A GIS Analysis of Intra-Site Spatial Patterning at the Early Paleoindian Mt. Albion West Site (AhGw-131)

Abstract

The Mt. Albion West (AhGw-131) Early Paleoindian site is one of only a handful of Late Pleistocene sites in Ontario. Excavated by Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI) between 1998 and 2004, the site is situated adjacent to the Red Hill valley on the Niagara Escarpment in Hamilton, Ontario. The project yielded detailed analyses concerning the tools and debitage recovered from the four discrete artifact concentration areas at this site in addition to a brief assessment of potentially significant intra-site patterning within one locus. In this paper, the four activity areas from Mt. Albion West are analyzed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to investigate these spatial relationships with an eye toward interpreting the duration and frequency of the site’s occupation(s) as well as its function(s) within the broader Gainey settlement system.