Northern Great Basin Cordage: A Regional Overview of Chronology, Technology, and Materials

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Ties That Bind: Cordage, Its Sources, and the Artifacts of Its Creation and Use" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Fiber technologies in the North American Great Basin have incredible antiquity and diversity, including fine cordage, rope, and braids spanning at least the last ~13,000 years. The Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada State Museum, and the Lakeview Bureau of Land Management have spent considerable effort in the past two decades compiling and obtaining new radiocarbon dates on fiber cordage from across the region with data on over 120 individual items. In this paper we discuss new radiocarbon dates in tandem with plant identifications and technological analyses from the Connley, Paisley, and Cougar Mountain Caves in central Oregon alongside existing data. This provides an updated regional and diachronic perspective of plant selection, new clues to the decision-making process in cordage technology, and novel insights into cultural change, adaptation, and innovation in the Great Basin.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Ties That Bind: Cordage, Its Sources, and the Artifacts of Its Creation and Use   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38276.0