Clovis-Folsom Overlap at the La Prele Mammoth Site

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Three Sides of a Career: Papers in Honor of Robert L. Kelly" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The nature of the transition from Clovis to Folsom complexes has long been an area of interest for Pleistocene archaeologists in the West. While it has been hypothesized that Folsom was an innovation started during the Clovis time period there have been few clear cases of temporal overlap. A recent find at the La Prele Mammoth site in Converse County, Wyoming offers new evidence relevant to this enduring problem. Dating to approximately 12,950 years ago, the La Prele Mammoth site contains the remains of a Columbian mammoth alongside activity areas associated with butchery. The densest of these areas, Block D, also returned a diagnostically Folsom fluted point along with mammoth ivory, bone needles, ocher, and butchered mammal remains. Using geoarchaeology and spatial analysis we discuss the relationship between the Clovis and Folsom diagnostics at the site to better understand the relationship between these two complexes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Three Sides of a Career: Papers in Honor of Robert L. Kelly   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39237.0