Alm Shelter: A Preliminary Report on a Deeply Stratified Rockshelter in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Alm rockshelter, located at the mouth of Paintrock Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, contains a well-stratified cultural sequence spanning roughly 11,000 years (Late Paleoindian through the Late Prehistoric). Preliminary analyses demonstrate that the site was occupied and used variably over this time, particularly in periods of population growth and decline that are associated with periods of increasing and decreasing aridity. Here we present a preliminary report on the excavations, completed in summer, 2018. The focus of the research is on how use of the site changed over time in relation to changes in climate and regional population density. Increased aridity in the Early Holocene appears to have resulted in increased site use while decreased aridity resulted in a decline in activity. The current research presents the preliminary analysis of lithic materials recovered from 2014-2018 excavations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23943