Undiscovered Country: The Ground Stone Tools Assemblage from Hell Gap National Historical Landmark

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

One of the most complete records of human activity on the North American Plains, between 13,000 and 8500 years ago, is found at the Hell Gap National Historic Landmark in Wyoming. The area was inhabited continuously during this period as evidenced by the five main site localities. While we know a good deal about the activities on site from chipped stone tools and fauna, the ground stone has yet to be integrated into site interpretations. Our general assumptions about cultural practices during this time presume the exclusive use of ground stone as a means to create other types of tools, for instance, shaft abraders or for processing ochre.

At Hell Gap there are more than 30 ground stone artifacts ranging from abraders and hammerstones, to palettes. They are found throughout the site's localities. The artifacts are associated with the Folsom, Hell Gap, Eden-Scottsbluff and Agate Basin cultural components. In this presentation, we describe the materials found in close proximity to these ground stone tools to put the implements in context and build a picture of how they fit within our current knowledge of Hell Gap and Paleoindian material culture and to test our current assumptions about their function.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39956.0