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Pollen, plant macrofossils, and sedimentary analyses from archaeological deposits at North Creek Shelter (NCS) on the Colorado Plateau provide data on vegetation and climate change during the Holocene. From 11,300–10,200 cal yr BP, NCS was embedded in a mixed conifer forest of cool-adapted species (e.g.,Abies,Pseudotsuga menziesii, andPinus ponderosa) with anArtemisiaunderstory. During this interval, NCS pollen corresponds to modern pollen fromPicea–Abiesforests that reside 950 m higher in elevation. Rapid deposition rates of NCS sediments indicate that climatic conditions during the Early Holocene were more mesic than today, with increased precipitation. The onset of warmer conditions at NCS began at 10,200 cal yr BP, and pollen and plant macrofossils indicate that a semiarid woodland and scrub mosaic dominated byPinus edulis,Juniperus osteosperma, and Amaranthaceae surrounded NCS by 9300 cal yr BP. This is corroborated by fossil pollen that is similar to modern pollen fromP. edulis–J. osteospermawoodlands and Amaranthaceae scrub that currently surround NCS. Sedimentary analyses suggest that during this time, accumulation rates were very low due to low precipitation and a drier climate overall. Migration ofP. edulisinto southern Utah is directly dated to 8100 cal yr BP, thus confirming recently proposed patterns of northward expansion.

High mobility, bison hunting, and preferential toolstone use are broadly accepted characterizations of the Folsom strategy (Amick 1999a; Dixon 1999; McDonald 1998). These characteristics are not mutually exclusive, however. The first descriptor is based on the latter two. In other words, high mobility is based on two assumptions: (1) bison behavior was both unpredictable and unknown by Paleoindian hunters making bison hunting an “iffy” pursuit and (2) variable quantities of non-local toolstone in chipped stone assemblages is evidence of high residential mobility.

The Arizona Strip, a sparsely populated region in the northwest corner of Arizona, is poorly known archaeologically, especially for the Pre-Puebloan periods. Recorded Archaic sites on the Strip tend to date after 4,000 years ago, although few sites of that age have been investigated and reported in the extreme western area. Modest tests at Rock Canyon Shelter on the Uinkaret Plateau yielded insights into late Archaic use of the region, while Zea mays dates document Basketmaker II at the shelter nearly 2000 years ago. Comparisons with contemporary assemblages at open sites to the east along Short Creek provide insights into regional dietary shifts from wild resources to greater reliance on domesticates and weedy plants as well as a diminishing importance of large game once domesticates are introduced.

Excavations at the site of Wadi Mataha, located in Southern Jordan, revealed stratified Epipalaeolithic occupations containing Geometric Kebaran, Early Natufian, and Late Natufian deposits. Although the Middle Epipalaeolithic occupation at the site is small, it contains a human burial in a face-down burial position, along with groundstone artifacts, suggesting a unique burial practice was enacted at the site. This paper explores the Geometric Kebaran component of Wadi Mataha, focusing on the lithic assemblage and the recovered human burial. Despite the small size of the assemblage, techno-typological and functional analysis of the lithics and the presence of a human burial suggests that small, limited term occupations were still considered important and symbolically charged places in the landscape. Wadi Mataha represents one of the southernmost extents of Geometric Kebaran occupations in Jordan, making it an interesting case study to understand regional mobility and movement during the Middle Epipalaeolithic.

Starch grain analysis has become a routine investigative approach to studies of economic plant use during prehistory. As interest in ancient starch has rapidly escalated, however, the various ways ground stone tools (and adhering residues) have been curated into museum collections and the efficacy of extraction have been largely undocumented. The study presented here examined three treatment scenarios reflecting curation practices and extraction methods that could affect starch grain recovery. Treatment 1 is where adhering residues were washed and conserved at the time of excavation and no other extraction technique was performed. Treatment 2 involves stones that were cleaned during curation and residual sediments and starch grains were later extracted with a brush. Treatment 3 involves stones cleaned during curation and residual sediments and grains were later extracted by sonicator. Starch grains from all three treatments were isolated using a heavy liquid separation method. Treatment 1 produced the highest counts of starch grains overall. Treatments 2 and 3 also yielded grains from cleaned stones, but the counts were much lower. Given that all treatment scenarios were effective to varying degrees, it is clear that cleaning, passage of time and storage do not negate museum artifacts as sources of starch grains for dietary analysis.

