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Communal hunting of small game such as hares has probably occurred for 10,000 years in the Great Basin. Ethnohistoric accounts of the nineteenth century indicate that indigenous peoples communally hunted large game (e.g., pronghorn, mountain sheep, deer, bison) across much of western North America including the Plains, desert Southwest, California, and Great Basin subregions, during and immediately preceding the contact era. Research in the Plains subregion suggests that communal large game hunting occurred there prior to the adoption of the bow-and-arrow between ca. 1,500 and 2,000 years ago, and in fact may have occurred as early as 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ethnohistoric accounts suggest that communal pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) hunts involving the construction of a corral with associated wings were utilized by many Great Basin peoples at the time of historic contact. This paper asks: (1) did communal pronghorn hunts occur prior to the Protohistoric Period (before ca. 600 [sup.14]C B.P) in the north-central Great Basin? (2) if so, how ancient is this practice? and (3) did the methods or behaviors of the participants of these communal hunts vary through time ? Detailed analysis of sites containing dozens, and in many cases, hundreds of projectile points that predate ca. 600 [sup.14]C B.P. found in or near existing juniper branch corrals and wings suggest that communal pronghorn hunting has occurred for at least 4,000 to 5,000 years in the north-central Great Basin. Further, behavioral variability is seen through time in the material remains of these communal hunts, with earlier (Middle Archaic) communal kills characterized by greater use of local toolstone sources, gearing-up just prior to the kill, and perhaps a greater reliance on shooting the trapped pronghorn rather than clubbing compared to Protohistoric communal kills. Comunales de caza de caza mayor, como el berrendo (Antilocapra americana) que supongan la construccion de un corral junto con Ins alas se utilizaron por muchos pueblos Gran Cuenca, en el momento historico de contacto. Este documento busca responder a la antiguedad de este comportamiento en la Gran Cuenca. Los datos sugieren que la caza comunal berrendo se ha producido por lo menos 4.000 a 5.000 anos en la parte norte-central de Gran Cuenca., Old and New World ethnographies both record examples of communal trapping of large game animals by indigenous societies (e.g., Curtis 1924; Hill 1938, 1982; Kluckhohn et al. 1971; Legge and [...]

Recent papers published in American Antiquity and elsewhere have debated whether there were mote artiodactyls available to human foragers during the relatively cool and moist Late Holocene compared to the relatively warm and dry Middle Holocene in the Great Basin. If so, how did human foragers respond to changes in artiodactyl abundance, and what explanations may be offered to account for any changes in human behavior across the Middle Holocene-Late Holocene boundary? A critical examination of the data used in this debate does not support the interpretation that human foragers across the Great Basin intensified artiodactyl hunting during the Late Holocene relative to Middle Holocene levels. Depending on location and setting, individual sites occupied during the Middle Holocene may show decidedly more intensive artiodactyl hunting at this time. At other sites, artiodactyl hunting remained consistent throughout the Middle and Late Holocene, while small game hunting and gathering significantly varied. New data presented below suggest that a change from encounter or ambush hunting involving small family groups to the communal hunting of pronghorn by larger numbers of people occurred near the Middle Holocene-Late Holocene boundary. I suggest that changes in social organization and technology also occurred at this time. En articulos recientes publicados en American Antiquity y otra partes, ha surgido una discusion con respecto a si habia mas artiodactilos disponibles para los forrajeros humanos durante el ultimo periodo Holoceno relativamente fresco y humedo, comparado con el clima relativamente caliente y seco en el Holoceno Medio en el Cuenca Grande. Si es asi [??]como los forrajeros humanos respondieron a los cambios en abundancia de los artioddctilos, y que explicaciones se pueden ofrecer para a los cambios del comportamiento humano a traves del Holoceno Medio-Holoceno Tardio Todo parece coincidir en que los climas frescos y humedos del Holoceno Tardio fomentaron mayores densidades demograficas de artiodactilos. Un punto de vista es que los cazadores respondieron intensificando la caza de artiodactilos, privilegiandolos sobre presas de caza mas pequenas tal como los leporinos. Segun esta vision, estos datos apoyan modelos tales como 'opcion de la presa' disenada para probar si los forrajeros eligen los alimentos sin tomar en cuenta valores caloricos. Desde otro punto de vista, los cazadores intensificaron la caza de los artiodactilos durante el Holoceno Tardio porque les dio mayor acceso alas hembras, de tal manera aumentando su aptitud selectiva. Un examen critico de estos datos, sin embargo, no apoya la interpretacion de que los forrajeros humanos de la Cuenca Grande intensificaron la caza de los artiodactilos durante el Holoceno Tardio y el Holoceno Medio. Dependiendo de la localizacion, los sitios ocupados durante el Holoceno Medio demuestran una caza decididamente mas intensiva de los artioddctilos, siendo constante a traves del periodo, mientras que la caza de presas pequenas vario perceptiblemente. Los datos presentados aqui de 31 trampas aborfgenes de antilope y 15 puntos de 'proyectiles de matanza' situados en el norte-centro de la Cuenca Grande sugiere que un cambio de estrategia en la caza, variando del encuentro o la emboscada de la presa, lo que implicaba a grupos pequenos de la familia, hacia la caza comunal del antilope, por mayor numero de gente, ocurrio cerca del Holoceno Medio--Holoceno Terminal. Basado sobre estos datos, sugiero que los cambios en la organizacion y la tecnologia social tambien ocurrieron en este tiempo. Discuto que se deben desarrollar nuevos modelos para describir y explicar adecuadamente los cambios en preferencias humanas de caza durante el Holoceno Medio y el Holoceno Tardio de la Cuenca Grande. Estos nuevos modelos requieren la evaluacion y la incorporacion del record arqueologico regional y deben incluir el conocimiento actual sobre las relaciones sociales de las maneras, el comportamiento humano, la influencia de la tecnologia y de la nutricion y las tendencias demograficas., Why do changes occur in the nature and timing of prehistoric hunting patterns through time? In the Great Basin and elsewhere, there are at least four factors commonly cited to [...]

