PreColumbian Archaeology of North America

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Pre-Columbian Archaeology of North America

• Regional Chronologies
• Week 9 the Great Plains and Great Basin

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Flora

• Great Plains
• Grasslands dominating region between Rocky
  Mountains and Mississippi River
• Prairie peninsula in Illinois
• Short-grass steppe in west (30 cm)
• Tall-grass prairie in the east (200 cm)
• Dominated by grasses and forbs (non-grass herbs)
• Trees only along rivers
• Cottonwood (Populos deltoides)

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Tall-grass Prairie
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Tall- and short-grass praries
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Missouri River Lower Brule Reservation (MT)
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Missouri River Glasgow, MO
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Fauna

• Bison/buffalo (Bison bison)
• Males 305-380 cm Females 198-228 cm
• Female's weight varies from 410-500 kg Males'
  weight ranges from 725-910 kg
• Pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana)
• 135 cm long, 30-60 kg
• Prairie dog (Cynomys sp.)
• Rabbits, mice, ground squirrels
• Wolf, coyote, fox, badger

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Great Plains Chronology

• Early Archaic
• 8500 5000 BP
• Middle Archaic
• 5000 3000 BP
• Late Archaic
• 3000 1500 BP
• Late Prehistoric
• 1500 300 BP (1700 AD)

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Archaic (1)

• Archaic peoples depended upon a variety of food
  sources including bison, elk, wolf, rabbit, fox,
  and wild plants such as gooseberries and
  cherries.
• Characteristic tools included small chipped stone
  projectile points and knives.
• Manos, metates and other ground stone tools
  associated with Archaic in other areas of North
  America are not usually found.
• The shift from big game hunting to a broader
  exploitation of local environments was a
  worldwide phenomenon that has been attributed to
  the disappearance of many mammalian species that
  coincided with the ending of the last great ice
  age.

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Archaic (2)

• Importance of buffalo jumps
• Head-Smashed-In Buffalo jump
• Used for almost 6,000 years
• 5600 BP 900 AD
• Three components to site
• The Gathering Area
• Lying west of the cliff, is a natural grazing
  area in a large drainage basin 40 square km in
  extent and coincident with the Olsen Creek basin.
  The basin itself is rimmed by a continuous
  highland area except at the Olsen Creek exit. The
  jump lies 3.2 km east of the basin and is
  separated from it by a highland area that
  contains two low passes. In the past, this area
  served to attract herds of buffalo and made it
  easy for the hunters to gather them and drive
  them from the basin through one of the two passes
  and over the jump.
• Long lines of stone cairns were built to help
  direct the buffalo to the jump. More than 500 of
  these small piles of stone can still be seen
  today marking the drive lanes that extend more
  than 14 km into the gathering area. To date,
  three drive lane sets have been identified---a
  southern set, a northwestern set and an eastern
  set. These cairns may have served as simple
  markers, or they may have supported sticks or
  brush to hide the hunters.

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• The Kill Site
• Along the edge of the Porcupine Hills are several
  sandstone cliffs which were once used as buffalo
  jumps. The cliff consists of an outcrop of
  Paskapoo sandstone topped by an erosional bench.
  North of the Interpretive Center is the actual
  jump site. Here, the cliff has the longest
  exposure of maximum vertical drop averaging 10
  meters over a lateral distance of about 300
  meters.
• Stratified deposits containing evidence for the
  use of the jump lie against the cliff. The slump
  block on which the kill deposits are situated is
  dissected in its central portion by a spring
  head. Today it consists of two sub-blocks, one to
  the south and one to the north. The latter
  contains the major kill deposits. Over the
  thousands of years of use of the jump, these
  deposits have accumulated to a depth of 10 meters
  and date back more than 5,700 years.
• The Campsite and Processing Area
• In the flat area immediately below the kill site,
  on a glacial bench, is the campsite and
  processing area. Campsite debris extends over a
  distance of approximately 1000 meters by 300
  meters. Its extent is defined laterally by the
  level of the glacial bench upon which it lies.
• he area is basically defined by the depth and
  concentrations of debris. The thickest area is
  near the kill and the major areas lie both south
  and north of the spring.
• Excavations to the south indicate the major
  midden area to be about 60 meters from the spring
  with an accumulation of fire-broken rock,
  butchered bone and artifacts. Hearths and boiling
  pits are common features throughout the area.
  Most of the artifacts from the campsite and
  processing area, date back to Late Prehistoric
  times, roughly 200 AD to 1750 AD
• Artifacts found in this area include stone
  scrapers, knives, choppers, drills, broken
  arrowheads, pottery, bone awls, and occasionally
  ornaments such as bone beads. Also in this area
  were found tons of fire cracked boiling stones.

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Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
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Archaic Points (1)

• This medium to large point has a rectangular stem
  with long parallel - sided blade. It's widest at
  the shoulders, which are narrow and angular, to
  rounded. T stem is long the side edges are
  ground. flaking may be random or parallel
  transverse. The Alberta point was named by Marie
  Wormington 1957 134 for examples found in
  the province of Alberta, Canada. The Alberta
  point is related to and a variant of Eden
  /Scottsbluff points.  
• AGE AND CULTURE   Early Archaic, contemporary
  with Scottsbluff points.
• DISTRIBUTION   The Canadian provinces of Alberta
  and Saskatchewan and parts of Idaho, Montana ,
  North and South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska.

