Paleoindian (Other Keyword)
51-75 (111 Records)
Anthills are ubiquitous across the Great Basin, with the potential to affect archaeological sites through bioturbation. This study considers if lithic debitage found on the surface of anthills (and within) represents the redistribution of specific size grades, with an emphasis on vertical redistribution of smaller flakes from below ground to the surface. Our study targeted anthills near previously analyzed lithic plots around the perimeter of Rimrock Draw Rockshelter (35HA3855), a Paleoamerican...
Late Pleistocene Archaeology in Argentina 47 years later (2017)
In the 1970s Ruth Gruhn and Alan Bryan spent several weeks in Argentina as part of a one-year trip around South America. In those years, Ruth and Alan started to challenge the Clovis-First Model for the peopling of the America, and their visit to South America was instrumental in consolidating their ideas as well as stimulating the research of Late Pleistocene archaeological sites. Subsequent travels to the region, especially the one made by Alan in 1980, contributed to generating the hypothesis...
The late Pleistocene transmission of fluted-point technology across a continent: A morphological investigation. (2015)
The Northern Fluted-Point Complex represents a paleoindian occupation in northern Alaska and the Canadian Yukon and appears to form part of an adaptive strategy similar to that of late paleoindians in the North American plains. This paper presents the results of a shape analysis that uses geometric morphometrics as a tool to identify major factors of variability in fluted projectile-point morphology across a continent by comparing artifacts from Alaska and more temperate regions in North...
The Life of the Adolescent Paleoindian Female from Hoyo Negro, Quintana Roo, Mexico (2017)
Cave divers discovered remains of an adolescent human female in an immense, submerged chamber of the Sac Actun cave system in 2007. Until recently, her remains had only been studied from photographs, photo-based 3-dimensional models, and minimal sampling. Now her skeleton has been removed from the cave, conserved, and subjected to bioarchaeological, chemical, and histomorphological analysis. Her unusually complete and well-preserved skeleton, a rarity for late Pleistocene females in the...
Lithic Technological Organization at Last Supper Cave: Reconstructing Paleoindian Mobility and Landscape Use at an Upland Site in Northwestern Nevada (2015)
Excavations at Last Supper Cave (LSC), Nevada by Tom Layton and Jonathan Davis in the early 1970s revealed an extensive record of occupation including a Paleoindian component recently re-dated to ~10,300 14C B.P. Despite the potential for the site to reveal information about Paleoindian lifeways in the Great Basin during the Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene (TP/EH), analysis of these early artifacts, including numerous Great Basin stemmed projectile points, tools, and debitage, was never...
Luminescence Dating at Alice Boer site, Brazil (2016)
The Alice Boer site, in the Rio Claro region of São Paulo state, Brazil, gained some renown in the 1970s as a possible pre-Clovis site. It was excavated in the 1960s by Maria Beltrão and produced a questionable radiocarbon date of 14.2 ± 1.2 BP (uncalibrated) drawn from a very small (for conventional dating) charcoal piece near the bottom of an ant-disturbed cultural layer. A TL date on burned chert of 11 kya was also produced. The presence of artifacts in the lower layers and the integrity of...
Making Sense of the Variation in Folsom Projectile Point Technology (2015)
Analyses of Folsom projectile point technology generally focus on the making and use of the classic bifacially fluted form. Often some mention is made of Midland or unfluted points, but formal technological analyses of these types are rare. Utilizing a sample of 989 points and preforms from Folsom and closely related technologies, this research explores the variation that is present in Folsom point production. Points from Folsom contexts are divided into five types: Folsom, Midland,...
Measuring Mobility by Proxy: Use and Maintenance of Lithic Tools in Pennsylvania from Paleoindian to Middle Archaic Times (2018)
Archaic peoples in Pennsylvania were less mobile than their Paleoindian predecessors. One form of evidence supporting this argument is the increased use of local lithic raw materials in the Early and Middle Archaic. The utilization and retouch of unifaces and bifaces is a second form of evidence of mobility. The production of tools designed for long-term use and maintenance is associated with highly mobile groups where maximizing tool use-life reduces transport cost and reduces risk when moving...
