Early occupations and cultural sequence at Moose Creek: A late pleistocenesite in central Alaska

Early investigations at the Moose Creek site in 1979 and 1984 recovered sto ne tools within and below paleosol stringers dated between 8160 +/- 260 C-1 4 yr BP and 11 730 +/- 250 C-14 yr BP. Although questions remained regardin g the absence of diagnostic artifacts and the validity of the radiocarbon d ates obtained from soil organics, this assemblage was tentatively assigned to the Nenana complex. Excavations at the site were resumed in 1996 in hope s of solving persisting problems associated with the culture-historical pos itions of its components. Microstratigraphic excavation techniques identifi ed two superimposed microblade components associated with the Denali comple x. Hearth charcoal dated the deepest microblade occupation at 10500 +/- 60 C-14 yr BP, while a geological sample dated the second at 5680 +/- 50 C-14 yr BP The oldest microblades lay 15 cm above a Nenana complex occupation th at contained a hearth dated at 11190 +/- 60 C-14 yr BP. Artifacts associate d with this feature included a large scraper-plane, two side scrapers, a bi face, an exhausted flake core, a hammerstone, and anvil stones, as well as a sub-triangular point and a teardrop-shaped Chindadn point. The majority o f these tools were manufactured from a large basalt cobble reduced using a bipolar technique. Subsurface testing at several localities around the site did not uncover new late Pleistocene occupations. The chronostratigraphic positions of the diagnostic artifacts found during the re-excavation suppor t previous culture-historical sequences observed for Nenana and Denali comp lexes in the region. Results from this latest research confirm that the Nen ana and Denali complexes are chronologically, stratigraphically, and techno logically distinct in the Nenana Valley.