Meetings at the Margins : Prehistoric Cultural Interactions in the Intermountain West [1 ed.] 9781607819936, 9781607811732

Citation preview

Edited by

David Rhode

Meetings at the Margins Prehistoric Cultural Interactions in the Intermountain West

Meetings at the Margins

Meetings at the Margins: Prehistoric Cultural Interactions in the Intermountain West

edited by

David Rhode

The University of Utah Press Salt Lake City

To my parents, who taught me to get along with the neighbors even when I didn’t want to •

Copyright © 2012 by The University of Utah Press. All rights reserved. The Defiance House Man colophon is a registered trademark of the University of Utah Press. It is based on a four-foot-tall Ancient Puebloan pictograph (late PIII) near Glen Canyon, Utah. 16 15 14 13 12     1 2 3 4 5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meetings at the margins : prehistoric cultural interactions in the intermountain west / edited by David Rhode.    p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   isbn 978-1-60781-993-6 (ebook) 1. Paleo-Indians — Great Basin — Migrations. 2. Paleo-Indians — Implements — Great Basin. 3. Paleo-Indians — Commerce — Great Basin.  4. Indian pottery —  Great Basin.  5. Excavations (Archaeology) — Great Basin.  6. Great Basin — Antiquities.  I. Rhode, David, 1956–   E78.G67M48 2012  979'.01 — dc23 2011041413

Contents

List of Figures   ix List of Tables   xiii

1. Intergroup and Interregional Interactions In and Around the Intermountain West   1 David Rhode



2. The Clovis-Last Hypothesis: Investigating Early Lithic Technology in the Intermountain West  23 Charlotte Beck and George T. Jones



3. Lithic Technology, Cultural Transmission, and the Nature of the Far Western Paleoarchaic/ Paleoindian Co-Tradition  47 Loren G. Davis, Samuel C. Willis, and Shane J. Macfarlan



4. Great Basin–California/Plateau Interactions Along the Western Front   65 Michael G. Delacorte and Mark E. Basgall



5. Prehistoric Textile Trade and Exchange in the Western Great Basin: Outland Coiling and Catlow Twining  92 Catherine S. Fowler and Eugene M. Hattori



6. Large Game Exploitation and Intertribal Boundaries on the Fringe of the Western Great Basin  103 Frank E. Bayham, R. Kelly Beck, and Kimberley L. Carpenter



7. Great Basin Hunters of the Sierra Nevada   124 Kelly R. McGuire, Kimberley L. Carpenter, and Jeffrey Rosenthal



8. Columbia Plateau: The Northwestern Frontier   142 James C. Chatters



9. Numipu and Numa Along the Northern Rim: The Evidence from Western Idaho   162 Kenneth C. Reid and Travis Pitkin

10. Stability and Change in the Rocky Mountains: Who Was Here When, and What Were They Doing?   176 Michael D. Metcalf and E. Kae McDonald

vii

Contents

11. Fremont–Anasazi Boundary Maintenance and Permeability in the Escalante Drainage  191 Joel C. Janetski, Lane D. Richens, and Richard K. Talbot 12. Gray, Buff, and Brown: Untangling Chronology, Trade, and Culture in the Las Vegas Valley, Southern Nevada  211 Heidi Roberts and Richard V. N. Ahlstrom 13. A Model for Predicting Economic Interaction in Arid Lands and an Evaluation in Eastern California Based on Brownware Ceramics   229 Jelmer W. Eerkens 14. Perishable Artifacts and Fluid Archaeological Frontiers   246 J. M. Adovasio 15. The Chert Core and the Obsidian Rim: Some Long-Term Implications for the Central Great Basin  254 David Hurst Thomas 16. Archaeological Perspectives on the Great Basin Culture Area   271 David B. Madsen List of Contributors   285 Index  287

viii

Figures

1.1. Intermountain culture area, showing main tribal/linguistic groups 2 2.1. Location of sites discussed by Taylor et al. (1996) and Waters and Stafford (2007) 25 2.2. Distribution of radiocarbon dates from 10 Clovis sites discussed by Taylor et al. (1996), arranged from south to north and south to west 25 2.3. Distribution of radiocarbon dates presented by Waters and Stafford (2007) arranged from south to north within three different regions 26 2.4. Distribution of Clovis caches 27 2.5. Traditional view of projectile point sequence in the Great Basin (after Jennings 1986:​117) 28 2.6. Projectile point types originally included in the Great Basin Stemmed Series by Tuohy and Layton (1977) 29 2.7. Example of outrepasse flaking on a biface from the Fenn cache 30 2.8. Western Stemmed Tradition biface showing broad collateral flaking 30 2.9. Biface reduction sequence for Western Stemmed points 31 2.10. Distribution of basal indentation: basal width ratio for Clovis and Western Fluted projectile points 34 2.11. Distribution of radiocarbon dates associated with Western Stemmed points 35 2.12. Distribution of hydration depths measured on obsidian Clovis and Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) points 37 3.1. Map showing sites and localities mentioned in the text 49

