North America - Plains (Geographic Keyword)
76-100 (223 Records)
In this paper I use a combination of experimental replication, microscopic use wear analysis, and morphological analysis to investigate questions about the differences in hafting technology between Clovis, Folsom, and Midland projectile points. The transition from Clovis to Folsom culture is still poorly understood, and changes in hafting technology are part of the transition. In addition, the question of why fluted (Folsom) and unfluted (Midland) projectile point forms are found in the same...
The exchange of ground nephrite celts across the Rocky Mountains (2017)
Non-local nephrite (jade) artifacts are reported from archaeological sites in northern and central Alberta and are derived from nephrite tool producing areas in southwest British Columbia. This is evidence of trade extending more than 800 km distant across the Rocky Mountain divide. We provide results from a variety of non-destructive techniques (portable X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, and near-infrared spectrometry) to determine the geochemistry and mineralogy of nephrite ground stone...
Experimental Analysis of Late Paleoindian Bone Tools at Bull Creek in Oklahoma (2017)
Summer of 2016 excavations at the Late Paleo-Indian campsite, Bull Creek, in the panhandle of Oklahoma resulted in unique bone tool discoveries. Within a bone pile butchering feature, containing ribs and a vertebral column, a mandible tool was found in situ wedged into the head of a rib. The mandibular notch appears to have been used to pry the rib heads from the spinal column with the coronoid process and condylar process imbedded around the rib head. In addition to the mandible a scapula tool...
Exploration of Wind as an Environmental Consideration for Campsite Selection at Holocene Dunes (2015)
Cultural material-bearing sand dune deposits are common across the intermountain basins of southern Wyoming, dating from the region’s Archaic through Late Prehistoric periods in particular. Investigations there have sought correlations between dune field occupations and plant processing activities in explaining the density of sites in these settings. The abundance of groundstone and fire-affected rock concentrations has led researchers to suggest that the unique plant communities associated with...
Exploring Occupation Patterns in the Lower Pecos and Central Texas Regions over the Last 9,000 Years using Radiocarbon Dates (2017)
We use summed probability distributions derived from radiocarbon sequences as a gross measure of prehistoric occupation patterns for two regions in Texas. The first sequence consists of over 325 dates from the Lower Pecos Region, located along the Rio Grande and Pecos Rivers. The region has over 40 years of radiocarbon dating, with dates in this database coming from multiple excavation projects that were frequently focused on shelters and cave. The second dataset comes from the Upper San Antonio...
EXPLORING PHOTOGRAMMERY AND AERIAL ARCHAEOLOGY FOR INNOVATIVE MAPPING AND SURVEYING AT HEART MOUNTAIN, WYOMING (2017)
Heart Mountain is an impressive geological anomaly visible across the Bighorn Basin of northwestern Wyoming. This unusual-shaped butte stands out among the many mountain ranges and basins in this part of the state. Identified on the earliest fur trapper maps, Heart Mountain has served as a recognizable landmark for centuries. The Crow (or Apsaalooké) tell stories of vision questing, buffalo hunting, camping, traveling, and fighting at Heart Mountain, and it was part of their reservation in 1868....
Exploring Prehistoric Resource Distribution in the Black Mesa Region: A Plains- Montane Ecotone in Cimarron County, Oklahoma (2015)
The Black Mesa region of Oklahoma is located in northwestern Cimarron County, and constitutes the edge of the Chaquaqua Plateau. It is the easternmost finger of Colorado's Mesa de Maya. Situated along Oklahoma's western border, Black Mesa is the highest and largest in a system of mesas and valleys that extend westward to merge with the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The relief of this landscape is exaggerated by its juxtaposition with the high plains to the north, south, and east – it is thus...
Exploring the relationship between Folsom and Midland points in the Southern Plains (2015)
The relationship between Folsom points and Midland points in the Southern Plains remains an unresolved topic of debate. At the scale of individuals, it has been suggested that the fluted Folsom point was a symbolic object made by a person(s) of power to alleviate risk in hunts. Along similar lines, differences between Folsom and Midland points have been attributed to the relative skill differences between knappers. At a broader scale, some have questioned the association of Folsom and Midland,...
