North America: Great Plains (Geographic Keyword)
126-150 (236 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Painting the Past: Interpretive Approaches in Global Rock Art Research" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Plains warfare is well known for its “gamesmanship” aspect, but one of the less emphasized parts of that is the practice of leaving a “calling card” flouting your entry into an enemy’s territory and your success against him. Recent research has located more than a dozen “out of place” northern Plains rock art sites....
Legend Rock Remembered (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Art and Archaeology of the West: Papers in Honor of Lawrence L. Loendorf" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Legend Rock is a world-renowned petroglyph site located north of Thermopolis, WY. Considered a sacred site by the Shoshone Indian Nation it features impressive and significant petroglyphs within the Dinwoody tradition. This presentation focuses on the management plan created between Wyoming State Parks and...
Legends of the Dinsmore Hilton (2018)
Learning to be an archaeologist is a craft that comes in many forms from formal academic training, field and lab work, to informal unstructured experiences. These become known through academic degrees, peer reviewed publications, project reports, conference presentations and interactions with peers, colleagues, the public and even the media. Formal training is listed in detail in personal vitae and may be measured and judged by the outputs but how we do archaeology as individuals is also the...
“Like Mushrooms after Rain”: Learning the Land on the Late Nineteenth-Century Central Great Plains (USA) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and Landscape Learning for a Climate-Changing World" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After the Civil War, settlers moved into a Great Plains landscape from which Native Americans had been extirpated; i.e., a foreign land with few local experts. In the case of late nineteenth-century Custer County, Nebraska, settler towns sprang up and disappeared “like mushrooms after rain.” Settlers initially sought out...
Lithic Technological and Use-Wear Analysis for Two Paleoindian Sites at the Kanorado Locality, Kansas (2024)
This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents results of an analysis of lithic artifacts from the Kanorado Locality in the High Plains of Western Kansas. The Kanorado Locality is a stratified Clovis-age and Folsom/Midland occupation along Middle Beaver Creek. The Clovis adaptation in the Great Plains is well-documented, but not as...
Lithic Technology of Manufacturing Stone Tools at Gravel Quarry Source Locations using Heat-Treatment (2018)
Prehistoric flintknappers world-wide typically used heat-treatment to improve the flakeability of lithic materials after initial reduction into smaller-sized packages. In contrast, along the eastern escarpment of the Southern High Plains of Northwest Texas, Late Archaic-age (4,500-2,000 rcyBP) flintknappers used heat-treatment to improve large quartzarenite clasts prior to initial clast reduction. Heat-treatment in this case was used as part of procurement at quarry gravel source locations....
Long-Term Dietary Change among Hunters of the North American Great Plains (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The 13,000-year-long record of hunting by North American Great Plains populations is often portrayed as an almost exclusive reliance on large-bodied prey, such as bison. This simplified perspective ignores temporal and regional variability in environmental conditions and changes in human-prey dynamics, making exclusive reliance on a single taxon unlikely. The...
A Look at the Impact of Natural Grassland Fires on the Archaeological Record along the Eastern Escarpment of the Southern High Plains of Texas (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fires are an essential aspect of the grassland ecosystem across the Great Plains. Natural fires often can transform surrounding rocks to look like hearths or individual hearthstones used by prehistoric people. Several experiments, however, have demonstrated that grassland fires may not fully discolor the rocks on all sides...
Managing the Effects of Climate Change and Foraging Risk through Dietary Portfolio Diversity, an Example from 13,000 years of Human-Environment Interactions on the Great Plains of North America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Defining and Measuring Diversity in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Food security and risk management are prominent contemporary global challenges, with ~795 million people undernourished worldwide. Climate change is projected to affect the availability, accessibility and stability of food sources, further exacerbating global malnutrition, but this is not a novel human challenge. Food security risk...
Many Pathways to Stewardship of Oklahoma's Past and Present (2018)
True to the title of the 2017 Oklahoma Archaeology Month poster, its creation involved an extensive collaborative effort. The theme celebrates both the long-standing education and outreach efforts of the Oklahoma Archeological Survey and the founding of the Oklahoma Public Archaeology Network (OKPAN). OKPAN sponsored the competitive recruitment for an artist to conceive the poster, which generated multiple submissions and spawned other creative partnerships. The poster displays an original,...
Mapping Lithic Surface Scatters with Drones (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Quivira Revisited" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Combining traditional archaeological methods such as pedestrian survey with unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) mapping creates an opportunity for efficient data capture and analysis of the scale and spatial arrangement of archaeological sites. This poster presents a cost-effective approach to surveying and mapping surface scatters and illustrates how the application of...
The McKean Complex Occupation in the Sunlight Basin, Northwest Wyoming: An Updated Assessment of Cultural and Geological Stratigraphy at Site 48PA551 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Multidisciplinary Research at 48PA551: A Middle Archaic (McKean Complex) Site in Northwest Wyoming" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Site 48PA551 is a widely recognized winter camp originally dated to Middle Archaic (McKean Complex) period. Original investigators described the McKean occupation as a singular unit within a 30-90 cm thick sedimentary stratum beginning at the ground surface. Original radiocarbon dating...
Microfauna Analysis at the La Prele Mammoth Site (48CO1401): Implications for Clovis Diet and Paleoenvironments (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most of the research focusing on Late Pleistocene hunting has been tailored to examining megafauna, with microfauna receiving little attention in the Clovis archaeological record. This project examines the microfauna remains recovered from the La Prele Mammoth Site (48CO1401). La Prele is an open-air Clovis mammoth camp and kill site located in Converse...
