Preglacial archaeological evidence at Grimshaw, the Peace Rver area, Alberta

An assemblage of quartzite cobbles with attributes of cultural flaking and utilization has been recorded at the base of a Laurentide till at the conta ct with underlying fluvial gravels in a section face of a gravel pit near G rimshaw in the course of Quaternary geology mapping of the Peace River area . The geological context, with secondarily redeposited stone artifacts, doc uments distortion of an early prehistoric site located in a nonglacial rive rine setting by the expanding Late Wisconsinan continental ice from the nor th. The lithic assemblage provides further evidence for an earlier (pre-las t glacial) occupation of North America, predating the earliest postglacial (<11 500 BP) Palaeoindian cultures, traditionally regarded as the hallmark of peopling of the New World.