scholarly journals Pre-Clovis projectile points at the Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas—Implications for the Late Pleistocene peopling of the Americas

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
pp. eaat4505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Waters ◽  
Joshua L. Keene ◽  
Steven L. Forman ◽  
Elton R. Prewitt ◽  
David L. Carlson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Peopling Of The Americas ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Point Form ◽  
Sequential Relationship ◽  
Western Stemmed Tradition

Lanceolate projectile points of the Clovis complex and stemmed projectile points of the Western Stemmed Tradition first appeared in North America by ~13 thousand years (ka) ago. The origin, age, and chronological superposition of these stemmed and lanceolate traditions are unclear. At the Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas, below Folsom and Clovis horizons, we find stemmed projectile points dating from ~13.5 to ~15.5 ka ago, with a triangular lanceolate point form appearing ~14 ka ago. The sequential relationship of stemmed projectile points followed by lanceolate forms suggests that lanceolate points are derived from stemmed forms or that they originated from two separate migrations into the Americas.

Context, Provenance and Technology of a Western Stemmed Tradition Artifact Cache from the Cooper’s Ferry Site, Idaho

2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 596-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren G. Davis ◽  
Alex J. Nyers ◽  
Samuel C. Willis
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Western North America ◽  
Before Present ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Salmon River ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
Lithic Reduction ◽  
Age Estimates ◽  
Western Stemmed Tradition

AbstractThe discovery of an artifact cache containing Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) projectile points in a clearly defined pit feature at the Cooper’s Ferry site offers a unique perspective on early lithic technology and logistical organization in western North America. A description and analysis of the cache feature reveals several new insights, including: a rocky cairn capped the surface of the pit feature; some of the artifacts were made from cryptocrystalline silicates found 16 km away; debitage analysis, including aggregate and attribute based measures, identified two distinct lithic reduction stages present in the cache; new radiocarbon assays suggest that the cache is probably not early Holocene in age and may date to associated age estimates of 11,410–11,370 radiocarbon years before present (B.P.). Unlike Clovis caches, the Pit Feature A2 cache at Cooper’s Ferry appears to be a generalized toolkit that was probably placed at the site for future use. If the 11,410–11,370 radiocarbon years B.P. assays date the creation of the Pit Feature A2 cache, then its creators were probably not pioneers in the lower Salmon River canyon but possessed local knowledge about the landscape and raw material sources; these patterns suggest greater time depth for WST foragers.

A Formal Test of the Origin of Variation in North American Early Paleoindian Projectile Points

2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Briggs Buchanan ◽  
Marcus J. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
Prey Availability ◽  
Prey Selection ◽  
Net Primary Production ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Pleistocene Period ◽  
Shared Ancestry ◽  
Correlation Statistics

Recently it has been suggested that variation in the form of Early Paleoindian projectile points across North America was the result of drift rather than regional adaptation (Morrow and Morrow 1999). Here, we test this hypothesis quantitatively with matrix correlation statistics. Using a sample of Early Paleoindian point assemblages from across the continent we attempt to correlate variation in point shape with several measures of late Pleistocene period regional variation including net primary production, prey availability, prey selection, and prey body size. We find no significant correlations between point shape and measures of regional variation, suggesting that functional modifications to points within specific regional biomes were minimal. We do find evidence of spatial autocorrelation as the regional variation in point shape correlates positively with geographic distances among sites, a pattern consistent with recent, shared ancestry. Our findings provide support for the drift hypothesis posed by Morrow and Morrow (1999). We interpret these results as suggesting that despite the wide variation in regional environmental conditions across late Pleistocene period North America not enough time elapsed during the Early Paleoindian period for these local selective gradients to have led to significant changes in point shape.

scholarly journals Late Pleistocene horse and camel hunting at the southern margin of the ice-free corridor: Reassessing the age of Wally’s Beach, Canada

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (14) ◽  
pp. 4263-4267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Waters ◽  
Thomas W. Stafford ◽  
Brian Kooyman ◽  
L. V. Hills
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Southern Margin ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Peopling Of The Americas ◽  
Lithic Artifacts ◽  
Chronological Clustering ◽  
Beach Site

