#BLUEFISH CAVES SERIES#

Our results demonstrate that humans occupied the site as early as 24,000 cal BP (19,650 В± 130 14C BP).

Here, we report new AMS radiocarbon dates obtained on cut-marked bone samples identified during a comprehensive taphonomic analysis of the Bluefish Caves fauna. 14,000 cal BP (calibrated years Before Present), i.e., well after the LGM. The weight of the available archaeological evidence suggests that the first peopling of North America occurred ca. This hypothesis proved highly controversial in the absence of other sites of similar age and concerns about the stratigraphy and anthropogenic signature of the bone assemblages that yielded the dates.

#BLUEFISH CAVES SERIES#

Excavations conducted at Bluefish Caves (Yukon Territory) from 1977 to 1987 yielded a series of radiocarbon dates that led archaeologists to propose that the initial dispersal of human groups into Eastern Beringia (Alaska and the Yukon Territory) occurred during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). In addition to larger Ice Age mammals, remains of smaller carnivores, rodents, birds and fish were also found in the Caves.The timing of the first entry of humans into North America is still hotly debated within the scientific community. There is no sign of human use of the cave after the end of glaciation. Meticulous microscopic examination of the bones from the Bluefish Caves has revealed butchering and cut marks on bone, including the bone of mammoth, caribou and horse. Dates on a horse femur, a mammoth scapula and a mammoth limb bone provided dates of 13,000, 15,500 and 24,000 years before present, indicating use of the cave by both animals and people in the last millennia of the glacier period. The bones of animals in the loess layer are principally those of Ice Age species: horse, bison, mammoth, wapiti, saiga antelope and caribou. The organic rubble layers above preserve a sequence marked first by a rise in shrub birch, followed by spruce, as forests once again moved into the northern Yukon as temperatures and rainfall increased at the end of the Ice Age. Pollen and plant remains of the loess (wind-blown silt) layers in the caves reflect a vegetative cover dominated by grasses and herbs, the typical vegetation of the glacial maximum. The soil layers or stratigraphy exposed in the excavations have remains of past vegetation and the bones of the Ice Age mammals that once roamed in the area. Initial research was carried on in the 1970вЂ™s and 1980вЂ™s.ДЄlthough the soil layers at Bluefish Caves are little more than a metre thick, they preserve a record of events and past environments, spanning approximately 24,000 years. Research being done at the Bluefish Caves, is led by archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars of the Archaeological Survey of Canada, Canadian Museum of Civilization. Preserved within the sediments are the artifacts that have provided information which has allowed scientists to reconstruct the history of the caves in surprising detail. The caves reveal the oldest evidence of human occupation in North America.

The 3 caves, actually limestone shelters, occur at the base of a limestone bedrock ridge, along the mid-course of the Bluefish River, about 200m above the valley floor. The Bluefish caves are an archaeological site located in the northern Yukon, 50 kilometers southwest of Old Crow.