Paleoindian and Paleoamerican (Other Keyword)
451-475 (497 Records)
Spatial modeling of early prehistoric maritime movement on the Pacific Northwest Coast is important in contemporary archaeology because it can help locate new sites in a landscape which has radically changed over the last 20,000 years. Here we present the theoretical framework used in a research project which modeled maritime movement using least cost path analysis (LCP) to determine the routes most likely to have been traveled by the inhabitants of the Dundas Islands, British Columbia over the...
Theoretical Reflections on Textiles and Environment in the Northern Great Basin (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Textiles are often given short thrift in archaeological research and reporting, due in large part to their rarity and thus limited depth of analysis. Recent studies have demonstrated a variety of new analytical techniques, revealing new potential in archaeological and anthropological textile studies. Unfortunately, over ten years into these developments, few...
Theoretically Based Investigations of the Paleo-Indian Occupation of Grass Valley, Nevada (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The nature of human use of the central Great Basin during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition (PHT) remains unclear. Ongoing archaeological research in Grass Valley, Nevada, focuses on understanding foraging behavior in changing PHT landscapes through expectations of Human Behavioral Ecology and geoarchaeological investigations for defining the extent of...
Thermal Analysis as a Means to Understand Prehistoric Heat Treatment and Performance Differences in Tool Stone (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Thermal analysis (TGA/DTA/STA) has seen sporadic use as an archaeometric technique. Recent papers on archaeological mortars, plasters, ceramic pigments, and paints have sought to understand recipes or mineralogical components by thermal decomposition, especially where traditional chemical analysis by mass spectrometry is limited due to the multiple forms a...
A Thermoregulatory Perspective on the Folsom Archaeological Record (2018)
Human cold intolerance unambiguously suggests that mid to high latitude prehistoric foragers used thermoregulatory technologies, such as clothing and housing, to cope with the environment, even if archaeologists rarely find them in the record. Others have recognized this, but none have developed a formal means of expressing variation in thermal technologies in the archaeological record over widespread temperature clines. I draw from observations collected during ethnoarchaeological fieldwork...
They’re Alright: Late Quaternary Fossil Pocket Gopher DNA Provides Nuanced View of Climate Changes at Hall’s Cave, Texas (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although considered pests to farmers and golfers alike, gophers – specifically pocket gophers (family Geomyidae) – can be excellent proxies for assessing climate change in archaeological contexts owing to their penchant for living in specific soil conditions. At the Hall’s Cave site in Kerr County, Texas, geomyids are found in most of the radiocarbon-dated...
Topographic Morphometrics: Utilizing 3D Scans of Lithic Projectile Points to Look for Similarities and Differences in Flake Scar Patterning (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The conceptual basis of this study is that flintknapping knowledge and technique in small, hunter-gatherer groups is passed from generation to generation through a small number of flintknappers. This should result in similar flake scar patterning on projectile points that can be identified using topographic morphometric analysis. Topographic morphometrics is a...
Tortuga - Haiti's Ile de la Tortue - Prehistoric and Buccaneer Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Ile de la Tortue, Haiti, is perhaps more famously known as Tortuga for its association with the seventeenth century's Buccaneers. It was settled in prehistoric times by multiple cultural groups, given its Spanish name by Columbus, depopulated by enslavement of its indigenous population, settled by English Puritans, liberated by French Huguenots, became a...
Tracing Paleoindian Projectile Point Diversity in the American Southeast (2018)
Paleoindian projectile points occur in high incidences in the American Southeast, and compared to other regions in the East, the Southeast has the greatest projectile point diversity. One effective way to understand this diversity is by tracking broad-scale morphological variation in suites of point traits to build cultural lineages. In this paper, we take a more trait-specific approach. We trace changes in projectile point design to understand the evolution of specific point attributes that...
Tracking Early Human Presence in North America and Beringia during the Late Pleistocene through Bayesian Age Modeling (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The timing of early human presence in the Americas is a debated topic in First Americans research. The variable of time is, after all, fundamental in the study of human dispersal; it forms a base with which to elucidate spatio-temporal patterns, study applicable bio-cultural processes, and frame environmental data. As such, this investigation analyses current...
Trek Up the River: A Cobble Tool Technology as Clue to Interior California's Antiquity (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An early quartzite cobble lithic technology is evidenced by a multi-site pattern of datasets including waste cores and tools with highly patinated flake scars on remains deeply embedded in the natural desert pavement of the Pleistocene shorelines along the Lower Colorado River (LCR). Reduction technology is represented at Vista del Lago (CA-SBr-1456) located...
Trends in Paleoindian Projectile Point Technology during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition at the Old River Bed Delta, UT (2018)
The fossil Old River Bed delta, located in the Great Salt Lake Desert, UT, contains one of the highest concentrations of Paleoindian archaeology within the Great Basin. Occupied from 13,000 cal B.P. until its desiccation around 9,500 cal B.P., this productive marshland provided a wide array of dietary resources utilized by the region’s inhabitants during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. However, changes in climate, local hydrology, and human populations during this dynamic period likely...
Tribal Agency and Federal Hegemony: NAGPRA in Action (2018)
Our knowledge and traditions tell us that the Ancient One is our Ancestor. We have requested repatriation for nearly twenty years only to be blocked at every turn. The final judgment made at the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit placed the Claimant Tribes in the status of "interested party" in the minds of the federal agency. This is the hegemonic framework the tribes found themselves in when the US Army of Engineers made the official determination that the Ancient One is Native...
