Canada / MB / DhMg-7 (Brockinton) / S-687

Lab number

S-687

Material dated

bison bone collagen; collagène osseux de bison

Taxa dated

Bison sp.

Locality

south of Melita, 435 m asl, on an east bank floodplain of the Souris River, Manitoba

Map sheet

62 F/03

Submitter

E.L. Syms

Date submitted

March 24, 0097

Measured Age

1320 ± 100

Normalized Age

1400 ± 100

δ¹³C (per mil)

-20.0

Significance

Woodland; Sylvicole

Stratigraphic component

Occupation 1

Context

dark gray clayey silt, Level 10, lowest occupation level

Associated taxa

Mammalia: Bison sp

Additional information

This is a re-run. The original measurement was 1110 +/- 80 BP (normalized, 1190 +/- 85 BP).

Comments

DhMg-7, Brockinton: This is a multicomponent site with three Late Woodland occupations. Syms reports, in Wilmeth (1978: 108-109), the following characteristics: Occupation 1 is 7 m long, a concentration of bison bone from animals butchered at the edge of a meander of the Souris River. Artifacts consist of numerous small and medium-sized points with shallow rounded side-notched and square bases, apparently similar to points found in later occupations with Late Woodland ceramics. Samples will also give an indication of the time of a climatic shift which made the Souris flood plain a favoured habitation zone, since sites appear to correlate with a soil change extending for many miles along the river bank. Occupation 2 is a bone concentration marking a broad butchering area along a meander of Souris River. Artifacts were sparse, primarily a few side-notched points which are post-Avonlea but do not fit into the Prairie side-notched dichotomy. GaK-3806 will indicate the time of most severe flooding since the site was first occupied, as apparently represented by the sand stratum. Occupation 3 includes an early ceramic industry unlike that recorded in other parts of Manitoba, or in Minnesota and the Dakotas, with straight-based side-notched and elongate triangular points. One piece of catlinite tube was found. GaK-3807 will date a ceramic industry which cannot otherwise be assigned chronologically, and will represent the first dated ceramic component from southwestern Manitoba. Syms comments that the modern date for GaK-3807 is unacceptable. Different dates for GaK-3805 apatite and GaK-3805 collagen reflect some of the problems with the use of different techniques on bone. GaK-3805 collagen is likely to be the better date, on the basis of GaK-3806, since found to be redeposited bone from Occupation 1. Syms comments (in S-IX: 97): part of a series of 9 dates from 3 labs; in two cases, samples were divided for alternate fraction dating. S-687 dates generally agree with apatite date of GaK-3805a but differ from acid residue date of GaK-3805b and collagen date of GaK-3806 from same occupation. S-688 unacceptable for strata position. S-689 agrees with alkali insoluble fraction date (A-1206a) but not humate fraction (A-1206b).

References

• Harington, 2003: 443
• Rutherford et al., 1981
• Wilmeth, 1978
• Faunmap 3803