Stemmed Points in the Ice-Free Corridor

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Late Pleistocene Stemmed Points across North America: Continental Questions and Regional Concerns" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Much reasoning about the early occupation of the Ice Free Corridor has centered on the fluted point phenomenon. Fluting or basal thinning of lanceolate points can be readily recognized, and occurs in a relatively restricted time frame (~13,100 to ~11,500 calendar years ago). Fewer comparisons have been made with stemmed points from the Plateau and Great Basin, which have considerable morphological variability and a time range that extends from 14,000 or more years ago to as recently as ~8,000 years ago. A similar broad time range is true for Alaskan stemmed points. Virtually all stemmed point morphologies are also present in the Corridor. Earlier findings from Banff National Park in southwestern Alberta clarified that at least some of these stemmed points are ~11,500 cal yr BP of age. Here I assess morphological variability for stemmed points in the greater Corridor region, making specific reference to the Poohkay assemblage from northwestern Alberta’s Peace River country, which strongly resembles the McNine cache from Nevada. The relative abundance of both fluted and stemmed points in the Corridor has significant implications for our understanding of rapidly evolving genetic inferences about early PaleoIndigenous populations as deglaciation proceeded.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Late Pleistocene Stemmed Points across North America: Continental Questions and Regional Concerns   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35918.0