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Archaic Points (2)

• Bell base notched points
• Age and Culture Middle Archaic 7000 - 5000 B.P.
• Distribution Central Texas
•  L 4.61 cm
• R 5.83 cm

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Archaic Points (3)

• Nolan
• Middle Archaic 6000 - 4000 B.P.
• Distribution Texas to Oklahoma
• 8.255 cm
• Marshall
• Middle Archaic to Woodland 6000 - 2000 B.P.
• Distribution Texas to Colorado
• 8.42 cm

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Archaic Points (4)

• A collection of Pelican Lake points from an
  excavation at Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump. This
  type of point begins to appear in Alberta Sites
  about 3,500 years ago. They are often found in
  association with large-scale Buffalo kills,
  indicating that the Pelican Lake people were
  sophisticated hunters of large game.

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Archaic Points (5)

• Late Archaic dart point with fiber binding still
  attached.
• Lower Pecos region of Texas

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Post-archaic

• On the Great Plains the archaic is followed by
  the Woodland Period
• We will talk about this next week

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Great Basin

• Current ecological conditions in the Great Basin
  are characterized by
• 1. Little rain (usually 60 cm per year and often
  half of that)
• 2. Soil cannot absorb the rain, so there is
  usually runoff in the form of flash floods
• 3. Altitudinal variety (i.e., zonation) ranges
• a. Valley desert
• b. Juniper and pinon
• c. Alpine in higher elevations
• 4. Thus, while a generally dry area, there exists
  microenvironmental variation with vertical
  zonation.
• Ecological conditions in the Great Basin during
  the Pleistocene were quite different
• 1. There were rivers and lakes
• a. Now characterized by
• (1) Dry riverbeds
• (2) Dry lake playas

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• Prehistoric cultural chronology for the Great
  Basin
• 1. ca. 11,200 BC - Fort Rock
• 2. Danger Cave, Utah (located above the Great
  Salt Lake)
• a. ca. 9000 B.C. began to be occupied.
• (1) Animals in variety were exploited
• (2) Plants (65 species) varied as well
• (3) Dry conditions favored preservation of
  organic artifacts
• (a) Woven artifacts i) Nets ii) Textiles iii)
  Baskets
• (b) Wooden artifacts i) Arrows ii) Haftings,
  etc.
• (c) Effigiessplit-wood mountain goat effigies
• b. ca. 2000 B.C. Beginnings of the Desert
  Archaic Tradition
• (1) Coiled, almost waterproof, baskets
• (2) Duck decoys
• (3) Wild-grass harvesting sickles

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• 3. Hogup Cave (Utah) chronology gives a good long
  sequence (broken up into "units" or levels)
• Unit I
• (1) ca. 6400-350 B.C.
• (2) Conditions were moist
• (3) Desert Archaic Culture was well off and
  running
• Unit II
• (1) ca. 300 B.C.-A.D. 400
• (2) Dry conditions
• (3) Desert tends to disperse population
• Unit III
• (1) ca. A.D. 400-1300
• (2) Fairly moist conditions
• (3) This is the time of the florescence of the
  Fremont Culture
• Unit IV
• (1) ca. A.D. 1300-1850
• (2) Dry (note, coincidence of this and the
  "Little Ice Age")
• (3) The ethnic Shoshone occupy the area
• (4) With the exception of the Fremont, the
  Archaic lifeway continues in most areas to the
  time of the historic Shoshone

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Fremont Culture

• The Fremont Culture is the main exception, and is
  quite interesting.
• Fremont Culture
• a. Dates ca. A.D. 500-1400
• b. Situated in the eastern Great Basin
• (1) Eastern Utah
• (2) North of the Anasazi of the Southwest
• c. Probably an outgrowth of the Desert Archaic
  Tradition, but had some cultural affinities with
  both
• (1) Southwest cultures
• (2) Plains cultures
• d. Most characteristic artifact limbless clay
  figurines
• e. Subsistence
• (1) Horticultural lifestyle
• (a) Corn
• i) Zea mays
• ii) ca. A.D.400
• (b) Other seeds (Artemesia and others)
• (2) Hunted and gathered during part of the year
• f. Had above-ground masonry architecture (similar
  to the Southwest)
• g. Produced grayware pottery

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Fremont figurines

• Fremont clay figurines from Old Woman site
  (University of Utah Archaeology Center).
• 11.5 cm.
• The Freemont civilization lasted c. 400 or later
  to 1300 A.D.
• The cultural roots of its scattered
  horticultural settlements in the Great Basin are
  obscure, but probably a mix of local archaic
  traditions and Anasizi and Great Plains
  immigration.

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Fremont Ceramics

• Fremont Ivie Creek Black-on-White bowl from
  Grantsville Mound (Utah Museum of Natural
  History).
• Fremont pottery from Caldwell Village, Evans
  Mound, Snake Rock, and Evans Mound respectvely
  (Utah Museum of Natural History). Height of
  tallest is c. 27 cm.

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• The Parowan Fremont Indian culture lived in the
  Parowan Valley. They occupied this area from
  approximately 900 to 1300 A.D. These petroglyphs
  are located along the lava rim rock on the N. E.
  part of the hills south of Hamilton Fort, Utah.

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• Fremont petroglyphs at Flat Canyon (Arizona).