North America: Great Plains (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julie Francis. Mark Willis.

This is an abstract from the "From the Plains to the Plateau: Papers in Honor of James D. Keyser" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Black Rock is an extremely rare, fully pecked rock art site in southwestern Wyoming. It is dominated by unusual anthropomorphic forms and associated abstract/geometric designs, with three identifiable zoomorphic figures (two mountain sheep and one elk). As part of a 1990s dating study, 14C and rock varnish...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tawnya Waggle. Laura Hronec. Jasmine Kidwell. Donald Purdon. Jenna Domeischel.

Blackwater Draw is known world-wide as the type-site for Clovis culture— the first demonstrable evidence of humans hunting mammoths in the New World. However, as a resource of Eastern New Mexico University, Blackwater Draw is also a valuable tool for creating connections between student research and community engagement. Students participate in internships, directed studies, and use the varied components of the site to write their undergraduate capstone papers and graduate theses. Through these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jodi Jacobson.

Until recently, highly fragmented bone assemblages in Texas were almost all attributed to poor preservation. A review of assemblages, however, indicates that while there are a high percentage of heavily fragmented medium-sized and larger mammal bone at many of these sites, bones associated with small mammals, reptiles, avian, and fish have only minimal fragmentation. A review of bone from a variety of sites with deep temporal and well-stratified context and of varying degree of preservation and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mavis Greer. John W. Greer.

This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Rock Art Documentation, Research, and Analysis" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A small sandstone rockshelter overlooking Buffalo Creek in the southeastern foothills of the Bighorn Mountains has been of interest to researchers since the 1960s due to its shield-bearing warriors, but they account for only a few images at the site. Several different animals here include elk, bears, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Molly Herron.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While it is well known that Clovis people hunted mammoths (Mammuthus columbi), there are few cases in the Paleoindian record where campsites associated with mammoth remains have been found. The La Prele Mammoth site, located near Douglas, Wyoming, is an approximately 13,000-year-old mammoth kill site with an associated camp. While mammoth remains have been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abigail Fisher. Lewanne French.

This is an abstract from the "Animal Bones to Human Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dogs were an important resource for many Plains peoples, especially for the transportation of materials (e.g., timber, meat, water). The use of dogs for traction may have even facilitated high mobility in early North and South American populations. This high mobility eventually decreased with the introduction of agriculture across the northern Plains. Did...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tony Fitzpatrick.

This is an abstract from the "Hell Gap at 60: Myth? Reality? What Has It Taught Us?" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cross‐over immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP) analyses from chipped stone artifacts have been completed to provide additional information on faunal procurement and use at Hell Gap. Results include positive reactions to dog and bovine antisera, with canid and bison bones represented in the faunal assemblage at the site. In addition to blood...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kendra McCabe. William Billeck.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Small drawn white beads are ubiquitous throughout archaeological sites in the United States but historically provided little chronological information due to their uniform appearance. Portable X-ray fluorescence provides a nondestructive means of determining relative amounts of elements used in glass bead opacifying agents. This study tested the chemical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Jones.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. By analyzing radiocarbon date frequencies, it is possible to look at the prehistoric archaeological record on a wider plain, assessing how people dealt with large-scale changes in climate. While radiocarbon date frequencies have often been used to pinpoint time periods of population growth and decline, relatively little is known about how or why these changes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angel Nihells. Melissa G. Torquato. John Rapes. Matthew E. Hill. Erik Otárola-Castillo.

This is an abstract from the "Novel Statistical Techniques in Archaeology I (QUANTARCH I)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The foraging lifestyle persisted as the major human subsistence strategy worldwide for most of the human career. With notable exceptions, this way of life was eventually replaced by a subsistence base complemented and often dominated by cultivated foods. Archaeologists have proposed several hypotheses to explain this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brice Obermeyer. Susan Bachor.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2019, the Delaware Tribal Historic Preservation Office (DTHPO) partnered with East Stroudsburg University (ESU) to conduct noninvasive surveys of seven significant cultural and religious sites in Oklahoma. With support from the National Park Service (NPS), the DTHPO-led survey utilized ESU equipment and training to conduct the survey with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michele Koons. Mark Mitchell.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community-Based Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nestled in the foothills along Apex Gulch in Golden, CO, Magic Mountain is proclaimed to be one of the most important archaeological sites on Colorado’s Front Range. The earliest artifacts date back to 5000 BCE, when the site would have served as camping grounds for mobile hunter-gatherer groups. Later remains, such as ceramics and stone...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ben Schiery. Paul Burnett. Lawrence C. Todd. Erik Otárola-Castillo. Benjamin Schiery.

