Paleoindian and Paleoamerican (Other Keyword)
101-125 (596 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Modeling Mobility across Waterbodies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite much recent scholarship there is still much to learn about the exact method, route, and timing of the Peopling of the New World. Geographic Information System (GIS) based analytical methods provide opportunities to model where and when coastal peopling events could have taken place. I will compare the results of traditional Least Cost Path...
Comparison of Preparative Chemistry Methods for the Radiocarbon Dating of Anzick Site, Montana (2018)
Found in 1968, the archaeological site of Anzick (24PA506), Montana, contains the only known Clovis burial. Here, the partial remains of a male infant (Anzick-1) were found in association with a Clovis assemblage of over 100 lithic and faunal bone artifacts—all red-stained with ochre. The incomplete, unstained cranium of a separate individual (Anzick-2), dating to ~8,600 radiocarbon years before present (BP), was also recovered. Previous chronometric work has shown an age difference between the...
A Comprehensive Study of the Variability in Flake Scar Patterns on Clovis Fluted Points (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Clovis fluted points are the earliest and most technologically recognisable artefacts that covered North America between ~ 11,080 ± 40 to 10,800 ± 25 14C yr B.P. (12,994 to 12,817 Cal yrs B.P.). Although Clovis is the most well documented of the Paleoindian cultures, much more is yet to be learned from their apparent rapid expansion over the North American...
Confluences: Fluted Points in the Ice-Free Corridor (2018)
Widely assumed to be younger than Clovis forms, Corridor fluted points have been dated just once, at Tse’K’wa (Charlie Lake Cave). Given clear evidence of biotic habitability along the entire Corridor before 13,000 years ago, along with early hunting in its southern funnel, moderately dense fluted point clusters likely reflect both Clovis contemporaneous and later fluted point instances. These points were overwhelmingly fashioned on local toolstones, featuring a bimodal length distribution of...
Considering the Role of Mammoth and Other Megafauna in Food Systems across North America (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. Archaeologists agree that proboscideans and other megafauna played a role in lifeways of the first Americans. From eastern Beringia to central America, the evidence is unequivocal: humans hunted mammoths. But what role did these animals play in the food systems of the first Americans? New research at several...
Conspicuous Knowledge Transmission through Amazonian Cave Art (2018)
Among large-scale societies, esoteric knowledge is often exploited for power, prestige, or status. In such a social framework, it becomes important to guard the transmission of esoteric knowledge, restricting access by exclusive mechanisms of indoctrination or co-option. When discovered, evidence of guarded knowledge often flags the attention of the archaeologist because of its often meticulous preservation. However, if the same knowledge were conspicuous, unguarded, and socially mundane,...
Contemporaneity of Humans and Horses in the Southwest during the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition? New Radiocarbon Dates from Two Sites in Southern Arizona (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ventana Cave, AZ, and Murray Springs, AZ, have long been candidates for sites demonstrating spatial and temporal overlap between Paleoindians and extinct Pleistocene horses. However, this hypothesis has never before been tested using direct radiocarbon dating, rendering previous speculation ambiguous. AMS radiocarbon dates on horse bone from human...
Contemporary Views on Clovis Learning and Colonization (2018)
The timing of the earliest colonization of North America is debatable, but what is not at issue is the point of origin of the early colonists: Humans entered the continent from Beringia and then made their way south along or near the Pacific Coast and/or through a corridor than ran between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets in western North America. At some point they abandoned their arctic-based tool complex for one more adapted to an entirely different environment. The dispersal of that...
Contributions of IRSL to the Issue of Initial Settlement in the New World: The Case of the McDonald Creek Archaeological Site (2021)
This is an abstract from the "McDonald Creek and Blair Lakes: Late Pleistocene-Holocene Human Activity in the Tanana Flats of Central Alaska" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The McDonald Creek archaeological site from central Alaska (USA) has been dated using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) in order to document the initial settlement in the New World. Eolian sediment samples (loess) from stratigraphic profiles have been systematically dated...
The Contributions of Vance T. Holliday to the Earth Sciences (2018)
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,...
Cooking across the Continent: Overview of Pleistocene Archaeobotanical Remains and Exploration of Biases Affecting Botanical Visibility (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding how Indigenous communities used plants during the Pleistocene is fundamental to addressing questions about long-term ecological relationships, dietary practices, and adaptive strategies. Pleistocene plant...
Cookware and Crockery: A Form and Functional View from the Southern Bahamas (2018)
Recent archaeobotanical research on the Palmetto Junction archaeological site located in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, provides new insights into the livelihoods and subsistence practices of the peoples who inhabited this coastal region from c. AD 1200-1500 Significantly, the plant microbotanical remains, identified as primarily seeds and tubers provide evidence for a continuation in the consumption and manipulation of plant resources. During the late precolonial period people used...
