Variability in Clovis Biface Morphology from the Type-site, Blackwater Draw Locality 1

Summary

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

The Blackwater Draw Locality 1 site provides one of the most unique perspectives of Paleoindian behavior in North America. Spatial evidence surrounding faunal and lithic assemblages have inspired researchers to hypothesize site function to represent kill, scavenging, caching, or domestic activities. Its setting relative to other localities of resource acquisition has served as a heuristic for models of early Americans’ mobility and technological organization. However, thorough analyses of biface collections from the site have not been completed in entirety. This is partially because of a history of excavations conducted by an array of institutions where the assemblage resides in pieces across the country. This research represents the launching of an endeavor to compile an exhaustive dataset of lithic bifacial artifacts from Blackwater Draw, beginning with examination of the morphological variability of artifacts curated at Eastern New Mexico University using Geometric Morphometrics. Intra-assemblage morphological variability will be compared to that of Paleoindian sites from across the Southwest representing specific behaviors, such as kill and quarry activities, to increase our understanding of the function of Blackwater Draw in the late Pleistocene.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25419