Baker Village was a Fremont horticultural community occupied between about A.D. 1030 and 1250. The residents of Baker Village built at least five pithouses and seven aboveground storage structures arranged around a much larger, centrally located building. The spatial patterning of faunal remains indicates that more ungulate and leporid bones were recovered from floors, hearths, and middens in the Central Structure than in the pithouses and surface storage structures. These data may support the interpretation that private ceremonies or feasts were held inside the Central Structure. Together with evidence of community planning, reduced mobility, and relatively low population size, the data also indicate that an influence-based political hierarchy probably existed within Baker Village., The Fremont were prehistoric horticulturists who inhabited portions of the North American eastern Great Basin and Colorado Plateau between A.D. 650 and 1350. Previous research has focused on defining Fremont [...]

Excavation at the site of Picareiro Cave in Portugal provides an important and rare sample of animal remains. Preliminary study shows that late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers hunted rabbits, deer and a wide variety of fauna, perhaps during seasonal occupation of the cave. Key-words: Portugal, subsistence, Picareiro, Pleistocene fauna, fish, hunter-gatherer, Introduction Understanding culture change and continuity at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary requires subsistence data (see Straus et al. 1996). The paucity of faunal remains, however, limits what is known about subsistence [...]

Smith et al. (2013) provided important new information concerning the ages of a variety of projectile point types found in the Great Basin. Two of their interpretations, however, deserve further discussion. Smith et al. (2013) concluded that the Nicholarsen (or Nicolarsen) Cache contains both dart and arrow points. However, our application of methods developed by Hildebrandt and King (2012) to distinguish dart and arrow points, indicates that the Nicholarsen Cache contains arrow points exclusively. In addition, we suggest that the two ca. 6,800-year-old "Elko-Eared" points identified by Smith et al. (2013) are Large Side-notched points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of taphonomic processes observable in undoubtedly cultural Younger Dryas-age faunal collections at the Paisley Caves establishes what cultural bone modification looks like in post-Clovis deposits at the site. Clearly stating the criteria by which these bones have been identified as culturally modified by stone tools, we apply the same criteria to bones found at the noncultural paleontological site of Mineral Hill Cave, Nevada, and find no cases of stone-tool-cut-marked bones. Applying these same criteria to bones recovered from pre-Clovis stratigraphic contexts at the Paisley Caves resulted in the identification of two cut-marked specimens, a mountain sheep (Ovis canadensis) mandible and a small artiodactyl rib that were both found in close proximity to human coprolites and artifacts. Directly radiocarbon dated prior to the beginning of the Clovis era (ca. >13,100 cal B.P.), these specimens increase the number of culturally modified items recovered from pre- Clovis contexts and support previous DNA studies indicating that the northern Great Basin was occupied at least a millennium before Clovis points became widespread throughout North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hall's (this issue) comment to my paper published in American Antiquity five years ago (Hockett 2005) makes the following statements: (1) I calculated "depositional rates" for a series of Great Basin faunal assemblages; (2) my analysis did not account for atmospheric radiocarbon fluctuations; and (3) my paper argued "against an increase in hunting artiodactyls from the Middle to Late Holocene." He further argues that recalculation of the data I presented demonstrates that both large- and small-game hunting increased from the Middle to the Late Holocene. Hall is wrong on all accounts. I agree, however, that calibrated dates should now be used instead of the raw radiocarbon dates I used in my original paper. Using calibrated dates, however, does nothing to change the initial patterns I outlined five years ago. Three more recent papers (Hockett 2007, 2009; Hockett and Murphy 2009) on large game hunting in the Great Basin also corroborate my 2005 interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]