Current Perspectives on the Western Stemmed Tradition-Clovis Debate in the Far West

DOCUMENT Citation Only Todd Surovell.

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. While the relative and absolute ages of fluted and stemmed points remain unclear in the Great Basin, particularly in the earliest periods of prehistory, to the northeast in Wyoming the archaeological record is unambiguous. Fluted points are consistently older than stemmed points, an observation supported...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Rosencrance.

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. Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) projectile points exhibit considerable morphological variability, which may reflect difference in function, ethnolinguistic affiliation, resharpening/rejuvenation, or age. These ideas represent hypotheses that remain to be tested, and rejecting one or more of them will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edward Knell.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis Jenkins.

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. Recent University of Oregon investigations at the Paisley and Connley Caves have resulted in 300+ radiocarbon ages including coprolites with human DNA. Earliest human occupations have been established at the Paisley Caves by stone tool cut marks on bone dated to 12,380 ± 70 14C yr B.P. Western Stemmed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Loren Davis.

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. Archaeological excavations conducted from 2009-2018 at the Cooper's Ferry site in west-central Idaho revealed a long record of repeated human occupation encompassing the late Pleistocene to early Holocene periods. Lithostratigraphic unit 3 (LU3) is a loess deposit found near the bottom of the site that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jordan Pratt.

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. Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) studies in the Great Basin often emphasize results from cave or rockshelter sites; however, these sites present a very specific occupation type. Studying open-air sites provides a different line of evidence used to expand interpretations of WST lithic technology and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geoffrey Smith.

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. In recent years the number of researchers who argue that the Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) marks the descendants of colonizing populations who traveled along the Pacific Coast before moving inland has increased. The Paisley Caves and Cooper’s Ferry sites have provided compelling evidence that groups in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daron Duke. Daniel Stueber.

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. Haskett represents an initiating point style in some parts of western North America. Radiocarbon dates suggest the earliest Haskett occupations were within the Clovis era, and Haskett shares several technological and geographic attributes that are more in kind with Clovis than with later stemmed styles....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Rondeau. Nicole George.

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. A review of selected fluted point and Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) studies are highlighted to present a series of intriguing results, implications, and interpretations. This wide ranging overview of themes and unanswered research questions offers a look at the past and present links between fluted...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ted Goebel. Joshua Lynch. Caitlin Doherty.

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. The lack of a comprehensive and sound geochronology of Paleoindian sites in the Great Basin has long been a stumbling block for explaining variability in Western Stemmed points and their relationship with Clovis. Open-air sites are often undatable or present conflicting radiocarbon dates, while...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bryan Hockett.

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. We have learned more about Western Stemmed subsistence patterns in the Intermountain West over the past decade than we learned during the previous half century. Remarkable subsistence assemblages recovered from sites such as Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, Paisley Cave 2, Weed Lake Ditch, Little...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick O'Grady. Scott Thomas. Thomas Stafford, Jr.. Daniel Stueber. Margaret Helzer.

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. The 2018 fieldwork emphasized trench excavation across the relict stream channel directly in front of the rockshelter. Sedimentary deposits comprise a well-stratified, five-part sequence of bedrock basalt overlain by a gravel bed of rounded cobbles and boulders; dark gray blocky to massive cienega...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Erlandson.

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. Paleocoastal sites on California's Northern Channel Islands have produced hundreds of stemmed points, crescents, foliate points or knives, and other bifaces dated between ~12,250 and 8200 years ago. Although uniquely maritime in nature, these island Paleocoastal assemblages are clearly related to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katelyn McDonough.

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. Recent excavations at the Paisley and Connley Caves have uncovered coeval Younger Dryas occupations with different but complementary Western Stemmed Tradition artifact assemblages. Whereas the perishable artifact assemblage at Paisley Caves provides important health and subsistence data, the large lithic...