This is an abstract from the "Novel Statistical Techniques in Archaeology II (QUANTARCH II)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Site prediction models have helped archaeological resource management in site prospecting, impact mitigation, and information recovery. Beginning in 2009, we developed probability models for the Shoshone National Forest (SNF). These models helped to prioritize inventory of areas burned in wildfires, to rapidly appraise...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stance Hurst. Eileen Johnson. Doug Cunningham.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The removal of the Comanche from northwest Texas in the early 1870s opened the Southern High Plains eastern escarpment region to new pastores (Spanish sheepherders from New Mexico) and Anglo-Americans, who created order out of the landscape through construction of built cultural heritage. An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was used to document the built cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Montgomery.

This is an abstract from the "Contested Landscapes: The Archaeology of Politics, Borders, and Movement" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1878, the Rosebud agency moved to its contemporary location at the junction of Rosebud Creek and the south fork of the White River. Over the course of the next decade, members of the Sincangu (Brulé) Sioux led by the charismatic headmen Spotted Tail came to settle within the reservation. While the reservation’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Adair.

This is an abstract from the "New and Ongoing Research on the North American Plains and Rocky Mountains" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maize, or corn, was one of the dominate crops to many North American Plains tribes, contributing beyond subsistence to origin beliefs, rituals, ceremonies, and trade. Given this, archaeologists seek to recreate the evolutionary processes by which maize became an important element in the economy of Plains...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rolfe Mandel.

Vance T. Holliday, the recipient of SAA’s 2018 Fryxell Award for Interdisciplinary Research, has devoted his career to applying geoscientific methods and theories in archaeological investigations. Vance’s scientific contributions, however, go beyond archaeology; he has played an important role in facilitating our understanding of landforms, sediments, and soils that provide the context for archaeological sites. The sites he has investigated, with a focus on their geomorphology, soils,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremiah Perkins. Cambria Haley. David Klamm.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past two summers at the archaeological excavation of Etzanoa we used a Leica P40 scanner to create 3-D models of the excavation units. The accuracy of the measurements is + 1 mm. It is possible to take measurements of features and object from the model. The scanner has some limitations for recording deep excavations, and a novel method for overcoming...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas MacDonald.

The University of Montana conducted an archaeological survey of the Cougar Creek valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, in 2017. We mapped Cougar Creek obsidian outcrops, procurement areas, and secondary processing sites. XRF analysis of natural and cultural samples of the snowflake obsidian show a distinct chemical composition, even though its creation event is coeval with the famous Obsidian Cliff ca. 180,000 years ago (ca. 30 miles northeast). Due to its highly variable quality, Native...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sonya Beach. Thomas Thompson. Thomas Gruber. R. Doyle Bowman. Janna Gruber.

This is an abstract from the ""Is There Gold in that Field?" CRM and Public Outreach on the Front Lines" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Why shouldn't cultural resource management (CRM) companies be involved in public outreach and education outside of regulatory mandates? Archaeologists are ambassadors of the discipline by nature, giving responsible access to shared history with other disciplines and members of the public as well as engaging with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jack Hofman. Barbara Crable.

Feature 15-1 at a 9,000 year old bison kill site in Rawlins County, northwest Kansas yielded remains of black footed ferret (BFF) and numerous other species. Here we summarize cultural and taphonomic factors related to the feature’s formation and review BFF biogeography for the early Holocene period in the central Plains region. The diverse fauna from this feature and its varied modifications may reflect special cultural behavior associated with the bison kill at Burntwood Creek. Both natural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ebony Creswell.

Until recently, the development and spread of tuberculosis in humans has been associated with the advent of Old World animal domestication and agriculture. However, recent evidence for the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis raises the possibility of a Pleistocene era dispersal. Poor bone preservation and small populations make finding Pleistocene-era bioarchaeological evidence of the disease difficult. Coupled with this, epidemiological studies suggest that population numbers were too low...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Reid Farmer. Jon Kent. Allan Koch.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1971, excavations were conducted by avocational archaeologists at Cherokee Mountain Rock Shelter (5DA1001) in Douglas County Colorado. A 1973 published report showed an assemblage indicating three Late Prehistoric components. The middle component contained what was interpreted as Shoshonean ceramics likely from outside of the region. The collection was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachael Shimek.

This is an abstract from the "New and Ongoing Research on the North American Plains and Rocky Mountains" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite ethnographic and ethnohistoric evidence suggesting the Great Plains were teeming with canids during prehistory and the contact period, the archaeological record of canids (wolves, coyotes, dogs, and foxes) in Wyoming seems rather sparse. This presentation briefly describes the nature of the canid record in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James D. Keyser. David Kaiser.

This is an abstract from the "From the Plains to the Plateau: Papers in Honor of James D. Keyser" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Site 24ST560, located northwest of Billings, Montana, contains the most detailed example of a Crow war party tally known in northern Plains rock art. Known from two avocationalist publications, we analyze the site imagery using Crow ledger drawings and Crow ethnographic information, and determine that it represents the...