Cody Complex foragers and their use of grooved abraders in Great Plains and Rocky Mountains of North America

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 63-100
Author(s):  
Jason M LaBelle ◽  
Cody Newton

Comparison of Late Paleoindian sites of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains reveals 36 site components from 28 sites containing ground stone tools, including nine Cody Complex examples. Much of the ground stone use appears related to generalized activity, as few items have functionally specific forms. However, the Cody components have an unexpectedly higher number of grooved abraders as compared to other complexes. We note that Paleoindian examples contain wider u-shaped grooves compared to Late Prehistoric/Protohistoric abraders related to arrow production. We argue that Paleoindian abraders represent shaft abraders, used in the production of dart shafts within weaponry systems. We propose several hypotheses for the emergence of this technology during Cody times. The most parsimonious explanation is that the specific sites containing these abraders represent large camps, occupied for long periods and containing diverse chipped and ground stone assemblages.

1990 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 520-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Storer

Four genera of primates are present in the early to mid-Duchesnean Lac Pelletier Lower Fauna. Phenacolemur leonardi sp.nov., Trogolemur sp., Omomys sp., and Macrotarsius cf. M. montanus make up the latest diverse primate assemblage known from North America and from the Great Plains. This primate assemblage is similar to the earliest Duchesnean assemblage from the Wood locality, Badwater Creek area of central Wyoming, and primate genera appear to have been widely distributed through the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains in the Uintan–Duchesnean.


2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward J. Knell ◽  
Matthew E. Hill

AbstractUsing lithic and faunal data from 33 Cody complex (10,000–860014C years B.P.) components from the northern Great Plains, this study explores how Paleoindian land use and foraging strategies varied in relation to resource structure at the regional scale. The analysis of regional-scale faunal and lithic data was undertaken to demonstrate how disparate but related datasets must be considered together to develop a more complete understanding of hunter-gatherer lifeways. Empirical observations from the Cody archaeological record were compared to an optimal foraging theory and temporal resource predictability theory-inspired land-use model. The model predicts, and the data support, a pattern whereby Cody groups in the resource-rich foothill-mountain zone employed a regionally restricted land-use strategy for a protracted portion of the year, made spatially limited movements during which they relied on local toolstone, and expanded diet breadth by hunting a mixture of dispersed bison herds and small-bodied animals. In the comparatively resource-poor plains grasslands and adjacent alluvial valleys, the model predicts and the data indicate that Cody groups employed a nonregionally restricted land-use strategy in which they rapidly moved through regions, relied on nonlocal toolstone sources, made many residential moves over vast areas, and relied on a narrow range ofbiotic resources (primarily bison).


1991 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Marshall ◽  
Terry A. Wheeler

Sphaeroceridae were collected in the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, in July 1988, and their distributional patterns were examined to test the hypothesis that the archipelago was the site of a Wisconsinan glacial refugium. A total of 27 species of Sphaeroceridae was identified. Ten of these species show widespread Holarctic distributions, four species are widespread across North America, seven species are restricted to North America west of the Rocky Mountains, three species are restricted to the coastal forest west of the Coast Range, and three species are supralittoral along the coast. There is no indication of endemism or relict distributions on the islands; the sphaerocerid fauna is similar to that found on the adjacent mainland. The most parsimonious explanation for the origin of the present sphaerocerid fauna of the archipelago is postglacial colonization from mainland North America. The sphaerocerid distribution pattern was compared with patterns for other Diptera and Coleoptera from the region. In general, the Sphaeroceridae corroborate the pattern seen in most other insect taxa, with postglacial dispersal from mainland source areas accounting for the present sphaerocerid fauna of the Queen Charlotte Islands.


1963 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Neuman

AbstractCheck-stamped potsherds have been found at 50 sites on the Plains, and a check-stamped paddle of bone is reported from one site. These sites are found in a large area that extends from central Kansas northward into Saskatchewan and from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to eastern North Dakota. The sites have been attributed by various writers to the Blackfoot, Crow, Hidatsa, Cree, Mandan, Pawnee, Ponca, Wichita, and Kansa. In most of these sites the check-stamped potsherds have a low frequency, and only at a few Hidatsa and Mandan sites do they predominate. As all check-stamped pottery from this area is assignable to the period of A.D. 1500 to 1845, check-stamped specimens may be used as diagnostic artifacts for the late prehistoric and early historic period.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tasos Bekiaris ◽  
Danai Chondrou ◽  
Ismini Ninou ◽  
Soultana-Maria Valamoti

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