3.2. Paleoarchaic lithic reduction sequence 51 3.3. Paleoindian lithic reduction sequence 53 3.4. Explanatory models for the occurrence of the Paleoarchaic/ Paleoindian co-tradition 56 4.1. Study area 66 4.2. Early Holocene obsidian sources 67 4.3. Relative abundance (index value) of Northern Side-notched projectile points 69 4.4. Obsidian sources for Northern Side-notched projectile points 69 4.5. Post-Mazama cultural boundary 72 4.6. Relative abundance (index value) of Gatecliff series projectile points 73 4.7. Obsidian sources of Early and Middle Archaic projectile points 75 4.8. Early and Middle Archaic settlement systems 76 4.9. Obsidian sources for Late Archaic and Terminal Prehistoric projectile points 78 4.10. Temporal distribution of obsidian sources along the Feather River drainage 80 4.11. Scattergram relating distance from Numic homeland to projectile point index in the western and central Great Basin 80 5.1. Map showing the locations of tribes and sites 94 5.2. Great Basin–style pitched water container 95 5.3. Close-twined Washoe burden basket 95 5.4. Outland Coiled–like fragment from Winnemucca Lake 97 ix

Figures

5.5. Finely coiled cap from Winnemucca Lake 97 5.6. Interior view of a Catlow Twined base from Winnemucca Lake 98 5.7. Close-up of a Catlow Twined mat 99 6.1. Distribution of ethnographic groups in northern California in relation to the study area 104 6.2. Model of resource depression adapted from Hamilton and Watt 107 6.3. The resource rank–depression model of buffer zone formation and intertribal boundary development 108 6.4. Ethnographically documented boundaries of the Atsugewi, the Mountain Maidu, and the Northern Paiute in the Eagle Lake region 111 6.5. Pronghorn and mule deer migration routes in the Eagle Lake region, showing the major corridors and landscape features 114 6.6. Critical winter ranges of pronghorn and mule deer in the Eagle Lake region 116 6.7. Distribution of intensively occupied Late period residential sites in the Eagle Lake region 118 7.1. Elevation profiles for the central and southern Sierra Nevada 126 7.2. Maximum transport distance of large-mammal meat packages for hunting forays emanating from base camps near present-day Sonora and Independence 129 7.3. Relative contribution of toolstone material types from 54 sites along the elevational transect in Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne, and Alpine counties 130 7.4. Exchange-quality obsidian biface fashioned from Bodie Hills obsidian recovered from CA-TUO-4514 133 8.1. The Columbia River as it flows through the arid shrub steppe of the Columbia Basin, at the center of 143 the Columbia Plateau 8.2. Diagnostic artifacts of the Western Stemmed Tradition (Paleoarchaic) 145 in the Columbia Plateau

8.3. Effect of the catastrophic Mazama eruptions 148 8.4. The scope of middle Holocene opportunistic sedentism on the Plateau and northern Great Basin 150 8.5. A root-harvesting site of Plateau collectors (45GR27), located in the central Columbia Basin 152 9.1. Location of the Six Rivers and Lower Canyon zones with sites marking the northern distribution of Intermountain Ware ceramics 163 10.1. Great Basin–Rocky Mountain– Wyoming Basin area 177 10.2. Routes for movement of obsidian into the Rocky Mountain–Wyoming Basin area 179 10.3. Fremont exchange routes influencing the Rocky Mountain area 186 11.1. Map of the Escalante River drainage with the locations of Wide Hollow and Fifty Mile phase sites 192 11.2. Wide Hollow phase site plan, the Overlook site 197 11.3. Wide Hollow phase site plan, Dos Casas 198 11.4. Wide Hollow phase site plan showing detail of Structure 1 at Rattlesnake Point 199 11.5. Plan map of Arrowhead Hill showing the spatial relationship between Wide Hollow phase and Fifty Mile phase occupations as well as details of Structures 2 and 3 200 11.6. Wide Hollow phase pithouse with stacked masonry, Structure 1, Dos Casas 201 11.7. Fifty Mile phase site plan, Schoolhouse Ledge 202 11.8. Fifty Mile phase site plan, Lampstand upper ruin 203 11.9. Coombs Village pithouse plans and profiles (from Lister et al. 1960) 204 11.10. Artifact density at upland vs. lowland sites in the Escalante region 205 11.11. Contrasts in Anasazi ceramics from house floors at Arrowhead Hill (AH) and other Formative house floors 205 in Escalante Valley x