The origins of maize farming strategies broadly labeled Basketmaker II have long intrigued archaeologists. Early twentieth century researchers excavating sheltered sites in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest found material culture associated with aceramic farmers that included sophisticated textiles as well as elaborate and exotic mortuary offerings in a region sparsely occupied by foragers. Although early researchers speculated that the San Pedro phase of what is now known as the Early Agricultural Period played a significant role in the emergence of Basketmaker II, data bearing on the topic were scarce for decades. Recent, well-documented excavations in the southern Tucson Basin in advance of urban development have strengthened the argument that pulses of influence, likely including population movement, occurred during this period. Here, we explore the relationship between the Late Archaic, Early Agricultural Period and Basketmaker II maize-dependent economies in search of Basketmaker origins. A complex and dynamic picture emerges calling into question both migration and diffusion arguments for the appearance of Four Corners Basketmaker II.

Despite the rich array of perishables Julian Steward (1937) recovered during his 1930s excavations, the Promontory Cave assemblages were dated in relative terms with just a handful of radiocarbon assays until recently. Yet Promontory Caves 1 and 2 are the type sites from which the Promontory Culture was defined, and these assemblages have a critical bearing on our conception of three significant issues in western North American prehistory: the terminal Fremont transition, Numic expansion, and the potential presence of migrating ancestral Apachean populations. To better fix the age of the Promontory Phase, we have undertaken an additional 45 AMS determinations for Promontory perishables. Because of a research focus concerning Promontory footwear, most age estimates come from moccasins, but we have also dated gaming pieces, a bow, an arrow, netting, basketry, matting, and cordage. With the exception of a winnowing basket fragment and some ceramic residue dates, all Promontory Phase assays are tightly focused in an interval running from 662 to 826 radiocarbon years before present (a calibrated 2s range spanning A.D. 1166–1391). Bayesian analyses of the Cave 1 and 2 Promontory Phase perishables suggest that this late period occupation comprised one or two human generations, centering on the interval running from ca. A.D. 1250–1290.

The Bayesian linear mixing model SISUS is used to reconstruct reliance on maize and intake of animal protein from the stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope values of 149 directly dated Basketmaker II burials. Maize is the primary dietary staple. δ13C values are also enriched by intake of yucca and wild C4 plant foods but these resources are of minor importance in sampled diets. Animal protein intake is low and cottontail rabbits make the greatest contribution to female diets. Adolescent diets are indistinguishable from the diets of adult females and both groups are less reliant on artiodactyls than males. The δ13C and δ18O values of bone hydroxyapatite distinguish nursing infants and oxygen isotope values identify outsider adults relative to those local to the region where their deaths occurred. Most Utah Basketmaker II burials are contemporary with Black Mesa Lolomai phase occupations, postdating the Marsh Pass, AZ, White Dog phase. All burials in both studies were recovered from sheltered rather than open sites and reliance on maize does not increase over the temporal span of the Utah study, covering the two sigma range 415 BC–AD 322.

Archaeological studies have demonstrated the increasingly important role of turkeys in the lives of ancient Puebloan peoples of the American Southwest. The origin of domesticated turkeys, however, remains an unanswered question especially given the absence of turkey ( Meleagris gallopavo ) in early and middle Holocene contexts prior to the arrival of maize agriculture. This paper reports turkey remains from very early Holocene deposits in North Creek Shelter in southern Utah and reviews extant literature for early turkey remains in the Southwest. These data provide tentative support for an autochthonous population of turkeys in portions of the greater Southwest.

Our ongoing investigation of early maize farming in the American Southwest has entailed stable isotope analysis and accelerator radiocarbon dating of Basketmaker II remains from sites in the Four Corners region. Here we report radiocarbon dates on a large mortuary assemblage excavated by Richard Wetherill in 1893 from a burial cave in southeastern Utah. It has long been thought that all individuals interred in Cave 7 were massacred in a single violent attack given embedded projectiles and evidence for blunt force trauma. However, accelerator radiocarbon dates on purified bone collagen (n ¼ 96) do not lend strong support to this argument, even among the subset of individuals with clear evidence for violent injuries. Moreover, nearly 80% of Cave 7 burials examined in the study show no evidence of perimortem trauma and no adult females or subadults under the age of 12 appear to have suffered violent deaths. Rather than an anomalous single-event massacre, the Cave 7 radiocarbon dataset suggests that raiding and intragroup, male/male violence was episodic among Basketmaker groups in southeastern Utah. Population densities were relatively high and individuals interred in Cave 7 and elsewhere in the region were heavily dependent on maize agriculture, a prehistoric economic strategy typically characterized by high amplitude fluctuations in productivity. Variability in the array of grave goods accompanying Cave 7 male burials and elsewhere suggests competitive social differentiation likely heightened during periods of resource shortfall leading to intra-group conflict, raiding and perhaps ritualized acts of violence.

