Paleoindian (Other Keyword)
26-50 (111 Records)
Ruth Gruhn was an early advocate for a human presence in the Americas prior to Clovis. Gruhn and her late husband, Alan Bryan, excavated and reported on early sites in both North and South America and championed the Pacific coast as the route taken by the earliest people to reach the Americas. Their predictions have become a reality. Genetic and geological evidence is supporting a coastal migration route into the Americas. Recent discoveries at the Page-Ladson site, Florida, the Debra L....
Evidence of Terminal Pleistocene/Earliest Holocene Water Collection in the Now-submerged Caves of Quintana Roo, Mexico. (2024)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. For 25 years, divers exploring caves in Quintana Roo, Mexico, have been finding remains of humans who entered in the late Pleistocene or early Holocene. One of these was a young woman (Naia) of terminal Pleistocene age found with fossils of extinct mammals in the pit or natural trap of Hoyo Negro, 600 meters from a ground-level...
Examination of Paleoindian and Archaic subsistence in Southern Belize (2015)
Recent excavations at Tzib’te Yux, a small rockshelter in Southern Belize, have revealed evidence of human occupation in the area spanning the Paleoindian and Archaic periods. Strata dating to the Late Pliestocene contain abundant faunal remains, lithic debitage, and highly fragmentary human remains. Preliminary indicators suggest that a broad spectrum of food resources was exploited including considerable input of lotic protein sources as early as the Late Pliestocene with continued...
Exploring Artifact Trampling at an Early Paleoindian Campsite (2017)
Taphonomic processes such as trampling can have a major impact on the interpretation of site formation, artifact distribution, and use-wear analyses. This poster presents a preliminary spatial and lithic analysis of artifacts from the Shawnee-Minisink Paleoindian site in Pennsylvania, USA. Using a high resolution point-provenience database of Paleoindian artifacts, possible trampling damage is mapped and analyzed in order to distinguish if high foot traffic areas exist at Shawnee-Minisink, such...
Exploring Potential Ancient Human-Proboscidea Interaction at Lake Red Rock, Marion County, Iowa (2017)
Discoveries of juxtaposed proboscidean remains from a single individual are rare in the Midwest and there are no known human-occupied pre-Holocene sites in Iowa with good preservation. The Lake Red Rock (Marion County, Iowa) discovery locale has yielded preserved mammoth remains—a clear indicator of late Pleistocene (> 10,000 years ago) context—and the suggestion of possible human interaction. If validated such a site will be a first in the state and among only a few in the nation. The...
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...
Flooding, Drought, Fires and Extinctions: How Did Florida’s Foragers Respond to the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition? (2016)
While directly-dated sites are somewhat rare, northern Florida contains an extremely rich archaeological record of diagnostic artifacts from the Paleoindian and Early Archaic periods. Very commonly, Early Archaic diagnostics are discovered at the same sites as Paleoindian diagnostics. The Paleoindian components are presumed to be Pleistocene in age, while the Early Archaic is generally but not universally associated with early Holocene ages. Recent research we have been conducting in...
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 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...
Folsom on the Edge of the Plains: Occupation of the Estancia Basin, Central New Mexico (2015)
At the end of the Pleistocene, during Folsom occupation, the Estancia Basin contained the eastern-most pluvial lake in the American Southwest. The basin has a long history of archaeological research and the story of changing lake levels has played an important part in understand the Paleoindian occupation of the New World. Within the basin, geoarchaeological assessment at the Martin site can be used as a baseline for understanding environmental change during the late Pleistocene. The large well...
Folsom Toolkit Replenishment at Chispa Creek, Texas: Comparing Bifacial to Unifacial Technologies (2015)
Folsom technology has been characterized by Ingbar and others as employing a "serial replacement" strategy, where toolkits are replenished on a more or less continuous basis based on the proximate taskscape. Such replenishment is in evidence at Chispa Creek, a west Texas lithic workshop repeatedly occupied by Folsom foragers. Similar to Hanson, Wyoming, at least three local toolstone sources were used at Chispa to manufacture projectile points and a large number of unifaces. These occupations...
Forager Mobility, Landscape Learning, and the Colonization of the Americas (2015)
Among the many important contributions that Robert Kelly has made to the archaeological and anthropological literature are 1) an elegant theoretical model of forager residential movement, presented in his book The Foraging Spectrum, 2) a very influential argument about the Paleoindian colonization of the Americas, which he developed along with Lawrence Todd, and 3) insightful discussions of landscape learning by hunter-gatherers. Here, we explore these issues further by expanding Kelly’s...
