Western Stemmed Tradition Projectile Technology and Raw Material Use in Guano Valley, Oregon

Summary

Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) projectile points mark Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene occupations in the Great Basin. Considerable morphological variability exists among WST points and over the years researchers have come to recognize various types (e.g., Cougar Mountain, Haskett, Parman, and Windust). Because most substantial WST sites are near-surface scatters that likely represent palimpsests of multiple occupations, it remains unclear whether this variability reflects tools used during different time periods, tools discarded at different stages in their use-lives, or tools used by different groups visiting the same places. Using data collected from Guano Valley, Oregon, where one of the largest concentrations of WST points in the Great Basin was recently discovered by the University of Nevada, Reno, we explore these and other possibilities. To do so, we examine the relationship between WST point morphology and raw material type and whether particular WST point types cluster together or are instead generally intermixed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20007