The Alligator Lake Throwing Dart, Yukon, Canada

Abstract

On August 25th, 2018, the Yukon Ice Patch Research Group recovered a 6,000-year-old segmented throwing dart from site JcUu-11 (Hare et al. 2004) located in the traditional territories of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation and the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, Yukon Canada. The discovery was the result of a dramatic retreat of an ice patch over a period of 23 days. This discovery is the first entirely complete atlatl throwing dart retrieved from an archaeological site in arctic and subarctic North America. Beyond its remarkably state of preservation, the artifact offers insights on material use and artifact design that may have significant implications for archaeological interpretations of First Nations’ hunting traditions.