From Los Tapiales to Cuncaicha: Terminal Pleistocene humans in America’s high-elevation western mountains (2017)
Among Ruth Gruhn’s remarkable archaeological accomplishments has been the investigation of the first truly high-elevation Paleoindian sites discovered in the Americas. The open-air camps of Los Tapiales and La Piedra del Coyote in the Guatemalan highlands, located respectively at 3150 and 3300 meters above sea level, contained fluted Fishtail projectile points and rich, diverse tool and flake assemblages. Importantly, both sites were securely dated to ~12,500 cal BP, indicating early use of...
Frontiers in Colorado Paleoindian Archaeology: From the Dent Site to the Rocky Mountains (2007)
As the Ice Age waned, Clovis hunter-gatherers began to explore and colonize the area now known as Colorado. Their descendents and later Paleoindian migrants spread throughout Colorado's plains and mountains, adapting to diverse landforms and the changing climate. In this new volume, Robert H. Brunswig and Bonnie L. Pitblado assemble experts in archaeology, paleoecology-climatology, and paleofaunal analysis to share new discoveries about these ancient people of Colorado.The editors introduce the...
A Geoarchaeological Review of the Guest Mammoth Kill Site (8MR130) in the Silver River, Florida (2015)
The first field school on an underwater prehistoric site in the United States was conducted on the Guest Mammoth site in the Silver River, near Ocala, Florida in the 1970s. This site was touted as a Columbian mammoth kill site, the first found east of the Mississippi River. The excavators presented evidence of this in the form of a single fluted point, six direct percussion flakes, and several pressure flakes found associated with the remains of an adult and a juvenile mammoth. In addition,...
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...
A Good Place to Be: 2015 Phase I Investigations at Wakulla Springs State Park, North Florida. (2016)
Preliminary archaeological investigations took place at Wakulla Springs State Park, in Wakulla County, Florida, during August to September of 2015. The project’s primary objective was to locate areas containing dense artifact clusters, in an effort to proceed with Phase II and Phase III investigations. The abundance of cultural materials found at previously documented sites within the park is a testament to this rich archaeological site, and warrant continued research efforts. Furthermore, few...
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...
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner: An Exploration of Lithic Tools and Sources at the Bull Brook Paleoindian Site, Ipswich, Massachusetts. (2017)
The Bull Brook Site in Ipswich, Massachusetts is one of the largest and seemingly most spatially organized Paleoindian sites in North America. The intra-site activity patterning of flaked stone tools helped us to distinguish the site as a large aggregation of inhabitants, as opposed to small occupations taking place over time. The strong pattern of interior and exterior activity differences, or concentric rings of activity, are difficult to explain except by an organized social event. Who then...
Haskett Spear Points and the Plausibility of Megafaunal Hunting in the Great Basin (2015)
Recent Haskett projectile point finds from western Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert provide a compelling case for megafaunal hunting in the Great Basin, a region that stands out in North America for its lack of direct evidence. The Haskett style is likely the oldest representative of the Western Stemmed series of projectile points, and radiocarbon age estimates on black mat organics at the locality suggest a date range between ca. 12,000 and 13,000 cal BP. In this paper, an argument for megafaunal...
The Heritage Stewardship Enhancement Program and Research Archaeology on the Dakota Prairie Grasslands, US Forest Service (2016)
The ongoing partnership between the Dakota Prairie Grasslands (DPG) and Southern Methodist University, supported by the US Forest Service Region 1 Heritage Stewardship Enhancement (HSE) program, is an investigation of the Paleoindian archaeological record of the Little Missouri National Grasslands. As hoped, this collaboration produced vital information about local Paleoindian prehistory. It has also been fruitful in other ways, including a few tough lessons learned along the way. Liv Fetterman...
Intra-Site Spatial Patterning of the Templeton Paleoindian Site in Northwestern Connecticut (2017)
The Paleoindian occupation at Templeton is reconsidered based on research conducted since the site’s initial study by Dr. Roger Moeller in the late 1970s. This poster describes the intra-site spatial patterning at Templeton gleaned from the 2016 excavations at the site and the reanalysis of the Paleoindian materials recovered by Moeller. Aspects of intra-site spatial patterning ascertained via ground penetrating radar surveys of the landform, lithic microwear analyses, micromorphological...