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  • Table of Contents

    • Part 1: First Nations of the Peace River Region
    • Part 2: The Fur Trade Era
    • Part 3: Transportation and Communication
    • Part 4: Old Timers and the Price of Land
    • Part 5: Dawson Creek: The Story of the Community
    • Part 6: Mysteries, Adventures and Indian Legends
    • Part 7: Arts, Crafts and Recreation
    • Part 8: Agriculture
    • Part 9: Church Histories
    • Part 10: Schools
    • Part 11: Health Care
    • Part 12: Industries and Enterprises
    • Part 13: Policing the Peace
    • Part 14: Pouce Coupe, Rolla, and Other South Peace Communities
    • Part 15: Chetwynd and the Fort St. John Area
    • Part 16: The Alberta Peace
    • Part 17: Natural History of the Peace River Region
    • Part 18: Interviews with Old Timers
    • Part 19: Remembering Our Veterans

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01-010: Prehistoric Migrations Through the Alberta Peace River Area

Notes and comments by Dorthea Calverley from: An Introduction to the Archeology of Alberta, Canada (Denver Museum of Natural History, p.13)

We have noted that the earliest migrants into the New World may well have passed through Alberta on their way south, although proof is lacking. What, however, of later migrations? There are certain traits such as the making of burins (engraving or gouging tools), the production of microblades struck from specially prepared cores… that one would suspect were derived from Asia, and which could have diffused or been brought by population movement through Alberta, but again there is no satisfactory evidence. …With certain traits, we can consider the possibility of movement from south to north through Alberta, although this too remains unproven. (1965)

It has long been the fashion to attribute all common [cultural] traits to Asia. Now with a greater knowledge of the archeology of both North America and Siberia, it seems possible that, in some instances, we may be dealing with a two-way traffic.

By at least 7000 B.C., certain American Indians were producing a variety of lanceolate points (shaped like a spearhead, tapering at both ends) shaped through removal by pressure of flakes parallel to each other. The same technique and general shape is also found in Siberia, but this technique does not appear to have been in use on the other side of Bering Strait until some thousands of years later.In view of the difference in age, the parallel flaked Asiatic forms can scarcely be ancestral to the American, and we must consider the possibility of independent development in more than one area, orperhaps diffusion from America to Siberia, as Tolstoy (1958) suggested.

Small private collections of points have been made in the Grande Prairie and Peace River Town areas, notably by Robert Cochrane and Dr. H. F. Sutherland. Several classifications of points have been identified – Scottsbluff, Alberta, Agate Basin – like, Oxbow, Cody Browns – Valley (Minnesota) Old Whaling Culture, Hell Gap, Hanna. If as reported in 1974 Clovis points were recovered in the valley of the Peace River, and if one found on Moberly lakeshore proves to be Sandia-related, two conclusions suggest themselves: (1) either the Peace River area has been over the ages “home” to many more tribes than we have presently guessed, or (2) this area has been over tens of thousands of years, a cross-roads of more or less peaceable traffic, like Palestine in Eurasia or the high passes of the Himalayas in Asia, connecting Afghanistan, Russia, Tibet, India and China.

« 01-009: Probability of Asian-American Common Origins or Intermixture of Races

01-011: The Cree Legend of Their Great Trek from Asia »

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