This paired volume from the Archaeological Survey of Alberta brings together two complementary examinations of the Alberta Plains—one looking deep into the region’s human past, the other mapping Indigenous presence at the threshold of European arrival.
In Alberta Plains Prehistory: A Review, J. Roderick Vickers offers a compact survey of archaeological work on the Plains. He outlines the early development of archaeology in Alberta, sketches the defining features of the Plains environment, and assesses the various classification systems scholars have used to organize its long human story. Vickers revisits the debates surrounding potential human occupation during the late Wisconsin glaciation, including the viability of an ice-free corridor and its implications for early migration. He also touches on the disappearance of the region’s great Ice Age animals and the long-standing question of human involvement. The heart of the study is a chronological outline of Plains cultural development, illustrated with site examples from across Alberta. Vickers closes by weighing differing interpretations and highlighting unresolved issues that continue to animate Plains research.
Jack Brink’s Dog Days in Southern Alberta turns from deep prehistory to the dawn of the historic era. Brink investigates the distribution of Plains Indigenous nations in southern Alberta during the period of initial European influence and subsequent direct contact. Through archaeological indicators, ethnographic sources, and early historical records, he reconstructs shifting territorial patterns and intertribal relationships, offering a clearer sense of how diverse groups occupied, moved through, and interacted within this landscape.