Recent literature on Paleoarchaic and Early Archaic strategies in the arid west of North America has characterized the shift from the earlier to later period as constituting an adaptive discontinuity. The empirical bases for this conclusion are shifts in mobility, subsistence, and technology. Paleoarchaic peoples are described as highly mobile, focused on a diversity of animal resources, including birds and small game, and using more exotic toolstone, an aspect of mobility. In contrast, Early Archaic strategies are less mobile, yet more focused on large game, using more local toolstone, and adopting grinding tools presumably to process small seeds. Accompanying this transition is the shift from stemmed to notched projectile points. Data bearing on this transition on the Colorado Plateau have been scarce. Excavations of finely stratified deposits at North Creek Shelter on the Colorado Plateau in southern Utah have yielded support for the adaptive discontinuity position, although qualitative differences between the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau are apparent in mobility and faunal use.

This paper presents evidence for a high degree of variability in symbolic representation at the multi-component, Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherer encampment at Wadi Mataha in the Petra Basin of southern Jordan. Twelve sandstone, siltstone, basalt and flint objects were recovered from Geometric Kebaran and Early and Late Natufian occupations of the site during excavations in 1999 and 2001 and subsequently examined using both optical and scanning electron microscopy techniques. A number of these artefacts show clear iconographic links and similarities in patterning and form to art objects from the Mount Carmel, western Galilee and central Negev regions, and demonstrate that the full range of Natufian material culture covers a much broader geographic range than has been previously observed. However, the variability in the symbolic practices evident at Wadi Mataha also raises a number of questions concerning the ‘emerging territoriality’ among Natufian communities as has been argued by Ofer Bar-Yosef and Anna ...

Small seeds played an important dietary role during the Archaic period in the arid west of North America. The timing of the onset of intensive small seed use is of interest as it suggests a broadening of diets by early peoples and has implications for climatic change. Here we review both direct and indirect evidences of small seed use at critical sites in the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. This information combined with new data from North Creek Shelter in the Escalante Valley of southern Utah suggests this shift occurred by 9,000 years ago.

The timing and degree of reliance on maize agriculture in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest has been a central issue in studies that examine the origins of Puebloan society. Both diffusionist (various, but see Wills 1995) and migrationist (Berry and Berry 1986; Matson 1991) models have been proposed to explain the processes responsible for the movement of maize (Zea mays) north into the Four Corners region. This paper reports bone collagen stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values with paired accelerator radiocarbon dates on a large collection of human remains from western Basketmaker II/III sites in Marsh Pass and other areas of northeastern Arizona, as well as data on a small number of Puebloan remains including Chacoan Great House burials. The results make clear that Basketmaker II people were heavily depen- dent on maize by 400 B.C. Moreover, their degree of dependence is similar to that of Pueblo II and III farmers of the Four Corners region. These findings and the apparent rapidity of maize dependence support a migrationist model for the origins of maize farming in the northern Southwest. El grado y momento de dependencia de agricultura maizana en la region de las Cuatro Esquinas del sudoeste de norte america han sido los temas centrales en los estudios que examen los origenes de la sociedad Puebloana. Los modelos de difusionismo (varias, vea Wills 1995) y migracionismo (Berry y Berry 1986; Matson 1991) han sido propuestos para explicar los procesos responsables del movimiento de maiz (Zea mays) al norte hacia el interior de la region de las cuatro esquinas. Este articulo presenta datos de cocientes de isotopos carbonos y nitrogenos de colageno que ha sido radiocarbono fechado con un aceler- ador de una grande coleccion de huesos humanos de los sitios II/III de los Basketmaker del oeste en Marsh Pass y otras areas del nordeste de Arizona, al igual que datos similares de una cantidad pequena de huesos Puebloanos incluyendo enterramientos del Chacoan Great House. Los resultados afirman que la gente de Basketmaker II era completamente dependiente de maiz con la llegada del ano 400 a.c. Ademas, su grado de dependencia es semejante a la dependencia de los agricultores de los Pueblo II y III de la region de las Cuatro Esquinas. Estos resultados y aparentemente rapidez hacia la dependencia de maiz apoyan un modelo migracionisto para explicar los origenes del cultivo de maiz en la parte norte del sudoeste.

The discovery of distinctive bone disks in central Utah similar to and contemporary with specimens from the Four Corners area argues for cultural connections between these regions during the Basketmaker period. Archaeologists have long debated the cultural processes that might explain the onset of farming north of the Virgin-Colorado Rivers in Utah. Although there is no dispute that maize farming derived from the Southwest, the question of whether indigenous peoples adopted ideas and seeds or Southwestemers moved north remains unresolved. While these enigmatic artifacts do not provide proof of migration, they are evidence that cultural connections resulted in the movement of social and ideological elements as well as farming techniques and products.

