Extreme Alpine Foraging: Explaining High Altitude Residences in the Great Basin
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)
Why would foraging families spend their summers atop the highest places in their world? Great Basin archaeologists have long believed that the extreme alpine heights were used almost exclusively for logistic hunting of bighorn in prehistoric times. This all changed with the discoveries at Alta Toquima (central Nevada) and the White Mountains (southeastern California), where multiple residential sites occur at elevations exceeding 11,000 feet. This session compares and contrasts archaeological evidence from both areas, and begs the question of why—despite decades of searching—no comparable alpine residential complexes anywhere else in the Intermountain West.
Other Keywords
Great Basin •
High Altitude •
Obsidian Source Analysis •
Obsidian •
Zooarchaeology •
X-Ray Flourescence •
Bighorn Sheep •
Alpine Village •
archaeobotany •
Logistical Hunting
Geographic Keywords
North America - Great Basin •
North American - Basin Plateau
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-11 of 11)
- Documents (11)
- Alpine Adaptive and Paleoenvironmental Change at Alta Toquima (central Nevada) (2015)
- Bighorn Sheep Processing in the White Mountains, California (2015)
- Divergent Histories: Prehistoric Use of Alpine Habitats in the Toquima and Toiyabe Ranges, Central Great Basin (2015)
- Environmental Limitations, Alpine Villages and Logistical Strategies in the Northern White Mountains (2015)
- High Elevation Archaeology of the Inyo Mountains in Relation to Adjacent Ranges (2015)
- Looking at High-Altitude Obsidian Use in the Great Basin (2015)
- Middle Archaic Expansion into High Elevation Habitats: A View from the Southwestern Great Basin (2015)
- More than a Bivouac, Less than a Village: Middle Archaic Use of Great Basin Alpine and Other Uplands (2015)
- Obsidian Sourcing and the Origin of the Occupants of the White Mountains High Altitude Villages (2015)
- PLANT RESOURCES IN GREAT BASIN HIGH ALTITUDE FORAGING (2015)
- White Mountains Alpine Village Pattern (2015)