Figures

12.1. Culture areas and pottery types associated with them 12.2. Map showing the locations of Pithouse period sites in the Las Vegas Valley 12.3. Shell artifacts recovered from the Corn Creek site, in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge 13.1. Map showing southern California and western Nevada, distribution of historic weather stations (+), and regions where pottery was sampled 13.2. Correlations between precipitation

212 13.3.

213

13.4. 13.5.

220

15.1. 233

15.2.

xi

autocorrelation and distance for four weather stations in the western Great Basin Map showing the directions predicted for subsistence Network graph of moved pots Predicted vs. actual patterns in exportation rate of pottery from Southern Owens Valley Location of obsidian sources in relation to the central Great Basin The “Chert Core” and the “Obsidian Rim”

235 236 239 240 257 257

Tables

1.1. Ethnohistoric Relationships Between Intermountain Native Groups and Their Neighbors 5 2.1. Early Radiocarbon Dates Associated with Western Stemmed Points 33 2.2. Obsidian Source and Hydration Data from the Dietz Site 36 3.1. Descriptive Statistics for the Clovis Projectile Sample by Region 59 3.2. Regression Model (Using Robust Standard Errors) Examining Great Plains and Southwestern Clovis Point Basal Indentation and Projectile Diagnostics 59 3.3. Multiple Regression Model Examining Great Basin Clovis Point Basal Indentation and Projectile Attributes 59 4.1. Northern Great Basin Sites/Localities with and without Northern/Large Side-Notched Points 70 4.2. Northern Great Basin Sites/Localities with and without Gatecliff Points 73 4.3. Oldest Radiocarbon Dates for Western Great Basin Features Containing Two or More Desert Side-Notched Points 81 6.1. Results of Nearest-Neighbor Analyses 117 7.1. Artiodactyls by Number of Individual Specimens in Regional Sites West and East of the Sierra Nevada 125

7.2. Obsidian Caches of the Yosemite Region 134 9.1. Variability in Fish Remains from Open Sites Along the Snake River 170 10.1. Sources for Selected Obsidian from Northwestern Colorado 178 10.2. Sites with Sourced Obsidian Shown by Source Area and Time Period 179 10.3. Comparison of Great Basin and Rocky Mountain Paleoenviron­ mental Records 180 10.4. Summary of Great Basin and Rocky Mountain Adaptive Shifts 182 11.1. Selected Radiocarbon and Tree Ring Dates from Formative Sites in the Upper Escalante Drainage 194 12.1. Summary of Habitation Features Identified in the Las Vegas Valley 214 13.1. Results of Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis, Tabulating Region of Collection vs. Geochemical Group 238 13.2. Summary Percentages for Each Region of Local, Ungrouped, and Imported Sherds; the Geographic Source of Imported Sherds; and an Export/Import Statistic 238 13.3. Comparison of Attributes of Local, Traded, and Ungrouped Sherds 240 15.1. Obsidian Utilization for Projectile Points, Grouped by Cultural Phase (Monitor Valley, Nevada) 259 15.2. Obsidian Debitage Recovered in Monitor Valley, Nevada 260

xiii

chapter 1

Intergroup and Interregional Interactions In and Around the Intermountain West David Rhode

How does a people relate to its neighbors? How important are external interactions in ­affecting a society’s growth and development, its cultural integrity, its long-term survival? Relationships among different societies are crucial in the spread of innovations, information, and belief systems; in the maintenance of exchange and mating networks; and in forging ethnic identity. Borderland interactions often foster high rates of inter­ marriage, co-residence, sharing of resources or resource areas, and widespread bilingualism. Social groups may deal economically or politically in ways beneficial or hostile to one or both ­parties, and these may in turn dictate if one group dominates or is subjugated by the other. In these ways and others, intergroup relationships can be as important in shaping a society’s identity and future as internal social and economic d ­ ynamics alone. Among the societies inhabiting the intermountain region of western North America (Figure 1.1), shared heritage and environmental constraints have long been considered the para­ mount causal factors in regional cultural development and diversity (Jorgensen 1980; ­Kroeber 1939; Steward 1938, 1940). Yet interactions with neighbors often rank as high as these other cultural drivers. Joseph Jorgensen, examining cultural variation among historic Great Basin groups, found that “environmental differences in conjunction with historical contacts [with neighbors] that facilitated accommodations to new environments account for the largest cultural dif-