Cove Creek Clovis? Exploring Fluted-Point Assemblages in the Eastern Great Basin (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite its prominence in Paleoindian archaeology throughout much of North America, Clovis has long been overshadowed in the Great Basin by the potentially contemporary, and locally more prolific, Western Stemmed Tradition. Despite decades of research, the relationship between the two distinct techno-complexes remains unclear. Largely due to difficulties...
Crossing the Line: The Incised Stones of the Gault Archaeological Site (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous publication has dealt with the discovery of incised stones at the Gault Archaeological Site and the artifacts of early Paleoindian age. To date, the project has identified 146 stones with incised lines and designs on them from provenienced collections, unprovenienced collections and collections in private hands. The artifacts are on both limestone...
Cueva Nordensjkold, Ultima Esperanza, Chile: A Late Pleistocene Faunal Assemblage (2018)
Cueva Nordensjkold is a cave located in the Cerro Benitez, at Ultima Esperanza, Chile, above 150 masl, and accordingly beyond the highest stand of the Late Glacial Consuelo paleolake. The study of its Late Pleistocene faunal remains -Mylodontinae, Hippidion saldiasi, Camelidae, Panthera onca mesembrina and a large undetermined carnivore- is crucial for the understanding of the process of biological colonization of the Cerro Benitez area, where ephemeral Late Pleistocene human occupations were...
Cultural Macroevolution in the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene of Eastern Siberia and Western North America (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Big Ideas to Match Our Future: Big Data and Macroarchaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geneticists have used phylogenetic analyses to model population movements associated with emergence and movements of distinct populations in northeast Siberia and the Americas. However, archaeologists have rarely taken advantage of this approach to examine the emergence and radiation of cultural traditions in these regions. In...
Cultural Transmission in the Paleoindian of Eastern North America (2018)
The Paleoindian (ca. 13,000–11,000 calBP) record of eastern North America has long been characterized as exhibiting a remarkable variety of fluted-point forms. The temporal, spatial, and cultural significance of this variety remains poorly understood owing to a sparse radiocarbon record as well as to inconsistencies in nomenclature and traits used to define point forms. Building on previous studies, paradigmatic classification is used to create replicable fluted-point classes from a large...
Cultural, Taphonomic, and Biogeographic Considerations of Black Footed Ferret at the Burntwood Creek Bison Kill Site, Central High Plains, USA (2018)
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...
The Curation Crisis and the Bones of the Colby Mammoth Site (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the world of museums and curation, the curation crisis is accelerating. Due to poor preservation and curatorial techniques used in the past, many items in curation have been destroyed, physically lost, or lost their provenience. As standards get better and preservation techniques improve, a lot of artifacts located in collections are being rediscovered...
The Curious Case of Stemmed Jude Points in the Upper Tombigbee River Valley, Mississippi (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Late Pleistocene Stemmed Points across North America: Continental Questions and Regional Concerns" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the American Southeast, there are only a limited number of securely dated sites from the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, and type descriptions are often cobbled together across subregional projectile point guides. Many of these projectile point types are poorly defined and lack any...
Current Paleoindian Research in Sonora (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations over the past 15 years have revealed that approximately 13,000 years ago the northern half of the state of Sonora was an important and significant Clovis territory. Currently, 140 Clovis projectile point have been documented within Sonora; 50 as isolated finds and 90 having been recovered from six sites. A variety of site contexts...
Current Perspectives on the Western Stemmed Tradition and Clovis in the Mojave Desert (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Perspectives on the Western Stemmed Tradition-Clovis Debate in the Far West" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper summarizes the spatial and temporal distribution, technology, and subsistence patterns of Clovis/fluted and Western Stemmed tradition sites and isolates in the southern Great Basin, particularly the Mojave Desert. Fluted and Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) points/sites occur throughout the...
Dalton Mobility in the Tennessee River Valley: An Assessment of Raw Material Use and Tool Curation (2018)
Previous research in the Southeast has demonstrated that Dalton groups underwent a process of settling in to the landscape. This has been demonstrated through the identification of raw materials used for the production of Dalton hafted bifaces. A preference for locally available raw materials has been noted in previous studies, a departure from Clovis groups who routinely made use of non-local cherts. This trend has been well established outside of the Tennessee River Valley; however, little...
Date Precision and Faunal Distribution from Pleistocene Sites (Archaeological vs. Paleontological) in the American Southwest (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Precise dates are helpful in tracking changes in paleoenvironment and faunal distribution through the Pleistocene. The ages of Paleoindian archaeological sites in the American Southwest with faunal remains are often precise. They have a specific date with a margin of error. This precision allows for the distinction between warm and cold periods. However,...
The Dated Paleoindian Archaeology of the Old River Bed Delta (2018)
The Old River Bed delta is a premier open-air Paleoindian locality in the eastern Great Basin. Its chief distinction is scale—some 2,000 square kilometers-plus of nearly continuous and single-component archaeological material on what would have been the largest basin wetland in the region. But the record is largely surficial. In this poster, we detail a series of sites that have yielded temporal data from buried cultural contexts. The sites help clarify the broader associations of artifact types...