More Blackfoot Cave

Weekend before last I spent both days excavating at Blackfoot Cave that I posted about last month. The find of the weekend was this section of what appears to be a bison mandible. If you look closely you can see the top surfaces of the teeth pointed down toward the photo scale. It hasn't been officially identified as bison, but sure looks like it to me.

It was found at a depth of 70 cm in one of the units close to the overhang. Earlier this season, a couple of bison vertebrae were found at about this depth in a unit less than a meter away - maybe part of the same barbecue around 3,000 years ago.

Here you can see happy excavators and mandible admirers lined up to take pictures. Excavator Rosalie in the middle of the picture was the discoverer.

In my first post on this shelter, I said I was looking forward to seeing the results of radiocarbon assays taken from a depth of around 2m. Two came in right before we started work that weekend and both appear to be good dates from about 5,000 years ago. That deposit appears to be going strong under 2m and maybe we can push to a Paleoindian occupation before the season ends.