ferences that occurred between Numic societies” (1994:​​101; emphasis added). Peter Jordan and Stephen Shennan, investigating the distri­bution of basketry characteristics among native C ­ alifornia groups, found a strong “ethnogenetic signal, arising from the horizontal transmission of cultural attributes across sharply defined linguistic boundaries” (2003:​​42; emphasis in original). And Carla Sinopoli (1991), in an intriguing analysis of arrows collected by Powell from Great Basin groups in the nineteenth century, found that some stylistic traits differed most strongly between near neighbors, probably s­ ignaling group identity (cf. Weissner 1983). Other aspects of arrow styling, however, varied clinally with distance, indicating widespread sharing of traits among n ­ eighbors. These examples all support the idea that in the Intermountain West, as elsewhere t­hroughout the world, interactions between groups can be “where the action is” for processes of cultural cohesion, differentiation, and change (Barth 1969:​​ 9–10). This volume brings together the work of scholars who examine interregional interactions among groups in and around intermountain western North America. Contributors approach the problems of characterizing interregional interactions from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives. The scope is archaeological, focusing on dimensions of material cultural variation across different regions. The contributions highlight the utility of the long-term perspective afforded by archaeological data; at the 1

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figure 1.1. Intermountain culture area, showing main tribal/linguistic groups using bold dotted lines (OVP = Owens Valley Paiute). Approximate area of internal drainage (hydrographic Great Basin) shown by a nar­ chumawi; row dashed line. Numbers indicate locations of principal interacting neighboring groups: 1, A 2, ­Atsugewi; 3, Besawunena (Northern Arapaho); 4, Blackfoot; 5, Cahuilla; 6, Cayuse; 7, Cheyenne; 8, Cocopa­; 9, Columbia River Chinookans; 10, Comanche; 11, Crow; 12, Diegueño; 13, Eastern Miwok; 14, Flathead; 15, Foothill Yokuts; 16, Halchidhoma; 17,Havasupai; 18, Hopi; 19, Jicarilla Apache; 20, Kitanemuk; 21,Klamath; ­ rapaho); 22, Maidu; 23, Modoc; 24, Mohave; 25, Molala; 26, Monache; 27, Navajo; 28, Nawathinena (Southern A 29, Nez Perce; 30, Nisenan; 31, Quechan; 32, Rio Grande Pueblos; 33, Santa Clara, Pecos, Laguna Pueblos­; 34, Sarcee; 35, Serrano/Vanyume; 36, Southern Valley Yokuts; 37,Tubatulabal; 38, Umatilla; 39, Walapai; 40, Western Columbia River Sahaptins; 41,Yavapai.

same time, they raise fundamental issues about how intergroup interactions are detectable in the archaeological record. It is hoped that the studies in this volume will stimulate further research into the importance of interactions between peoples and their neighbors in the intermountain region, as similar examinations have done elsewhere (e.g., Baugh and Ericson 1994; Green 1985; Hegmon 2000; Lightfoot and Martinez 1995). In the chapters to come, the distinction between intergroup and interregional interactions is important to bear in mind. Cultural groups can be distinguished in various ways, as sharers of kin ties, languages, ethnicity, sodalities, etc. But the interindividual, transactional dealings that ce-

ment and mark these kinds of social groups are absent from the archaeological record, composed as it is of material remnants of past human behaviors distributed across a landscape. Developing effective archaeological measures to distinguish different social groups of the past is an important and challenging empirical issue, as old as the archaeological study of culture history itself (Lyman et al. 1997). It is often much more tractable to take an interarea approach, to devise and examine artifact-based measures of social or economic interaction within or between different and neighboring areas or regions. But there is a problem with using regions as proxies for distinct cultural groups: a single society often inhabits ­multiple 2

