Early Paleoindian Mountain Use: Initial Reports from Ongoing Investigations at High-Elevation Clovis Sites in the Beartooth Mountains, Montana

Summary

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

The use of high-elevation ecosystems by Early Paleoindian cultures using a Clovis-Techno complex has been known for decades. The earliest uses of North American mountain ecosystems have been hypothesized as transient forays by small groups focused on raw material acquisition and limited supplemental hunting. Between 2021 and 2023, the BEAAR Project discovered three Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene occupation areas associated with the Clovis Culture at ~10,000 feet in elevation. These localities present a new facet of Early Paleoindian adaptations in North America, depicting the first instances of high-elevation habitation sites associated with the Clovis Culture. These sites exhibit evidence of predation, hide working, blade manufacture, point manufacture, and domestic behaviors, in addition to exhibiting shared lithic raw material acquisition behaviors with other regional Clovis localities. These sites represent the highest-known Clovis localities.

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): 39926.0