| Summary: | Ice Age archaeology in Alaska is important for understanding when and how people first inhabited the Bering Land Bridge and ultimately peopled the Americas during a period of global climate change. The Owl Ridge archaeological site, located in the Teklanika valley of central Alaska, provides an intriguing look into prehistoric human life at the end of the Ice Age in this remote northern context. Containing three seemingly discrete components, Owl Ridge holds a plethora of lithic material which may shed light on this time period to help explain how Ice Age humans settled central Alaska. Lithic refit and technological analyses were conducted on available artifacts from the Owl Ridge site, verifying the presence of three separate occupation layers, one comprised of the Nenana complex and the other two of the Denali complex. Also from these data, lithic reduction patterns were identified, potentially illuminating lithic tool use at the site. Furthermore, overall site integrity was evaluated, by combining refits and technological data collected by this study.
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