Intergroup and Interregional Interactions In and Around the Intermountain West

ured in the Handbook of North American ­Indians (d’Azevedo, ed. 1986). This area might be better termed the intermountain culture area, as the cultural region far exceeded the physiographic bounds of the Great Basin proper (Kroeber 1939; Steward 1940). At historic contact, the intermountain culture area contained about a dozen major linguistically defined groups, including those who speak various Numic languages or dialects — ​Mono, Timbisha, Kawaiisu, Paviotso, Bannock, Shoshone (Western, Northern, and Eastern), Southern Paiute, Chemehuevi, and Ute — ​and the Washoe. They occupied an environmentally diverse region extending from the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains on the west to the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains on the east and from ­Columbia Plateau country in the north to the Sonoran and Painted deserts in the Southwest. That the intermountain region was historically occupied almost entirely by a single language family was considered “relatively unusual” (d’Azevedo 1986a:8), and in fact it is also somewhat arbitrary, as definitions of culture areas often can be (d’Azevedo 1986a:10). Kroeber (1939), for example, included other groups (Eastern Maidu, Achomawi, Atsugewi, Klamath, Modoc) in his Great Basin cultural subarea and made it part of a much larger region he called “Intermediate and Intermountain Areas,” which included much of the Columbia–Fraser Plateau and California. As d’Azevedo noted:

different environmental regions, and likewise two very different societies can occupy a single region and interact within it (e.g., Barth 1956). These situations, which are likely to be very common (especially along major cultural margins), can complicate inferences about the nature of interactions and relationships between groups and between regions in prehistory. A good example may be the presumed mix of farming communities and foragers that made up the so-called Fremont complex, “who may have been as ethnically varied as the Southwestern farmers and hunters” (Janetski 2002:​​365; see also Madsen and Simms 1998; Spielmann 1991). In short, the groups studied here may not (and probably often do not) equate to distinct ethnolinguistic societies. The contributors to this volume approach this analytical problem of measuring prehistoric interactions in various ways. In many cases, evidence of the movement of materials (such as obsidian and exotic trade items) or ideas (such as textile styles) is traced across different regions, signaling patterns of connections between those regions (see, e.g., chapters by Delacorte and Basgall, Chatters, Fowler and Hattori, Roberts and Ahlstrom, Metcalf and McDonald, Adovasio, and Thomas). In some cases, hypothesized patterns of intergroup interactions result in models of expected archaeological outcomes about the nature of a cultural boundary or patterns of interactions across regions, which are then tested against the empirical record (see, e.g., chapters by Bayham et al., McGuire et al., Janetski et al., and Eerkens). In other cases, archaeological “groups” are defined on the basis of particular markers of technology or specific economic orientation (such as stone tool traditions or textiles) or on the constellations of artifact styles that have traditionally been used to delineate culture-historical constructs in the Intermountain West (see, e.g., the chapters by Adovasio, Beck and Jones, Davis et al., or Reid and Pitkin).

Instances such as this demonstrate the tentativeness of mapped boundaries for culture areas where the actual situation involves intergrading through processes of cultural exchange and population mobility. The entire periphery of the Great Basin region is in this sense unbounded, and schematic depictions of its limits are based on variable criteria and often arbitrary judgments.... All the peoples of the Great Basin share significant traits with contiguous groups in surrounding regions and have for centuries intermingled with them, establishing many areas of joint use of lands, intermarriage, and ­multilingualism. Moreover, evidence for long-distance trade reveals that Great Basin peoples were far

Intermountain Groups and Their Neighbors To gauge the potential range of interactions that may have prevailed in prehistory, it is instructive to consider interactions between the diverse ethnolinguistic groups found in the historic “Great Basin culture area” (Figure 1.1), as config3

Rhode

tionships can be attributed to historic-period disruptions, a wide range of intergroup relationships may be expected to have prevailed around the intermontane region in prehistoric times, too (Ana­ stasio 1972; Bennyhoff and Hughes 1987; Ford 1983; Hughes and Bennyhoff 1986).

from insular, maintaining extensive prehistoric and early historic connections with other regions [1986a:10, 12].1 The people historically inhabiting the Intermountain West shared borders with more than 30 different neighboring groups and frequently interacted with at least 10 more distant neighbors with whom they did not share mutual borders (Figure 1.1). The neighbors represented 14 different language families, incorporating 24 ­different subfamilies or independent languages; they were nomadic foragers, settled collector societies, parttime to full-time agriculturalists, and (in historic times) equestrian hunters. That is a great deal of cultural diversity looking in from the region’s fringes, and this diversified array of neighbors strongly affected intermountain peoples in many important ways. Interactions between historic intermountain groups and their neighbors varied ­considerably, if the ethnographic record is a useful guide (Table 1.1). In general, amicable relations were most well developed between groups who had longstanding­contact. People living along much of the Sierra Nevada front and the southern d ­ eserts got along fairly well, with close economic, kinship, social, linguistic, and cultural ties. A pattern of mixed interactions with calculated cooperation and exchange on the one hand, combined with deep mistrust and occasional hostility on the other, characterized relationships between people of the Plateau (the Blackfeet, Nez Perce, Modoc, and Klamath) and their neighbors the Northern Paiute and Northern Shoshone. On the eastern border, the Eastern Shoshone and Ute maintained hostile relations against their Plains equestrian rivals the Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Comanche, though the Crow were important trading partners. Much of this hostility can be attributed to expansion and contest for territory and population following the introduction of the horse, the gun, Old World diseases, and the fur trade (Jablow 1951; Klein 1993; ­Malouf and Findlay 1986; Secoy 1953; Shimkin 1986a, 1986b). Mixed relationships were again in play between the Ute and various groups in the Southwest, where intermittent hostilities were tempered by frequent trade and social relationships. While some of this historic diversity among rela-