The First Americans South of the Continental Ice Sheets–Correlating the Late Pleistocene Archaeological and Genetic Records (2016)
There is strong empirical evidence showing that North and South America were occupied before Clovis. This comes from sites such as Monte Verde, Chile, Paisley Caves, Oregon, Schaefer and Hebior, Wisconsin, Page-Ladson, Florida, Debra L. Friedkin, Texas, Wally’s Beach, Canada, and a few others. This evidence places the initial occupation of the Americas at about 15,000 cal yr B.P. Quality chronological data for Clovis still place this complex between 13,000 and 12,600 cal yr B.P. Genetic studies...
Fluted-point technology and the nature of its transmission in the Western Canadian Ice-free Corridor (2017)
Recent analyses suggest that Paleoindian stage technology in the archaeological record of the Western Canadian Ice-free Corridor—fluted projectile points—can provide valuable evidence of the dispersal of Clovis and descendant groups northward as early Americans spread throughout the New World. This paper discusses recent geometric morphometric and technological evidence for fluted-point variation in the Ice-free Corridor, which possibly represents a variety of typological specimens spanning over...
Folsom Adaptations to Bison Hunting: a comparison of Northern and Southern Plains arroyo trap kills (2015)
The purpose of this research is to compare and contrast Paleoindian arroyo trap bison kills on the Southern plains to analogous sites on the Northern plains to investigate the transition from opportunistic hunting to organized hunting under different environmental regimes. Analyses to address this problem include: Stable isotopes of bison bone to aid in environmental reconstruction; radiocarbon dates to determine the antiquity of the sites being compared; and the seasonality of the kill event to...
Folsom from the Continental Divide to the Plains-Woodland Border: Examining patterns in artifact distribution and lithic procurement (2015)
Folsom artifact distributions from the Rocky Mountains to the Plains-Woodland border are not ubiquitous. This study documents Folsom projectile point occurrences across seven different physiographic regions, from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to the Central Lowlands and Glaciated Region of eastern Kansas, and argues for diverse resource availability and lithic procurement strategies in separate regions. Particular attention is given to artifacts from private collections and surface context. A...
Folsom Households and Community Structure: A New Look at Hunter-Gatherer Lifespace (2015)
The presence of four contemporaneous Folsom-age structures at the Mountaineer site near Gunnison, Colorado suggests these hunter-gatherers had broader adaptations than previously recognized. Mountaineer provides a unique setting for investigating Folsom socio-economic structure as it relates to domestic architecture, through analysis of lithic assemblages and spatial patterning. A multi-scalar analysis has provided new insight into Folsom lifeways and raised questions concerning how...
Food on Parade: The Use of Food to Create Social Identity and Differences within the Post-Civil War U.S. Army at Fort Laramie, Wyoming (2016)
On a remote frontier fort where conspicuous consumption materials were limited, officers and enlisted men reinforced distinct hierarchical social status identities through differential food consumption. While status differences in the military are primarily signaled through rank insignia and uniform elements, I intend to focus this paper on differences in diet to better understand the maintenance of Victorian class structure at Fort Laramie from 1870 – 1890. A zooarchaeological and historical...
A Formal Model of End Scraper Performance on Dry Bison Hide (2015)
End scrapers are a widely recognized tool in the archaeological record, but their performance characteristics are poorly understood. We use experimental results and adapt marginal value theorem (MVT) for use in lithic studies to devise a formal model of end scraper performance that predicts the optimal time at which one should resharpen their end scraper under several scenarios of raw material abundance. Our study is the first to apply MVT to end scarper performance through an actualistic study,...
From Folsom to the Fur Trade: Harnessing the Research Potential of the State Historical Society of North Dakota's Archaeology Collections (2016)
The State Historical Society of North Dakota curates collections covering 13,000 years of human history in North Dakota. The development of a more comprehensive archaeology collections program in the last five years has been geared toward increasing public access to these collections and communicating the collections’ research potential to an academic audience. The spectacular Lake Ilo Paleoindian collection documents thousands of years of continuous land use in North Dakota. Future research...
Geoarchaeological Investigation at Buffalo Ranch Site, Burleson County, Texas (2017)
The Buffalo Ranch site is exposed at the base of a cutbank along the Brazos River in Burleson County, Texas. Here, two transitional Paleoindian- Early Archaic Wilson and Big Sandy projectile points along with other artifacts were found eroding from a silty sand deposit believed to be a prehistoric natural levee. This layer and its associated artifacts lie approximately 14 m below the ground surface. Its stratigraphic position indicates an age of approximately 8000 to 8500 14C yr B.P., which is...
