Archaeologists and geologists both study features from the past by looking at where they are found and how they relate to each other in time and space.  The science of this practice is known as stratigraphy.  At the âsowanânihk site, radiocarbon dating shows that the hearth is about 1,000 years older than older than the bison bone.  However, the dating results only confirmed what we already had determined from the site’s stratigraphy. 

 

Because the hearth was found below the bison bone, it must be older.  People living there first built the hearth. Later, the river flooded covered it with sediment, some of which filled the hearth.  Over time, soil formed on top of that sediment and a bison was killed there, leaving bones found in that soil.  The soil shows that river banks were stable enough for plants to grow when bison lived in the area.  One goal of our research is to find out what kinds of plants grew there 9,000 years ago.

 

Certain belongings can help archaeologists identify when a site was used.  Different groups made spear and arrow points in their own styles, and these styles were passed down through generations. Over time, however, the way points were made, their shapes and their technologies changed, just as modern technology changes over time.  For example, music has been stored on records, tapes, CDs, and now online. By comparing belongings from âsowanânihk with similar belongings from sites whose ages are already known, archaeologists can estimate how old the objects at âsowanânihk are.

 

Although erosion moved these points away from their original location, the points found in spring 2026 are similar to belongings found at other Saskatchewan sites that date to about 7,000, 5,000, and 3,000 years ago. This suggests that people have used the site repeatedly for thousands of years, beginning when the hearth was first built, and that Indigenous people continue to use it today.