Thesis (B. A.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 2008. / Also available online. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 29-32).

The Cory site (FaNq-75) is a multicomponent Middle Period site located in Saskatoon in south-central Saskatchewan, Canada. The site was excavated in 2001 by Stantec Consulting Ltd. as part of a remediation program for a SaskWater pipeline project. Four occupation levels were identified with one complete and two fragmentary projectile points identified. Level II of the Cory site contained a complete projectile point, which was an atypical Gowen point, and was radiocarbon dated to 5910 ± 60 rcybp. The collection from the site was obtained from the Royal Saskatchewan Museum for a more thorough analysis as part of this thesis. Three new radiocarbon dates were obtained for previously undated levels of the site. In addition to the description of the Cory site, this thesis also reviews the published material from a number of Middle Period sites on the Northern Plains. This review led to a reconsideration of the traditional classification of Middle Period archaeological cultures. Previously, the Gowen complex and the Oxbow complex had been considered separate, but related entities. In this thesis, a new classification is proposed with the Gowen complex and the Oxbow complex combined into a single archaeological culture.

The scientific importance of Wanuskewin Heritage Park lies in the number and diversity of archaeological sites present in a single area. Wolf Willow and Dog Child are multicomponent occupation sites located in the Opimihaw Valley and both contain McKean components. McKean Complex sites are relatively uncommon on the Northern Plains which makes the cluster at Wanuskewin Heritage Park important. McKean lithic materials are mainly locally produced with very few exotics. Materials from McKean assemblages have a heavy reliance on local lithic materials such as chert and quartzite. McKean levels at the Thundercloud, Cut Arm, and Red Tail sites, all located in Wanuskewin Heritage Park, are consistent with this pattern of lithic resource utilization. The presence of exotic lithic materials can allude to territory, trade networks spanning vast amounts of land, or even show preference for an exotic material over locally available tool stone. This thesis will allow Wolf Willow and Dog Child to be understood in the broader context of McKean sites on the Northern Plains. Secondarily, Eldon Johnson’s 1998 “Properties and Sources of Some Saskatchewan Lithic Materials of Archaeological Significance”, a popular and highly utilized thesis, is updated here with new information concerning raw materials found in Wanuskewin Heritage Park.

This doctoral dissertation revisits the horse in Blackfoot culture in order to explore how its adoption altered Blackfoot hunting practices and landscape uses during the Contact Period in the Northwestern Plains of North America. The Blackfoot provide one of the best avenues for research into the horse's impact on big-game hunters because of their pre-contact trajectory, history of interaction with other groups, detailed ethnographic record, and continued investment in equestrianism. While the socio-economic consequences of the horse's introduction have been studied from a historical perspective, the archaeology of this transition remains ambiguous. This project presents a new, archaeological dimension to the dynamics of the Blackfoot equestrian transition by incorporating material culture with traditional knowledge, historic accounts, and geospatial data into a multi-scalar, transnational interpretation of the horse's impact on both Blackfoot social, economic, religious, and spiritual life, as well as the way in which Blackfoot peoples used and understood their landscape. The results of this study show how these changes may be best understood as a transition in modes of production from hunting and gathering to nomadic pastoralism. In this endeavor, this project contributes new theoretical and methodological approaches as well as substantive new data to our understanding of hunting and pastoralism among people of the Northwestern Plains.