Willow site, Wanuskewin Heritage Park, Saskatoon, Canada

Abstract

This study aims to determine whether pollen and charcoal analyses of terrestrial samples from the Wolf Willow archaeological site at Wanuskewin Heritage Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada could help provide the sorts of data necessary to evaluate the role that environmental conditions may have played in the 6,000 year occupational history of the park. The results indicate that pollen and charcoal were sufficiently preserved for analysis and that pollen assemblages were not significantly affected by downwash or differential preservation. Environmental reconstructions show relatively moist conditions at ca. 4,850 bp continuing into the Oxbow period (ca. 4,800–4,100 bp), when a drying trend developed. The McKean period (ca. 4,200–3,000 bp) reflects a broadly dry period with increasing moisture through time. A hiatus interrupts the record, above which Prairie Side-Notched data (ca. 1,100–600 bp) reveal relatively moist conditions, followed by decreased moisture during Plains Side-Notched times (ca. 600–200 bp), which continued into the recent/historic period. Analyses also indicated possible distinctions between roasting and stone boiling features, repeated spring-time occupation, and task-dependant firewood selection. Comparison of the Wolf Willow records to palaeoenvironmental reconstructions derived from lake cores and other proxy data placed these results within the broader literature on several millennia of Northern Plains climatic and environmental variation. Thus, these results clearly indicate the high potential of such research to address questions regarding human-environment interaction and the role that palaeoenvironmental conditions may have played in drawing indigenous peoples from across the Northern Plains to repeatedly gather at Wanuskewin Heritage Park.

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