Paleoecological and Archaeological Implications of the Charlie Lake Cave Fauna, British Columbia, 10,500 to 9,500 B.P.

Article Summary by Jonathan C. Driver, May 2015 This paper was written as a contribution to a volume of collected essays that honoured R. Dale Guthrie – a well-known paleontologist who specialized in ice age animals. It is the first report on animal bones that were recovered from the lower layers of the site during 1990 and 1991. Because of Dr. Guthrie’s numerous contributions to understanding the ice age environments of North America, I tried to link animal bone assemblages at Tse’K’wa to information about regional environments in the Peace River area at the end of the last ice age. The paper provides a complete list of all the birds and mammals identified, as well as evidence for environmental change from open to forested landscapes. This information is then set in the regional information about the end of the last ice age, emphasizing geology and palynology (the study of ancient pollen). The second part of the paper discusses human activities at the site, with a focus on the use of bison. There is good evidence that people were hunting and butchering bison, but accounting for the lack of some parts of the bison skeleton is difficult.