Microfossil Analysis Of A Grinding Stone From The Etzanoa Archaeological Site (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Microfossil and residue analysis can provide valuable information about past dietary practices and environments. Etzanoa (14CO3) or the Arkansas City Country Club site, is an Ancestral Wichita site attributed to the Lower Walnut Focus of the Great Bend Aspect. This site is situated on the Walnut River at its confluence with the Arkansas River and is dated...
Miniature Folsom Points from the Lindenmeier Site, Colorado (2018)
Among the Folsom artifacts excavated by Frank Roberts at the Lindenmeier site in Colorado are several unusually small projectile points, both fluted and unfluted. This paper explores the hypothesis that these miniature points are toys. To do so, we review the ethnographic literature on miniature weapons and contextualize the production and use of such objects. Second, we compare the small Folsom artifacts to full-size points from a typological and technological point of view. Finally, we discuss...
Mitigation and Management in the Context of Climate Change at Three Historic Properties on the Great Plains, USA (2018)
Under the terms of a Memorandum of Agreement, a professional archaeologist and land-survey crew annually visit 16 historic properties within the Area of Potential Effects of the Maple River Flood Control Dam to document site conditions. All are archaeological sites that could be subjected to seasonal temporary inundation during spring runoff and/or periodic non-winter storm events. Since the "dry dam" first became operational during spring melt in 2007, extreme flood events occurred in 2009 and...
Mobility in the Big Horns: GIS Analysis of Upper and Lower Canyon Creek and the Implications for Prehistoric Movement (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Least cost pathway research focuses on creating a baseline model of human movement constructed on defined variables. The stark landscape of the Bighorn mountains, from a Plains or Basin perspective, can be incredibly steep and difficult to navigate, without high cost or risk. The study uses GIS to identify least cost pathways as possible routes of migration...
Modeling Hunter-Gatherer Population Dynamics on the Texas Coastal Plain during the Holocene (2018)
A radiocarbon database is used to model prehistoric population dynamics on the Texas Coastal Plain in the context of Holocene climate change. Hunters and gatherers participated in a multifaceted social and ecological system that appears to have been highly resilient to climatic impacts by utilizing multiple ecological zones and participating in wide-ranging social networks for over 6000 years. Climatic fluctuations include a dry middle Holocene and fluctuating but wetter late Holocene. During...
Native Narratives and Settler Colonialism in the Rocky Mountain West (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of the social and material effects of European colonization on indigenous inhabitants has been a regular topic of archaeological discourse in the United States for the last twenty years, with strong publication records in the Southeast, Southwest, and California. A generation of recent scholars...
NDDOT’s Collaborative Approach to Tribal Involvement during Project Development and Delivery (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT) has been working with regional Tribal Nations since 1998. In 2004, NDDOT and five of these Nations began jointly writing a Section 106 Programmatic Agreement for Tribal Consultation in North Dakota (PA). The PA among NDDOT, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and...
New Context from an Old Site: Collections Research on the Colby Mammoth Clovis Site (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the first discovery of projectile points associated with mammoth remains, the iconic recreation of Clovis life has been a group of hunters stalking this multi-ton animal. However, despite nearly 100 years of research, questions remain about traditions associated with Pleistocene megafauna hunting including its frequency and importance. In the 1970s...
New Interpretations of the Clovis Anzick Site, 50 Years after Its Discovery (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Paleo Lithics to Legacy Management: Ruthann Knudson—Inawa’sioskitsipaki" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over 100 lithic tools accompanied the burial of a two-year-old Clovis boy. While this assemblage has been called a cache by some, these artifacts appear to have been left as grave goods, so the child would have needed tools in the next life. Some artifacts have nicks and breaks, or have been resharpened suggesting...
New Investigations at Bonfire Shelter: A Consideration of Bison Jumps and Their Implications for Paleoindian Social Organization (2018)
Bonfire Shelter (41VV218) is a nationally significant site in the Lower Pecos region of the West Texas borderlands that preserves evidence of what may be the oldest and southernmost "bison jump" in North America. At least two major episodes of bison hunting are evident at Bonfire Shelter, one associated with Paleoindian Plainview and Folsom projectile points, and another associated with Late Archaic Castroville and Montell points. The approximately 12,000-year-old layers comprising Bonebed 2...
New Investigations of the Deer Creek Site, an Early Eighteenth Century Ancestral Wichita Village (2018)
Deer Creek (34KA3) is one of few known fortified villages on the Southern Plains and was occupied during a critical point in Wichita tribal history. While researchers have been interested in this site for almost one hundred years, it was only two years ago that archaeologists were allowed to formally excavate the site. Following removal of dense brush cover in 2014, archaeologists with the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma Archaeological Survey, and the Oklahoma...
Of Hearth and Home: Investigating Site Structure at the Fossil Creek Site, an Early Ceramic Camp in Larimer County, Colorado (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fossil Creek (5LR13041) is a significant Early Ceramic (Plains Woodland) campsite in northern Colorado. Since 2010, archaeologists from Colorado State University and the University of Northern Colorado periodically conducted controlled surface collection, shovel testing, ground-based remote sensing, and block excavation (70 m2) of this large site. Artifacts...