Geoarchaeology and Chronostratigraphy of the Sheep Rock Spring Site, Late Pleistocene to Holocene, Missouri River Headwaters Region, Southwest Montana (2017)
The Sheep Rock Spring site (24JF292) lies in a small SW Montana valley between Sheep Rock and a residual tor. A late Quaternary sequence (>5 m) supports a chronostratigraphic model from dates on charred material in the upper two units: (1) basal rock landslide diamicton; (2) down-valley debris flows; (3) final Pleistocene-early Holocene (FP-EH, >10,200-8700 RCYBP) channel/floodplain alluvium and paleosols; and (4) mid-Holocene (MH, ca. 6000-5430 RCYBP) alluvial/colluvial fan with paleosols....
Geoarchaeology of the Coffey Site, Northeastern Kansas: Implications for Finding the Material Remains of Paleoamericans in the Eastern Plains, USA (2017)
The Coffey site in the Big Blue River valley of northeastern Kansas is best known for its stratified Middle Archaic components. However, recent investigations at the site recorded stratified Late and Middle Paleoindian cultural deposits and what may be an Early Paleoindian or Pre-Clovis component in the late member of the Severance Formation, a Wisconsinan-age lithostratigraphic unit that occurs as a remnant beneath the T-1 terrace of the Blue River. The late member of the Severance Formation...
Geographic and Chronological Differences in Lithic Raw Material Use by Hunter-Gatherers in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (2015)
Over the last eight years, the University of Montana has conducted archaeological research at various sites in Yellowstone National Park and vicinity. One aspect of our research is to study variation in hunter-gatherer lithic raw material procurement and use. From north to south and east to west within the region, there are extreme variations in hunter-gatherer use of a number of distinct volcanic and non-volcanic lithic raw materials. This variation can be used to evaluate geographic...
Geophysical Explorations at a Reservoir Site in Southwestern Oklahoma (2015)
The erosion and subsequent looting of archaeological materials from reservoir sites has long been a cause for concern. The damming of rivers results in the inundation of prehistoric camp and burial sites. Human remains and associated burial goods are a favorite of looters, and are frequently exposed by the rise and fall of reservoir waters. This project employs geospatial analysis of the Lake Altus-Lugert reservoir in southwestern Oklahoma to locate high-risk sites before they are exposed to...
The Good, the Bad, and the Awkward: The Archaeology Open House as Heritage Process (2015)
The open house has long been a tool employed by archaeologists who wish to engage or at least inform the public about their field work. Projects that have a strong community mandate would seem tailor-made for this type of activity. Yet if these events are to meet their promise they need to move from mere "show and tell" to more thoughtful and theoretical interventions. That is particularly true for sites with difficult or contested histories. This presentation draws on four seasons of open...
Goodson Shelter: Recent Excavations at a Newly Discovered Deeply Stratified Rockshelter in Northeastern Oklahoma. (2015)
Goodson Shelter was discovered by an amateur artifact collector and was first brought to our attention in 2012. The site is an approximately 20 x 7 meter eroded sandstone rockshelter situated about 5 meters above a small tributary. Work in 2013 and 2014 consisted of excavation of a 1x7 meter trench running from outside the dripline to the back wall of the shelter. Deposits are approximately 2 meters deep, and appear to be largely stratigraphically intact. Over 300 projectile points/preforms...
"Got Data, Now What?": Fort Carson's Steps Toward Addressing Data Gaps in Archaeological Research (2015)
For several decades, the U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) Fort Carson, Colorado, has had an active cultural resources management program, resulting in the documentation of over 8,000 archaeological resources. The known archaeological resources represent every period of human occupation from the Paleoindian period to the present. Site types include cache sites, open/sheltered camps, village sites, game drive sites, rock art panels, quarries, historical ranch complexes, historical trails, historical...
Group Mobility during the peri-Medieval Climatic Anomaly in the Nebraska Sand Hills (USA): Validity Results and Preliminary Insights from Ceramic OSL Dating and Characterization (2015)
The Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) occurred from approximately AD 900-1300, affecting climate worldwide. In many regions, this climate change initiated behavioral shifts, resulting in new adaptations to the environment. Our goal is to investigate the potential reorganization of group mobility in the Sand Hills of central Nebraska during this period by examining the exploitation of clay sources over time. As little archaeological investigation has been done in this region, new techniques are...