Migration Terminus? Late Pleistocene/and Early Holocene Archaeology at Rock Creek Mortar Shelter, Upper Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee (2015)
Rock Creek Mortar Shelter (40Pt209), in Pickett State Forest on the Upper Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee, possesses a more or less continuous 11,600 year occupation history. This history may be consistent with previous ideas of first colonization of upland rock shelter zones at the end of the Younger Dryas with significant climatic amelioration. However, we have not yet encountered culturally sterile deposits and believe the site may be older still. We focus here on the late Pleistocene and...
The Millennium before Clovis in Alaska (2015)
The early archaeological record of Beringia continues to be left out of most discussions of the peopling of the Americas, partly because of repeated discoveries of older-than-Clovis sites in temperate North America and Beringian archaeologists’ own admission that the early northern record looks very different from Clovis technologically. In this paper, I attempt to recast Beringia in a leading role by (1) reviewing new genetic studies of humans and their prey species positing that late-glacial...
The missing middle: New efforts to understand early inter-zonal connections in the Peruvian Central Andes (2016)
In southern Peru our group is investigating a Paleoindian settlement system with linked sites situated in diverse ecological zones and exhibiting vastly different subsistence adaptations. This system encompasses one of the earliest coastal fishing settlements in the Americas and high-elevation hunting sites on the Andean plateau. Determining the nature of this and other early inter-zonal connections in adjacent areas is important for identifying routes used to settle Andean South America, with...
The Mississippi Paleoindian and Early Archaic point database redux (2016)
The Mississippi Paleoindian and Archaic Point Survey was initiated in 1968 by archaeologists at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and due largely to the efforts of Sam McGahey over the next 30 years, grew to include over 2,100 points at the time of his retirement in 2003. The survey was idle for a decade, but was recently reinstituted with the help of numerous avocational "citizen scientists" who share an interest in Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene hunter-gatherers. Intact...
Modeling Channel Morphology at the Clovis-Type Site, Blackwater Draw, New Mexico (2017)
Blackwater Locality No. 1 (the Clovis-type site) served as a catchment for spring-fed streams during the late Last Glacial Maximum (~19,150-12,900 cal yr BP), providing a water source for the Paleoindian occupants of the Southern High Plains. During episodes of high effective moisture, water flowed out of the basin via an outlet channel into Blackwater Draw proper. Coinciding with the changing climate of the early Younger Dryas (~12,900-11,500 cal yr BP), the flowing waters of the outlet channel...
Multidisciplinary Analyses of a Paleoindian Bison Butchering Event in Eagle Cave (2017)
From its inception, a major objective of the Ancient Southwest Texas (ASWT) project has been to investigate the potential for Paleoindian-age deposits in Eagle Cave. Previously, the oldest dated deposit in the shelter was a zone of dense charcoal and decomposing fiber designated "Lens 14" and dated to about 8500 RCYBP by University of Texas investigations in the 1960s. These excavations terminated beneath Lens 14 at "Zone 6," a stratum described as "sterile yellow cave dust." During the 2016...
The New England-Maritimes: Environments and Human Lifeways from the Late Pleistocene into Early Holocene (2016)
The New England-Maritimes (NEM) region in northeastern North America is noted for clear environmental signals of the Younger Dryas climatic reversal (circa 12,900-11,600 Cal BP), followed by an abrupt transition to a warmer and more dry early Holocene climate. In this paper, we first review evidence for changes in paleoenvironments and animal populations that accompanied these climatic transitions in the NEM. We then examine archaeological evidence for early human occupations in the region,...
New Evidence for Human Butchery of an American Mastodon from Central Ohio, USA (2016)
A growing body of archaeological data now points to the likely exploitation of American Mastodon (Mammut americanum) by late Pleistocene hunters in North America. The recent discovery of a partial mastodon skeleton at the Cedar Fork site in Morrow County, Ohio provides additional evidence in the form of at least one possibly cut marked bone. The skeletal remains are those of a large male and were disturbed post-mortem by animal scavenging and more recent geological processes including debris...
New Excavations at the La Prele Mammoth Site, Converse County, Wyoming (2017)
The La Prele Mammoth site (formerly the Hinrichs or Fetterman Mammoth) was discovered and initially excavated in 1987 by a crew led by Dr. George Frison. The remains of a single juvenile Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) were recovered along with a stone tool, a possible hammerstone, and a dozen pieces of debitage. Due to landowner dispute, no further work was completed on site for 27 years. In 2014 we returned to investigate the potential for intact deposits and settle the debate about...
