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111 Chapter 5 Archaeological Assessment of DlPo‑8 Several principal study objectives of this research program could not be addressed through the archaeological assessment of the low terrace at the south end of the Gap.Trenching proved negative for a rock alignment or any other cultural material.While this resolved the question of whether any trace of Old Man’s Playing Ground might remain intact, other questions such as the age of the site,cultural affiliation,and the circumstances of its eventual abandonment remain unanswered. Indirectly, however, much of that information might be obtained through an investigation of DlPo-8, the archaeological site situated on the higher terrace directly above the flat. DlPo-8 is an alluring target for further investigation. Following Fidler’s (HBCA E.3/2, fo. 17) directions, several researchers have previously suggested that this high,disturbed area might even have been the location of Old Man’s Playing Ground (Forbis 1960,GA M21054 ; King 1960, GA M2105-4; Reeves and Dormaar 1972;Yanicki 1999).Though this is not likely the case, there is no reason to doubt that DlPo-8 was situated, at the very least, in extreme proximity to the playing ground.The collections of the Glenbow Foundation team in 1960 reveal the site to be a rich one,and my previous analysis of this assemblage,coupled with a statistical comparison to other sites in the surrounding area, suggest it to have been the meeting place for at least two distinct groups, one from either side of the Front Range (Yanicki 1999). It is not a great leap of logic to associate this activity with the playing ground,where gambling and the exchange of goods were ethnographically attested activities up until Protohistoric times. Archaeological investigation of DlPo-8 was therefore proposed as part of the permitted research undertaken at the Gap in the summer of 2010, to be conducted in the event that the playing ground itself was found to have been destroyed. Given their mutual proximity and archaeological evidence for their association,this stage of research sought to investigate whether the record at DlPo-8 can provide insight into aspects of the playing ground that are no longer otherwise available. Methods FIELD Given the very limited records of past work at DlPo-8—no catalogue of the collections from the original 1960 fieldwork appears to have been made, while descriptions of activity at the site are limited to the field notes in the Glenbow Archives (GA M2105-4) and the 112 ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF DLPO-8 archaeological site inventory form (ASA 2011)—much about the site is essentially unknown. For instance, Dave Quapp wrote on the site form that, in terms of dimensions, DlPo-8 “covers all area between [the] river and the mountain to the hind” (ASA 2011).This statement leaves a great deal of area to be explored, but the grounds for this broad assessment are unclear. If based on surface finds, the Glenbow Foundation team found artifacts on the surface “by the road” (King 1960, p. 16, GA M2105-4), in a campsite that “is completely torn up by machinery” and “in the road cut” (Forbis 1960, pp. 6-7, GA M2105-4), and “from the higher ridge at the road’s edge” and “the lower level” (Quapp 1960, p. 14, GA M2105-4)—aside from the cryptic reference to artifacts from a “lower level”, the site’s dimensions were based on discovery of artifacts in areas disturbed by road construction. Test excavation, too was restricted to this disturbed area: We selected the area above the flat on a gentle slope beside the road for our test. Set up the machine and screened a few inches of a 5’× 10’unit,recovered numerous chips. We reasoned that all material derives from the same level, even though we excavated in two thin levels.There appears to be nothing below the immediate surface soil [King 1960, p. 17, GA M2105-4]. An additional test pit, labelled Test Pit X in notes accompanying the collection at the University of Calgary’s Department of Archaeology,was probably excavated by Dave Quapp in 1968 (Yanicki 1999: 15). Although these excavated materials were sorted by arbitrary level and rudimentary sorting of artifacts and materials can be derived from them, the available data do little to resolve questions of the integrity of the site’s stratigraphy,including depth of deposition and changes in site use over time (Yanicki 1999: 86-87). Site dimensions, depth and integrity of deposits...

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