The Pasika Complex Cobble Reduction Strategies on the NWC
This study is concerned with the early Pebble Tool Tradition on the Northwest
Coast as represented by artifactual material from two sites n the Fraser River
Valley. These sites, South Yale and Union Bar, contain artifact assemblages
dominated by cobble core and flake tools; such Pasika assemblages have been
the centre of a controversy that has plagued Northwest Coast archaeologists
for the past twenty-five years. In an effort to understand the phenomenon
and possibly resolve the controversy, two hypotheses are presented and tested.
Hypothesis One that the Pasika assemblages represented the remains of a late
Pleistocene pebble tool industry predating any known cultural complex in southwestern
British Columbia was extensively tested and ultimately rejected. Hypothesis
Two that the Pasika assemblages re the remains of a specialized technological
adaptation developed to take advantage of an abundant lithic material form,
the cobble, was also tested. However, unlike Hypothesis One, Hypothesis Two
was accepted for both the South Yale and Union Bar sites. A survey of the
literature on similar sites further supports the second hypothesis and radiocarbon
dates place the Pasika Complex into a 6,000 to 3,000 years B.P. time frame
rather than the initially proposed 12,000 to 9,000 years B.P. time frame.
Finally, it is clear that on the basis of current evidence, the early Pebble
Tool Tradition, a late Pleistocene pebble tool industry was not present on
the Northwest Coast 9,000 to 12,000 years ago. Rather, a more recent cobble
reduction strategy, only part of a larger technosphere, emerges as a more
likely interpretation for the Pasika assemblages.