*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Codding.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Indigenous land-use decisions influenced plants and animals across North America for thousands of years. These dynamics were disrupted by settler-colonial invasions, leading to declines in ecosystem function and health. Restoring Indigenous socioenvironmental systems and the cultural keystone species they support requires first identifying how...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Bettinger.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mountain environments, the treeless parts above 10,000 ft specifically, are traditionally viewed as less productive, more difficult of access, more physiologically challenging, and for those reasons, marginal to their subalpine counterparts. The ideal free distribution (IFD) of Fretwell and Lucas (1969) provides a means of testing this “marginal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Weston McCool.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To anticipate relationships between future climate change and societal violence, we need theory to establish causal links and case studies to estimate interactions between driving forces. Here, we couple theory from human behavioral ecology with a machine learning approach to investigate the long-term effects of climate change, population size,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Byers.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We explore and integrate different currencies that may underlie large-game hunting to guide a trans-Holocene analysis of variation in artiodactyl utilization using archaeofaunal data-sets from predominantly open-air sites from the Bonneville and Wyoming basins. The available empirical data continue to suggest that artiodactyls yield consistently...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ruoyu Peng.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Different ethnolinguistic groups in the Sierra Nevada exhibit substantial variability in settlement patterning, particularly in the intensity of their use of montane and alpine environments. Due to the similarity of environments throughout the range, these differences are not readily attributable to differences in environment or environmental...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sophia Dodge.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This project addresses the understudied presence of Gambel Oak acorns in the archaeological record of the mountain west. While ethnographic data indicate that some Indigenous groups in the region consumed Gambel Oak acorns, their recognition in archaeological contexts has been limited. Recent ethnoexperimental work shows Gambel Oak acorns have a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stefania Wilks.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geophytes have been a crucial, energy-rich food source for Indigenous peoples in the northern Great Basin, playing a vital role in their diet, culture, economy, and environmental management practices. Beyond mere sustenance, geophytes hold profound cultural significance and reflect sophisticated ecological knowledge and adaptive strategies. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hayley Kievman.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ethnographic evidence documents the exploitation of Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) acorns as a food resource in the Great Basin, Southwest, and Colorado Plateau. However, a paucity of identified macro- and micro- botanical acorn remains in the archaeological record has resulted in a critical underestimation of the significance of the resource for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Rickett.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study integrates starch granule analysis, botanical surveys, and comprehensive site analysis to shed light on the relationship between local plant resources and past human settlement and subsistence activities. Starch granule analysis on ground stone tools has the potential to reveal information about plant foods that have been processed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miranda Harding.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For decades, archaeologists have interpreted the material record of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (PHT; ~14,500-9000 cal BP) to suggest that the first peoples in North America specialized in large game hunting. Increasing evidence, however, is documenting considerable temporal and spatial variability during the PHT across North America. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra Greenwald.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Indigenous North Americans, including peoples of the Mountain West, invented and use(d) cradles to transport infants during maternal activities. Energy expenditures and return rates of mothers foraging with infants using carrying technology is understudied, but an important consideration among groups relying heavily on caloric contributions from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Zeanah.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pleistocene-Holocene Transition (PHT) assemblages in the Great Basin featured stemmed bifaces and formed flake tools, often accompanied by concave base projectile points, crescents, eyed bone needles, and open-weave basketry. Middle Holocene assemblages contain notched projectile points, expedient flake tools, milling stones, and tightly woven...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ishmael Medina.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) was one of the most widespread domesticated plants in the Americas before European colonization. Despite its widespread distribution, explaining how and why ancient maize farming spread into the greater American Southwest and Utah remains a central research question in archaeology. To understand how ancient maize...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisbeth Louderback.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How did foraging patterns of males and females differ in response to climate change? Despite 100 years of robust archaeological research in arid western North America, there has never been a synthesis explaining the role of males and females in shaping human foraging patterns during the Holocene. Across the globe, variations in these patterns...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eva Eury.

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on the impact of climate on artiodactyls in the western United States is still unfolding. Modern datasets on the impact of climatic variables on these animals often span no more than several decades and remain limited in number. Given these temporal constraints, archaeological and paleoecological data provide a promising avenue for...