Modes of Intergroup Interactions The most important ways that intermountain groups interacted with neighbors include the spread of ideas and innovations, establishing enduring economic ties (including resource sharing and exchange systems), developing group identity and maintaining group boundaries, ­building kin networks, migration, and group assimilation. These modes of interaction likely varied around the margins of the intermountain region, for reasons of both cultural and environmental geography. In some places, the margins between groups may be highly porous for the spread of cultural traits and a blending ground of cultural traditions. Elsewhere, cultural boundaries may be more rigid and clearly marked through time. In many places, the margins separating groups may be so lightly populated as to barely qualify as a cultural divide at all (e.g., the high country of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains; see McGuire et al., this volume). In others, the zone between neighbors may be unpopulated for reasons of heavy competition and territorial maintenance (see Bayham et al., this volume). And in some places the margins between cultures may be more densely populated than much of the interior of a group’s home range, with greater potential for interpersonal interactions among neighbors. Sharing Ideas and Innovations The transmission and spread of technology, ideas, and movements have been the subject of numerous important studies in the intermountain region. To take just one example from the prehistoric side, the spread of prehistoric projectile point forms as aspects of functional vs. ­stylistic utility (Beck 1995), or as indicators of particular modes of transmission of knowledge (Bettinger and Eerkens 1999), illustrates the potential for yielding new insights into how innovations spread and the role of intergroup interactions as conduits for or barriers to the transmission and 4

Table 1.1. Ethnohistoric Relationships Between Intermountain Native Groups and Their Neighbors.

#

Neighboring Group

Intermountain Group Relationship

Reference(s)

1

Achumawi

Northern Paiute

Hostilities with Northern Paiute, Washoe; Slave raids by Northern Paiute

d’Azevedo 1986b; Garth 1978

2

Atsugewi

Northern Paiute

Hostilities with Northern Paiute, Washoe; Slave raids by Northern Paiute

d’Azevedo 1986b; Garth 1978

3

Besawunena (Northern Arapaho)

Ute Eastern Shoshone

Raiding, wars alternating with peaceful relations (trading); encroachment of Ute hunting lands; Arapaho were enemies of Eastern Shoshone

Fowler 2001; Shimkin 1986a

4

(Blackfoot)

Eastern Shoshone Northern Shoshone

Chronic warfare with Eastern Shoshone; Hostile relations with Northern Shoshone

Murphy and Murphy 1986; Shimkin 1986a; Steward 1943; Sutton 1986

5

Cahuilla

Chemehuevi Southern Paiute

Amicable, intermarriage with Chemehuevi

Bean 1978; Kelly and Fowler 1986

6

Cayuse

Northern Paiute Northern Shoshone

Murphy and Murphy 1986; Warfare common with Northern Paiute, Stern 1998 Northern Shoshone; Annual trading festival with Northern Shoshone; Intermittent peaceful relations with Northern Shoshone, occasional raids or bluffs

7

Cheyenne

Eastern Shoshone

Raiding, wars alternating with peaceful relations (trading)

8

(Cocopa)

Chemehuevi

Chemehuevi occasionally sided with Mohave Kelly and Fowler 1986; and Quechan against Cocopa Roth 1976

9

(Columbia River Northern Paiute Chinookans)

Moore et al. 2001; Shimkin 1986a

Raiding, warfare by Northern Paiute on ­Chinookan villages; Slave raids by Chinookans on Northern Paiute

French and French 1998

Callaway et al. 1986; ­Kavanagh 1999, 2001; Secoy 1953; Wallace and Hoebel 1952

10 (Comanche)

Ute

Raiding, warfare, taking of captives

11 Crow

Northern Shoshone Eastern Shoshone

Northern and Eastern Shoshone were impor- Voget 2001 tant trading partners; encroachment on Eastern Shoshone territory in Yellowstone during post-horse period

