The Paleoindian Southwest

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Paleoindian Southwest," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The North American Southwest looms large in American archaeology. It is characterized by a distinctive range of ecological conditions, formation processes, and preservation contexts that sets it apart from other regions. Its expansive landscapes, well-preserved architectural sites, and connections to modern people have enabled the region to serve as a laboratory for the development of archaeological methods and ideas. The pre-agricultural record of the Southwest is somewhat less conspicuous, but it has played a comparably critical role in the archaeology of early hunter-gatherers. The Clovis and Folsom archaeological cultures were both initially defined in New Mexico, and additional sites and surveys throughout the Southwest have contributed significantly to understanding them and their successors. The environmental diversity that characterizes the region coupled with the wetter and cooler climate of the Late Pleistocene appears to have sustained generations of foragers, and the resulting record traces initial colonization through the development of regionally distinct cultural patterns. The Southwest continues to contribute new discoveries, as well as new information from known sites, localities, and landscapes, that broadens our understanding of the earliest Americans. The papers in this symposium present current archaeological research from across the Greater Southwest.

Other Keywords
Paleoindian and Paleoamerican • Lithic Analysis • Hunter-Gatherers/Foragers • Geoarchaeology • History Of Archaeology • Technological Organization • Landscape Archaeology • Cultural Transmission • Cultural Landscape • Human Behavioral Ecology

Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) • North America (Continent) • USA (Country) • New Mexico (State / Territory) • Oklahoma (State / Territory) • Arizona (State / Territory) • Texas (State / Territory) • Sonora (State / Territory) • Chihuahua (State / Territory) • Baja California (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-11 of 11)

  • Documents (11)
Documents
  • Archaeological Investigations at the Double Flute Folsom site (LA178142), New Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne Parfitt. Kathryn Cross.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In May 2017, the QUEST Archaeological Research Program (SMU) investigated the Double Flute Folsom site (LA178142) in Socorro County, New Mexico. Intensive surface survey and excavations were performed to determine the nature and extent of Folsom activities, the stratigraphic integrity of archaeological deposits, and their paleoenvironmental context. The site...

  • Clovis in the Petrified Forest (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Tumelaire. Samuel H. Fisher. Francis Smiley.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the results of research at the Rainbow Forest locality and the Blue Mesa site, two early Paleoamerican occupations in Petrified Forest National Park. Rainbow Forest and Blue Mesa are likely Clovis occupations and present the problem of identifying Clovis-era sites in a region in which site surface assemblages have been collected by human...

  • Current Paleoindian Research in Sonora (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Guadalupe Sanchez Miranda. Ismael Sanchez-Morales. John Carpente.

    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...

  • Folsom Technological Organization at the Martin Site, Central New Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Hlatky.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Martin site is a Folsom encampment located in the Estancia Basin, New Mexico. It was briefly described in a 1967 dissertation, and the resulting assemblage was later re-analyzed in the early 2000s. Previous studies have noted a preponderance of Edwards chert in the assemblage, sourced to over 600 km away in west central Texas, as well as an emphasis on...

  • The Hunters Were Here First: Paleoindian Research in the Greater Southwest (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Kilby.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In attempting to work out the chronological relationship between a newly discovered mammoth kill and plant processing sites in southern Arizona in the 1950s, Emil Haury succinctly concluded, "the hunters were here first." In the ensuing decades, it became clear that underlying the relatively conspicuous archaeological record of the agricultural Southwest is an...

  • Paleo-lake Otero, Playas, and Paleoindian Land-Use in the Tularosa Basin, New Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Brendan Fenerty. Vance Holliday. Allison Harvey. Matthew Cuba.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Perennial lakes and wetlands occupied many intermontane basins of the western United States during the last glacial period. Spatio-temporal trends in Paleoindian land-use and subsistence inferred from the distribution of sites relative to paleo-lakes remain speculative for many basins in the Southwest in the absence of well-constrained paleo-lake-level...

  • The Paleoecology of the Mockingbird Gap Clovis site, New Mexico and Surrounding Region (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcus Hamilton.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper I discuss recent work at the Mockingbird Gap Clovis site, New Mexico, and the surrounding region. Our goal was to understand how Clovis hunter-gatherers utilized and adapted to the regional landscape and its available resources. Focusing on lithic raw material use, I show that the Clovis occupants of Mockingbird Gap had access to a wide diversity...

  • Paleoindian Settlement and Mobility in the Northern Jornada del Muerto (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Merriman.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Northern Jornada del Muerto in Socorro County, New Mexico has long been known for its extensive Clovis and Folsom occupations. In addition to early Paleoindian techno-complexes, the Plainview/Goshen/Belen and Cody complexes are also well represented. This is mostly due to the work of Robert H. Weber, Ph.D. geologist and avocational archaeologist. For fifty...

  • Paleoindians Beyond the Edge of the Great Plains: The Water Canyon Site in Western New Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Dello-Russo. Vance Holliday.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Preserved in the complex cut-and-fill stratigraphy of an alluvial fan, the Water Canyon site represents one of the most notable and rare Paleoindian sites in the American Southwest west of the Pecos River for having an in situ, stratified multi-component Paleoindian record. Paleoindian cultures currently represented at the site include Clovis, Folsom,...

  • Questioning Clovis in Southeast Utah: Late in the Game or Transitional? (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Meghann Vance.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation provides a summary of what is currently known for the Lime Ridge Clovis site, as well as more recent data on Clovis sites, or components thereof, from Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah. The data are fleeting, but suggest a trend comparable to the adjacent Nevada and Arizona regions for diminished size and boldness in blade...

  • Widespread Distribution of Fossil Footprints in the Tularosa Basin: Human Trace Fossils at White Sands National Monument (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Bustos. Matthew Bennett. Daniel Odess. Tommy Urban. Vance Holliday.

    This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. White Sands National Monument (WHSA) is well known for the world’s largest gypsum dunefield, but the geological elements that created this dunefield also persevered one of the largest (in area and number) assemblages of human foot prints in the world. Tracks are revealed under specific moisture conditions, linked to near-surface geophysics. Human and megafauna...