The Trouble with the Curve: Reassessing the Gulf of Mexico Sea-Level Rise Model (2018)
During last glacial episode, a massive amount of water was locked within ice sheets, resulting in a reduction in global sea-levels by 134 meters. The reintroduction of freshwater into the oceans radically changed global sea-levels and littoral landscapes. Over the last 20,000 years, approximately 15-20 million km2 of landscape has been submerged worldwide. Sea-level rise explains the rarity of glacial period coastal archaeological sites. Understanding Florida’s Paleoindians’ interactions with...
UAV-Based Mapping and Public Outreach at Blackwater Draw (2018)
Remote sensing has dramatically changed the way we collect data at archaeological sites, and has added new and innovative methodologies to our fieldwork. It has also facilitated greater public engagement by making archaeology more accessible – this is especially true of sites that are considered remote or difficult to access because of challenging terrain. As part of the public outreach initiative of the new Blackwater Draw Museum and its associated website, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)...
Understanding Prearchaic Mobility and Settlement Patterns: The Role of Theory, Models, and Ethnographic Analogies (2018)
Most evidence suggests that Prearchaic hunter-gatherers were highly mobile, and equipped with a hunting oriented lithic technology that lacked milling equipment. Nonetheless, they acquired a broad spectrum of prey and tended to camp near wetlands rich in small game and plant resources. Archaeologists have questioned to what degree this evidence reflects an adaptation that fundamentally differed from ethnographically observed patterns in the Great Basin, as well as whether it was shaped primarily...
Unlikely Allies: Modern Wolves and the Diets of Pre-contact Domestic Dogs (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New and Ongoing Research on the North American Plains and Rocky Mountains" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Assumptions of prehistoric domestic dogs as scavengers has been pervasive in archaeology and beyond. This project clarifies these assumption by investigating the dietary behavior of prehistoric domestic dogs via dental microwear data or features on the tooth surface that indicate types of food consumed. In order...
Updating the Late Pleistocene Record of the Willamette Valley, Oregon (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Near the end of the Pleistocene, 35 genera of mostly large mammals became extinct in North America, yet the cause of these extinctions remains debated. The Willamette Valley in western Oregon boasts a robust record of up to nine megafaunal taxa (*Mammuthus, Mammut, Equus, Paramylodon, Megalonyx,...
Using Fish Remains from Paisley Caves, Oregon to Explore Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways and Lake Level History in the Chewaucan Basin over the Past 14,000+ Calendar Years (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paisley Caves holds some of the earliest evidence for human occupation in North America. The site’s fish remains have received only limited attention before now. Our pilot study sought to assess the potential for using a sample of the fish remains to help reconstruct lake level history, better understand regional paleoenvironments, and gain insights on forager...
Using Landscape Learning to Explore Diachronic Change within the Western Stemmed Tradition (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Far West Paleoindian Archaeology: Papers from the Next Generation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) spanned as much as 5,000 years in the Great Basin. However, due to deflationary erosion, more refined control within this wide temporal range remains elusive. Thus, temporally sequencing WST sites, subtypes, and their diagnostic artifacts is currently difficult, often unattainable, and...
Using Lithic Conveyance to Reconstruct Paleoindian Cultural Landscapes in the Great Basin (2018)
Archaeologists commonly use the geographic patterning of sourced artifacts to understand how prehistoric cultures used their landscapes, yet exactly what this patterning indicates remains unclear. The Paleoindian literature reflects a tendency to assume that toolstone conveyance reflects direct acquisition (i.e., mobility) motivated by subsistence and technological concerns, rather than acquisition (i.e., exchange) motivated by social concerns. Yet the challenge of actually distinguishing...
Using Predictive Modeling to Evaluate Changes in Great Basin Paleoindian Settlement Systems through Time (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Great Basin underwent considerable environmental change during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, such as lower precipitation, increased temperatures, and the diminishment of lakes and wetlands. Archaeologists have long hypothesized that people responded by altering their settlement-subsistence strategies. Some models outlining these responses...
Using Traditional and Nontraditional Isotopic Tracers of Diet and Mobility of Brazilian Shell Mound Populations (ca. 8000–1000 years BP) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of shell mounds can shed light on human occupation and adaptations at coastal environments worldwide. In South America, human groups occupied the territory close to the Atlantic Ocean for millennium (ca. 8000 to ⁓1000 years BP), building hundreds of shell mounds, some with impressive dimensions. After 2000 BP, it is assumed that these populations...
Using ZooMS to Evaluate Targeted Species Harvest of Pacific Salmon (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Stability and Resilience in Zooarchaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In a large estuary off the central coast of eastern Vancouver Island lies a series of fish trap complexes, which were used for catching herring and salmon in the past. Nearby, the large Pentlatch Village site contains the zooarchaeological remains of these harvests and provides an opportunity for researchers to obtain species-level...
Variability in Clovis Biface Morphology from the Type-site, Blackwater Draw Locality 1 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Blackwater Draw Locality 1 site provides one of the most unique perspectives of Paleoindian behavior in North America. Spatial evidence surrounding faunal and lithic assemblages have inspired researchers to hypothesize site function to represent kill, scavenging, caching, or domestic activities. Its setting relative to other localities of resource...