12 (Diegueño)

Chemehuevi Southern Paiute

Amicable

Kelly and Fowler 1986

13 Eastern Miwok

Washoe Northern Paiute Mono (OVP) Monache

Washoe gathered acorns, camped, and intermarried with Eastern Miwok; Important trans-Sierran trade partners with Washoe, Eastern Mono; Trade, sharing of food collection areas, ­sharing of culture elements, intermarriage, bilingualism with Mono

d’Azevedo 1986b; Kroeber 1959; Levy 1978; Liljeblad and Fowler 1986

14 Flathead

Northern Shoshone

Murphy and Murphy 1986; Amicable, mutual protection against Wright 1978 Blackfeet; Unfriendly contacts with Northern Shoshone

15 Foothills Yokuts Mono (OVP) Monache

Trade, sharing of food collection areas, ­sharing of culture elements, intermarriage, ­bilingualism with Eastern Mono; Displaced from territory by Monache

Kroeber 1959; Liljeblad and Fowler 1986

Table 1.1. (cont’d.) Ethnohistoric Relationships Between Intermountain Native Groups and Their Neighbors.

#

Neighboring Group

Intermountain Group Relationship

Reference(s)

16 Halchidhoma

Chemehuevi

Hostilities with Chemehuevi; Chemehuevi obtained crops and cultigens

Fowler and Fowler 1981; Kelly and Fowler 1986; Kroeber 1925; Roth 1976

17 Havasupai

Southern Paiute

Chronically hostile (Whiting); Generally amicable (Kelly and Fowler)

Kelly and Fowler 1986; A. F. Whiting, in Weber and Seaman 1985

18 Hopi

Southern Paiute (Ute) Trade with Southern Paiute; Harassment by Ute raiders

Callaway et al. 1986; Ford 1983; Schroeder 1965

19 Jicarilla Apache Ute

Initially amicable, intermarriage with Utes, followed by Ute harassment and raids

Callaway et al. 1986; Schroeder 1965

20 Kitanemuk

Kawaiisu

Trading partners and intermediaries with Kawaiisu

Blackburn and Bean 1978

21 Klamath

Northern Paiute

Intermarriage, joint resource use with ­Northern Paiute; Historic hostilities with Northern Paiute

Kelly 1932; Layton 1981; Stern 1998

22 Maidu

Northern Paiute Washoe

Maidu shared acorn resource areas with Northern Paiute, Washoe; Relations tense with Washoe, better with Northern Paiute; Fairly little communication with Great Basin neighbors

d’Azevedo 1986b; Fowler and Liljeblad 1986; ­Kroeber 1925

23 Modoc

Northern Paiute

Intermarriage, joint resource use with ­ orthern Paiute; N In historic times, hostilities with Northern Paiute

Kelly 1932; Layton 1981; Stern 1998

24 Mohave

Southern Paiute Chemehuevi

Chemehuevi got along well with Mohave, resided with Mohave along Colorado River, adopted many Mohave traits (vocabulary, agriculture, warfare, house styles, religion, songs and dreams, material items); Chemehuevi also had occasional hostilities with Mohave; Chemehuevi occasionally sided with Mohave against Cocopa, Halchidhoma: Southern Paiute defended against Mohave raids

Fowler and Fowler 1981; Kelly and Fowler 1986; Kroeber 1925, 1959; Laird 1976; Roth 1976; Steward 1941; Stewart 1966, 1967, 1968, 1983; Sutton 1986

25 Molala

Northern Paiute

Intermarriage, limited trading?

Zenk and Rigsby 1998

26 Monache

Mono (OVP)

Trading, intertribal ceremonies, visitation, sharing of use of other groups’ resource areas, intermarriage, sharing of culture elements, bilingualism with Eastern Mono

Levy 1978; Liljeblad and Fowler 1986

27 Navajo

Ute

Ute raiding, wars alternating with peaceful relations (trading); Southern Paiute fearful of Navajo raiders but borrowed clothing and house styles and some vocabulary

Callaway et al. 1986; Ford 1983; Kelly and Fowler 1986

Raiding, wars alternating with peaceful relations (trading); encroachment of Ute hunting lands

Fowler 2001; Shimkin 1986a

(Southern Paiute)

28 Nawathinena (Southern Arapaho)

Ute

Table 1.1. (cont’d.) Ethnohistoric Relationships Between Intermountain Native Groups and Their Neighbors.

