BACKGROUND TO HUMAN USE OF THE AREA more -->
Two sets of data now suggest that humans did not enter North America by travelling south along the east flanks of the Rockies. A recent review of dated vertebrate fossils by Burns (in press) has shown that large mammals were present in the western interior of Canada up to about 20,000 B.P., after which no dated fossils are known until about 11,500 B.P. in southern Alberta and 10500 B.P. in northern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. Assuming that hunting was an important economic activity for early human groups, it would have been impossible for humans to arrive well south of the ice sheets by 11,500 B.P. if they traveled down the east side of the Rockies. No sites have been discovered which pre-date Clovis sites further south, and the two earliest sites with fauna - Vermilion Lakes and Charlie Lake Cave - both show early human occupations in the short-lived colonising vegetation of the early post-glacial period which generally dates in the 11,500 to 10,000 B.P. range. All of the available evidence suggests that the peopling of the western interior of Canada in the post-glacial period occurred from the south.
