Younger Dryas (Other Keyword)
1-8 (8 Records)
Considerable debate has recently been focused on understanding the effects of the Younger Dryas on human behavioral adaptations throughout the Northern Hemisphere. It has been proposed that adverse paleoecological conditions in southeastern North America triggered a decline and/or substantial reorganization in human populations. The Tennessee Paleoindian biface data in the Paleoindian Database of the Americas is used to assess the evolution of behavioral adaptations during the...
The Late Natufian culture dynamics during the Younger Dryas event (2015)
The Natufian culture coincided with the Terminal Pleistocene, a period of climatic unpredictability. In the Southern Levant the Late Natufian phase corresponds to the global Younger Dryas event and directly precedes the abrupt transition to early Neolithic entities at the beginning of the Holocene climatic regime. The unique cultural dynamics of the Natufian, shifts in subsistence strategies and the environmental setting of various sites are the key for understanding the process of...
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 Excavations at an Old Site: Reevaluation of Chronology and Subsistence at the Connley Caves (35LK50), Lake County, Oregon (2016)
The Connley Caves are composed of eight rockshelters eroded into a south-facing ridge of welded tuff, rhyolite and fine-grained basalt in the Fort Rock Basin of central Oregon. The caves contain deeply buried and well-stratified sediments dating to the late Pleistocene-early Holocene. Excavations directed by Stephen Bedwell in the late 1960s recovered many lithic artifacts and intriguing radiocarbon dates of 10,600±190 14C yr B.P. and 11,200±200 14C yr B.P. Bedwell’s interpretations of the...
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 Responses at the Younger Dryas Boundary: A Case Study from the Carolinas (2016)
The onset of the Younger Dryas stadial is thought to have occurred during the Clovis period. The cause of the Younger Dryas and the near simultaneous disappearance of the Clovis techno-culture in North America continues to be a set of events that are not well understood. Debates exist regarding the cause of the Younger Dryas and its possible affects on climate, plants and animals as well as humans. The archaeological record stands apart from these disciplines as an independent source of data and...
Testing for Evidence of Paleoindian Responses to the Younger Dryas in Georgia (2015)
For the Southeast, Meeks and Anderson (2012) propose Younger Dryas climate changes triggered a human population crash and/or substantial reorganization. We use the Georgia point record in the Paleoindian Database of the Americas to test for evidence of changes in landscape use through the Paleoindian period and consider these changes in the context of the Georgia paleoenvironmental record spanning the YD. Based on differences in point frequencies, distributions, stone types, and transport...
Younger Dryas Fluted Technologies: A Comparison of Folsom, Cumberland, and Barnes Technologies (2017)
The transition from Clovis fluting techniques to the variety of later Paleoindian fluting methods and fluted-point morphologies represents one of the earliest major technological shifts currently known in North America. This transition generally coincides with the beginning of the Younger Dryas, and much speculation exists concerning potential correlations between changes in environmental factors and Paleoindian technologies. Some researchers argue that late Pleistocene ecological transitions...