THE DESCRIPTION, CHRONOLOGY AND CORRELATION OF BURIED SOILS AND CULTURAL LAYERS IN A TERRACE SECTION, PEACE RIVER VALLEY, BRITISH COLUMBIA

Abstract

A terrace section in the Peace River Valley of British Columbia contained seven buried paleosols developed in eolian material. Chemical, physical and micromorpholgical data showed the soils to be Chernozemic. The main soil-forming processes have been the leaching and reprecipitation of carbonates, the formation of mull aggregates, the weathering of primary minerals and the weak physical translocation of soil fabric. Five cultural components or levels had been identified in nearby archaeological excavations and these were correlated with the Ah horizons of five of the paleosols. However, none of these Ah horizons contained large amounts of organic P as have been found in cultural layers of other archaeological sections. The cultural components contained tools, flakes, shell beads, bones and projectile points. Radiocarbon dates from charcoal ranged from 5830 ± 80 yr B.P. in the second lowest paleosol to 1530 ± 70 yr B.P. in the second highest paleosol. They showed that most of the eolian material had been deposited on the terrace by about 4500 yr B.P.; that is, by the end of the Hypsithermal. The chronology of soil development and eolian deposition are discussed by applying a previously published system of horizon designations that combines and describes the gradational and pedomorphic features in soils.