Marine shell, turquoise, exotic ceramics, and toolstone, and raw minerals are common in archaeological assemblages generated by the Fremont, small scale farmers and foragers who occupied the eastern Great Basin and Colorado Plateau of western North American between AD 400 and 1300. Although researchers routinely describe such artifacts, little attention been paid to the means whereby these items were acquired or the implications those mechanisms have for understanding Fremont socio-economic patterns and relations. This paper presents the spatial patterning of both local and exotic goods from Fremont occupations and offers a range of social contexts for exchange as well as contrasts with Virgin Anasazi contexts for such goods. A trade fair/festival model is proposed as an important mechanism or context for the distribution of exotics at Fremont sites.

Empirical tests of resource-intensification models argue for diminishing foraging efficiency among hunter–gatherers in California over the past 2000 years (Basgall, 1987,Research in Economic Anthropology9,21–52; Broughton, 1994aJournal of Archaeological Science21,501–514; 1994bJournal of Anthropological Anthropology13, 371–401). The evidence for this long-term trajectory consists of decreases in the abundance of large, high-ranked prey in archaeofaunal assemblages. This paper presents faunal data from Fremont structural sites in the eastern Great Basin and Northern Colorado Plateau as an additional empirical test of resource intensification patterns and compares them to trends in California and the American Southwest. The measure of resource efficiency used is the artiodactyl index (following Broughton, 1994ab), a tool derived from prey choice models of optimal foraging. Faunal data from Fremont structural sites argue that (1) foraging efficiency declined during the Fremont period, and (2) this decline was due to population growth.

The discovery of a Middle Epipaleolithic adult skeleton (F-81) at the site of Wadi Mataha in southern Jordan provides new insights into human variability in the Epipaleolithic of the Levant. This paper analyzes the skeletal morphology of Wadi Mataha F-81 in the context of other Epipaleolithic remains from Jordan and Israel to assess the current evidence for morphological variability throughout this period. The F-81 skeleton shares morphological features with earlier Epipaleolithic skeletons from Ohalo and Nahal Ein Gev, and later Natufian populations. Despite the morphological similarities, F-81 extends the range of known variability prior to the Natufian with its unusually small stature and unique combination of morphological characteristics. High levels of cranial and postcranial robusticity suggest that the F-81 individual was physically active and terrestrially mobile. Pronounced bilateral asymmetry in the upper limb suggests significant lateralization of habitual activity. In the context of Epipaleolithic remains, the F-81 skeleton provides preliminary evidence for greater morphological variability, terrestrial mobility, and lateralized habitual behavior prior to the Natufian, and skeletal gracilization between the Middle and Late Epipaleolithic in the Levant.

Communal game drives were a cost-effective way for pedestrian hunters to obtain large amounts of meat and hides. Although once common across North America, nearly all traces of game drives have been removed by modem agriculture practices. Thus, the two high-altitude sites in Colorado reported on in this volume are significant because their features are largely intact and their occupations can be reliably dated. Chapter 1 is a thorough overview of ethnohistoric game drives and hunting practices across North America. Chapter 2 focuses on the Trail Ridge Game Drive site located at the forest-tundra ecotone at 3,4653,500 m asl. Natural topography and constructed stone walls were employed to funnel herds to hunters waiting in blinds. Pellet-group studies suggest that the intended prey were elk or mule deer. Projectile points indicate intermittent occupation between the late Paleoindian and late prehistoric periods. Charcoal from two blinds was radiocarbon dated to 4590 ? 60 B.P. (Beta-85363) and 2610 ? 60 B.P. (Beta-75998), while granite weathering dates indicate that the walls were built or repaired numerous times. Chapter 3 discusses the extensive Flattop Mountain Game Drive site situated at 33503720 m asl. Features include 14 stone drive walls, 848 cairns, 90 blinds, and a possible hunter's bed. Numerous projectile points ranging from Paleoindian through protohistoric styles have been recovered in this vicinity since the 1920s, and these, as well as all other lithic tools, pottery and debitage, were analyzed. Fifteen radiocarbon samples collected within blinds date between ca. 4300 and 200 B.P. Chapter 4 places the two sites within a continental perspective. Both were used intermittently beginning in the Paleoindian period, and their features were maintained by various parties up to the protohistoric period. The appendixes address lichenometry, granite weathering, radiocarbon dating, pellet-group surveys, early artiay be disap ointed howev r, at the inco lusive i g. They may also be frustrated, as I was, by its a tic and repeti ve style and its limited and idiosynic selection among rel vant sources. fact collections, and descriptive data for all projectile points. This report is well organized and the numerous photographs, drawings, and graphs make it a valuable addition to the library of anyone interested in hunter-gatherer ecology in North America.