The only certain evidence for prehistoric human hunting of horse and camel in North America occurs at the Wally’s Beach site, Canada. Here, the butchered remains of seven horses and one camel are associated with 29 nondiagnostic lithic artifacts. Twenty-seven new radiocarbon ages on the bones of these animals revise the age of these kill and butchering localities to 13,300 calibrated y B.P. The tight chronological clustering of the eight kill localities at Wally’s Beach indicates these animals were killed over a short period. Human hunting of horse and camel in Canada, coupled with mammoth, mastodon, sloth, and gomphothere hunting documented at other sites from 14,800–12,700 calibrated y B.P., show that 6 of the 36 genera of megafauna that went extinct by approximately 12,700 calibrated y B.P. were hunted by humans. This study shows the importance of accurate geochronology, without which significant discoveries will go unrecognized and the empirical data used to build models explaining the peopling of the Americas and Pleistocene extinctions will be in error.

scholarly journals Setting the Stage: The Late Pleistocene Colonization of North America

Quaternary ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
New World ◽  
Pacific Coast ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Land Bridge ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Bering Land Bridge ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Northern Half

The timing of human entrance into North America has been a topic of debate that dates back to the late 19th century. Central to the modern discussion is not whether late Pleistocene-age populations were present on the continent, but the timing of their arrival. Key to the debate is the age of tools—bone rods, large prismatic stone blades, and bifacially chipped and fluted stone weapon tips—often found associated with the remains of late Pleistocene fauna. For decades, it was assumed that this techno-complex—termed “Clovis”—was left by the first humans in North America, who, by 11,000–12,000 years ago, made their way eastward across the Bering Land Bridge, or Beringia, and then turned south through a corridor that ran between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets, which blanketed the northern half of the continent. That scenario has been challenged by more-recent archaeological and archaeogenetic data that suggest populations entered North America as much as 15,300–14,300 years ago and moved south along the Pacific Coast and/or through the ice-free corridor, which apparently was open several thousand years earlier than initially thought. Evidence indicates that Clovis might date as early as 13,400 years ago, which means that it was not the first technology in North America. Given the lack of fluted projectile points in the Old World, it appears certain that the Clovis techno-complex, or at least major components of it, emerged in the New World.

scholarly journals The Radiocarbon Record of the Western Stemmed Tradition on the Southern Columbia Plateau of Western North America

2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Brown ◽  
Daniel M. Gilmour ◽  
Paul S. Solimano ◽  
Kenneth M. Ames
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Great Basin ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Younger Dryas ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Western North America ◽  
Columbia Plateau ◽  
Temporal Overlap ◽  
Western Stemmed Tradition

The late Pleistocene–early Holocene archaeological record of the interior Pacific Northwest is dominated by what has been regionally referred to as the Western Stemmed Tradition (WST). While various efforts have attempted to clarify the chronology of this tradition, these have largely focused on data from the Great Basin and have been disproportionately preoccupied with establishing the beginning of the tradition due to its temporal overlap with Clovis materials. Specifically focusing on the Columbia Plateau, we apply a series of Bayesian chronological models to create concise estimates of the most likely beginning, end, and span of the WST. We then further explore its chronology by modeling its temporal span under various parameters and criteria so as to better identify places in the chronology that need further work and those that are robust regardless of data iteration. Our analysis revealed four major findings: (1) WST conservatively dates between 13,000 and 11,000 cal BP, likely extending to ~13,500 cal BP; (2) the most problematic period for WST is its termination; (3) the WST is incredibly long-lived compared to roughly contemporary Paleoindian traditions; and (4) the WST was seemingly unaffected by the onset of the Younger Dryas.

Climatic implications of latest Pleistocene and earliest Holocene mammalian sympatries in eastern Washington state, USA

2008 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Lee Lyman
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Rocky Mountains ◽  
Taxonomic Composition ◽  
Washington State ◽  
The West ◽  
Mammalian Faunas ◽  
Eastern Washington

AbstractFor more than fifty years it has been known that mammalian faunas of late-Pleistocene age are taxonomically unique and lack modern analogs. It has long been thought that nonanalog mammalian faunas are limited in North America to areas east of the Rocky Mountains and that late-Pleistocene mammalian faunas in the west were modern in taxonomic composition. A late-Pleistocene fauna from Marmes Rockshelter in southeastern Washington State has no modern analog and defines an area of maximum sympatry that indicates significantly cooler summers than are found in the area today. An earliest Holocene fauna from Marmes Rockshelter defines an area of maximum sympatry, including the site area, but contains a single tentatively identified taxon that may indicate slightly cooler than modern summers.

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