The Relationship between Human Subsistence Strategies and Late-Quaternary Paleoenvironmental Changes in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert of Southwest Texas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Previous studies of the northern Chihuahuan Desert and Trans-Pecos region of west Texas primarily used plant macrofossils from Neotoma sp. middens to reconstruct Holocene and late Pleistocene paleoenvironments, offering researchers a general understanding of bioclimatic change for the period of record. Given the paucity of recorded PaleoIndigenous archaeological sites in the region, some researchers considered the available paleoenvironmental data and suggested that the region was unfit for humans during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene because of increased aridity during that period. However, recent archaeological and geoarchaeological research at two stratified sites–the San Esteban rockshelter and GLD open-air site–has revealed evidence of human habitation during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, challenging the idea that the region was unoccupied by humans at that time. Moreover, archaeological and paleoenvironmental data gleaned from the sites provide an opportunity to learn more about humans and the environment during that transitional period. In this paper, we present the results of our ongoing research at the San Esteban and GLD sites and use faunal and phytolith analyses to refine our understanding of the relationship between human subsistence strategies and paleoenvironmental changes primarily during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, but also after that period in the northern Chihuahuan Desert.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39741.0