Patterns of Technological Variation Among Folsom and Midland Projectile Points in the American Southwest

1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (151) ◽  
pp. 23-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Amick
Keyword(s):  
American Southwest ◽  
Projectile Points

The Consequences of Social Processes: Aggregate Populations, Projectile Point Accumulation, and Subsistence Patterns in the American Southwest

2013 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumiyasu Arakawa ◽  
Christopher Nicholson ◽  
Jeff Rasic
Keyword(s):  
Social Processes ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Projectile Point ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Faunal Assemblages ◽  
Hunting Strategies ◽  
Dietary Regime ◽  
Subsistence Activities ◽  
Lower Population

AbstractTracking broad-scale behavioral patterns using both lithics and faunal remains offers one line of evidence for investigating both prehistoric subsistence activities and the consequences of aggregation and increases in population size. Accumulation research, which examines the ratio of projectile points to cooking pottery sherds from the same context, shows a higher ratio of projectile points in areas with lower population densities. This pattern holds true when examining faunal assemblages and large-game procurement practices from A.D. 900 to 1300 in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. This research demonstrates that social processes such as aggregation and increases in population density influence human hunting strategies as much as changes in natural environment, which lead to changes in a group’s dietary regime.

scholarly journals Sandal Types and Archaic Prehistory on the Colorado Plateau

2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil R. Geib
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Colorado Plateau ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Population Replacement ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Plain Weave ◽  
Early Archaic ◽  
The North ◽  
Design Attributes ◽  
Northern Colorado

Perishable artifacts provide an alternative to projectile points for examining spatial patterns in Archaic material culture between northern and southern portions of the Colorado Plateau of the North American Southwest. This is so because they possess a potential great variety of specific construction and design attributes and can be directly dated to establish independent chronologies of development. The analysis and dating of a collection of warp-faced plain weave sandals from Chevelon Canyon, Arizona demonstrates the potential utility of perishable artifacts to our understanding of prehistory. The collection provides an important first sample of early Archaic footwear for the southern Colorado Plateau. AMS dating reveals that the oldest Chevelon Canyon sandal (8300 ± 60 B.P.) is 1,500 years earlier than the oldest directly dated sandal of this style on the northern Colorado Plateau. Most of the Chevelon Canyon sandals date from 7500 to 6000 cal. B.C., contemporaneous with open-twined sandals on the northern Colorado Plateau. This study provides another contrast in forager material culture between southern and northern portions of the plateau during the early Archaic, prior to ca. 5700 cal. B.C. After this time, the plain weave sandal style was adopted on the northern Colorado Plateau but not because of population replacement.

MORPHOMETRIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WESTERN STEMMED TRADITION PROJECTILE POINTS REVEALED IN A SECOND ARTIFACT CACHE FROM THE COOPER'S FERRY SITE, IDAHO

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 536-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren G. Davis ◽  
Daniel W. Bean ◽  
Alexander J. Nyers
Keyword(s):  
Great Plains ◽  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Lithic Analysis ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Lithic Assemblages ◽  
Lithic Reduction ◽  
Digital Scanning ◽  
Western Stemmed Tradition

In western North America, the Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) is contemporaneous with, but technologically different from, the Clovis Paleoindian Tradition as initially defined from the Great Plains and American Southwest. The foundational principles of WST lithic technology have not been as clearly delineated as those of their fluted and unfluted Paleoindian Tradition technological counterparts, largely due to the paucity of extensive WST lithic assemblages recovered from intact buried contexts. Recent excavations at the Cooper's Ferry site, located in western Idaho, revealed a stratified series of WST components spanning the late Pleistocene to early Holocene periods. The study of these components offers a unique opportunity to evaluate current expectations about WST lithic technology. Here, we describe the discovery, context, and contents of a new cache of 14 WST projectile points from the Cooper's Ferry site that provide clues about WST lithic reduction patterns and the design of early stemmed projectile points. We employ several novel methods of lithic analysis based on three-dimensional digital scanning technology and geometric morphometry and, in doing so, seek to demonstrate new ways of studying stone tools through the use of next-generation methods of lithic analysis applied to exploring the poorly known technological details of the WST.

Hunting Technologies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Whittaker ◽  
William D. Bryce
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Propulsion Systems ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Small Game ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Direct Study ◽  
Social Markers ◽  
Good Interpretation

The American Southwest has an unusually rich record of pre-colonial hunting. Projectile points reflect technological change, and can serve as chronological and social markers, but dry preservation also allows direct study of bow and atlatl propulsion systems. Other organic artifacts, including nets, snares, and clubs, reflect the importance of mostly small game in pre-colonial diets and society. Faunal remains, coprolites, and iconography enlarge the record, and continuities with descendant cultures allow unusually good interpretation of hunting practices. Using archaeological data and ethnographic parallels, this chapter discusses the various intentional and opportunistic hunting technologies used through time to procure faunal resources.

Water scarcity and sustainability in the arid area of North America: Insights gained from a cross border perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Yáñez-Arancibia ◽  
John W. Day
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North America ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Arid Area ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Sharp Focus ◽  
The Face

The arid border region that encompasses the American Southwest and the Mexican northwest is an area where the nexus of water scarcity and climate change in the face of growing human demands for water, emerging energy scarcity, and economic change comes into sharp focus.

Vertebrate paleontology, stratigraphy, and paleohydrology of Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, Nevada (USA)

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 55-98
Author(s):  
Kathleen Springer ◽  
Jeffrey Pigati ◽  
Eric Scott
Keyword(s):  
Las Vegas ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Plant Macrofossils ◽  
Distinct Species ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Local Fauna ◽  
Climatic Oscillations ◽  
Las Vegas Valley ◽  
National Monument ◽  
Desert Wetlands

Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument (TUSK) preserves 22,650 acres of the upper Las Vegas Wash in the northern Las Vegas Valley (Nevada, USA). TUSK is home to extensive and stratigraphically complex groundwater discharge (GWD) deposits, called the Las Vegas Formation, which represent springs and desert wetlands that covered much of the valley during the late Quaternary. The GWD deposits record hydrologic changes that occurred here in a dynamic and temporally congruent response to abrupt climatic oscillations over the last ~300 ka (thousands of years). The deposits also entomb the Tule Springs Local Fauna (TSLF), one of the most significant late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) vertebrate assemblages in the American Southwest. The TSLF is both prolific and diverse, and includes a large mammal assemblage dominated by Mammuthus columbi and Camelops hesternus. Two (and possibly three) distinct species of Equus, two species of Bison, Panthera atrox, Smilodon fatalis, Canis dirus, Megalonyx jeffersonii, and Nothrotheriops shastensis are also present, and newly recognized faunal components include micromammals, amphibians, snakes, and birds. Invertebrates, plant macrofossils, and pollen also occur in the deposits and provide important and complementary paleoenvironmental information. This field compendium highlights the faunal assemblage in the classic stratigraphic sequences of the Las Vegas Formation within TUSK, emphasizes the significant hydrologic changes that occurred in the area during the recent geologic past, and examines the subsequent and repeated effect of rapid climate change on the local desert wetland ecosystem.

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