This week’s photograph is of an artifact we found in 2015 when undertaking an HRIA for Sundre Forest Products. It comes from a site south of the Ram River – our 100th site of the year, in fact. It’s an exciting find: a spear point of the Agate Basin style. The picture above was taken when it was found and the picture below shows the point after it was catalogued in our lab. We have found our fair share of points over the years, but this is a rare one because of its age. Agate Basin points are some of the oldest found in the province and date between 10,200 and 9,600 years ago.

The site was identified when we were surveying a disturbed area. Like Corey explained in his blog entry , a lot of information may be lost when a site is disturbed because the relationship of one artifact to another has been disturbed. Although we always hope to find sites intact and undisturbed, disturbances like erosion can allow archaeologists to see a larger area of soil than through shovel testing alone. This artifact was found lying on the ground when we were walking over a ridge. This is why archaeological assessments in disturbed areas can be worthwhile. It’s also why archaeologists are hard to walk with – they’re always looking down, searching for artifacts in even the most unlikely places.