New perspectives on Native American occupation of the Puget Lowlands of Washington during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene transition from the Bear Creek Site (45KI839). (2015)
The Bear Creek site (45KI839) in Redmond, Washington has yielded important information about Native American settlement, subsistence, and technology in the Puget Lowlands during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene transition. This poster presents new data on radiocarbon and optically-stimulated luminescence dating, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and lithic analysis conducted as part of the 2013 data recovery investigation. New dates contribute to an age model that places the initial archaeological...
On the Trail of the Stemmed Point: A Circum-Pacific Perspective (2017)
Half a century ago, Alan Bryan proposed that two distinct early Paleoindian traditions occurred in North America—Clovis Fluted east of the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin Stemmed in the far west—and that these co-traditions potentially represented different founding migrations from the Old World, with Great Basin Stemmed potentially being tied to a coastal north Pacific route. Much of the research that Ruth Gruhn and her partner Bryan conducted during the next several decades, certainly into the...
Paleoenvironmental Data From Blackwater Bay, Santa Rosa County, Florida (2018)
Environmental data collected near prehistoric archaeological sites along the Blackwater River and Bay Complex, Santa Rosa County Florida were used to create a paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Presented here are the methods employed, which include: remote sensing, vibracoring, the analysis of radon isotope tracers using a RAD7 detecting unit, and particle size distribution analysis (PSA) using a Malvern Mastersizer 3000. Identifying and documenting submarine groundwater discharge...
Paleoenvironments and Paleoindians in the Lower Mississippi River Valley (2016)
Throughout much of the last Ice Age, the Mississippi River, along with its tributaries, served as a key outflow conduit for glacial meltwater, funneling and depositing vast amounts of sediments south towards and into the Gulf of Mexico. During and after the Younger Dryas, this geomorphic system underwent significant changes caused by meltwater drainage fluctuations and sea level oscillations. In this paper, we review how paleoenvironmental changes associated with the Younger Dryas affected the...
Paleoindian Archaeology in the Delaware Valley: Insights from the Snyder Site Complex in New Jersey (2016)
The Snyder Site Complex consists of multicomponent prehistoric localities situated on landscapes adjacent to the Delaware River in the river basin's mid-section. Over 30 fluted Paleoindian projectile points or bifaces have been reported from plowed/surface and stratified contexts. This number of diagnostic artifacts is relatively unusual in the context of what is known about other Paleoindian sites in the Delaware River Basin. The Snyder Complex is among the approximately 110 Paleoindian sites...
A Paleoindian Heavy Stone Analysis at Shawnee-Minisink (2015)
Cobbles, natural rock, and unflaked lithics are rarely subjects of study at Paleoindian sites. The lack of available literature on this topic may be due to an absence of these artifacts in Paleoindian levels, insufficient sample sizes, or an over emphasis on more aesthetic flaked stone. Within the Smithsonian’s Shawnee-Minisink collection, there are a number of stones from the Paleoindian level that appear to be manuports. Considering these stones are isolated, not found in cobble clusters, and...
Paleoindian Occupation in the North Dakota National Grasslands: A geoarchaeological analysis of site preservation and land-use (2015)
A GIS model was utilized to help understand Paleoindian land-use, site formation processes and major landform changes in the North Dakota National Grasslands since the terminal Pleistocene. This landscape has changed dramatically over the last 12,000 years and geoarchaeological methods can help understand what the landscape and environment may have looked like during the Paleoindian period. Further, a recent survey has shown that soil erosion in the North Dakota National Grasslands is occurring...
Paleoindian Occupation of the Colorado Alpine Ecosystem: A Consideration of Archaeological and Paleoclimatic Data (2016)
Colorado is well known for the dense concentrations of Paleoindian sites found within its eastern plains as well as several high altitude basins (Middle Park, Gunnison Basin, and San Luis Valley) to the west. Prominent mountain ranges separate these clusters, with the sinuous Continental Divide forming the headwaters of the Colorado, Rio Grande, and Platte River valleys. These mountains, with elevations routinely topping 3000-4000 m, would have presented both challenges and opportunities for the...