New Caches from Area B at the Cooper’s Ferry Site, Idaho, Reveal Key Technological Insights and Extend the Age of Stemmed Points in the Americas

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.

Continued analysis of materials excavated from Area B at the Cooper’s Ferry site has clarified details about a well dated artifact assemblage containing 11 stemmed projectile points. New radiocarbon analyses show that these stemmed points are significantly older than classic Clovis fluted points and extend the timing of Western Stemmed Tradition technology to match the Bayesian modeled age of initial human occupation in the site’s Area A. This assemblage bears stemmed projectile points with a striking technological and morphological resemblance to Late Upper Paleolithic tools from the northwestern Pacific Rim that date to ~20,000–19,000 years ago. The age of these points, together with the apparent cultural links with Paleolithic peoples of northeast Asia, suggest the First Peoples in the Americas arrived via a circum-Pacific coastal route.

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): 37025.0