#

Neighboring Group

Intermountain Group Relationship

Reference(s)

29 Nez Perce

Northern Paiute Northern Shoshone

Regarded as enemies by Northern Paiute; On generally friendly terms with Northern Shoshone; Participated in annual trading festival, lived in mixed villages with Northern Shoshone; With Cayuse occasionally defended against sporadic Northern Shoshone raids

Murphy and Murphy 1986; Walker 1998

30 Nisenan

Washoe

Washoe collected acorns in Nisenan territory, d’Azevedo 1986b; Fowler and Liljeblad 1986; Wilson intermarried; Maidu traded with Washoe, Northern Paiute and Towne 1978

31 Quechan

Chemehuevi Southern Paiute

Chemehuevi hunted in Quechan territory, adopted several cultural traits; Chemehuevi occasionally joined Quechan in fighting Cocopa and Halchidhoma

Fowler and Fowler 1981; Kelly and Fowler 1986

32 (Rio Grande Pueblos)

Ute

Distant, occasionally hostile, some trade and cultural exchange

Strong 1979

Ute 33 (Santa Clara, Pecos, Laguna, other Pueblos)

Occasional hostilities and marauding by Utes, Arnon and Hill 1979; Ellis 1979; Schroeder 1979 along with limited to significant trade with southern Utes

34 (Sarcee)

Northern Shoshone

Warfare with Northern Shoshone

Dempsey 2001

35 Serrano/ Vanyume

Kawaiisu Southern Paiute Chemehuevi

Generally amicable

Kelly and Fowler 1986; Kroeber 1925

36 Southern Valley Mono (OVP) Yokuts Kawaiisu

Trade, sharing of food collection areas, ­sharing of culture elements, intermarriage, bilingualism with Eastern Mono; Friendly relations, intermarriage, trade, ­participation in game drives with Kawaiisu

Kroeber 1925; Liljeblad and Fowler 1986; ­Zigmond 1986

37 Tubatulabal

Mono (OVP) Panamint Kawaiisu

Trade, participation in game drives with Kawaiisu; Some retaliatory hostilities with Kawaiisu, Panamint

Smith 1978; Zigmond 1986

38 Umatilla

Northern Paiute Northern Shoshone

Annual trading festival with Northern Shoshone

Murphy and Murphy 1986

39 Walapai

Southern Paiute (Chemehuevi)

Walapai occasionally fought Southern Paiute incursions; Chemehuevi occasionally hunted in Walapai territory

Kelly and Fowler 1986

Northern Paiute 40 Western ­Columbia River Sahaptins (Tenino)

Generally mistrustful to hostile relations with Anastasio 1972; Hunn and French 1998 Northern Paiute; Slave raids by Sahaptins on Northern Paiute; Joint use of some resource areas with Northern Paiute; Some trade with Northern Paiute at Celilo and The Dalles

41 (Yavapai)

Chemehuevi used Yavapai hunting grounds, trade, intermarriage, gaming

Chemehuevi

Kelly and Fowler 1986

Note: Numbers correspond to map numbers in Figure 1.1. Neighboring groups with names in parentheses do not share a common border with intermountain groups. OVP = Owens Valley Paiute.

Rhode

adoption of new cultural knowledge, a subject of much current research (e.g., Eerkens et al. 2005; Henrich 2001; Henrich and Boyd 1998; W ­ hitaker et al. 2008). On the historic side, numerous investigations have contextualized the spread of movements such as the Ghost Dance (Carroll et  al. 2004; Mooney 1896; Thornton 1986; Vander 1995) and Sun Dance (Hoebel 1935; Jones 1955; Jorgensen 1972; Lowie 1919; Shimkin 1953), and historicperiod­and post-reservation studies of “acculturation” are along the same lines (see, e.g., the references in Jorgensen 1972). These examples show how the spread of shared ideas fosters and conveys ethnic cohesion within groups and, alternatively, distinctions between them. The use of artifact styles as markers of shared identity and group distinction is well known among foraging societies (e.g., Hodder 1982; Kent 2002; S­ ampson 1988; Weissner 1983, 1984), and styles are a critical concept in the current development of cultural evolution theory (e.g., Bliege Bird and Smith 2005; Boyd and Richerson 1987; McElreath et al. 2003; Smith and Bliege Bird 2005). Not surprisingly, then, stylistic markers figure large in tracing group dynamics in several chapters (e.g., Janetski et al., Adovasio, Fowler and Hattori, Del­ acorte and Basgall, Chatters, Roberts and Ahlstrom).

sharing in the proceeds, etc.) or development of more formalized exchange networks (Earle 1994). Neighbors might defend their own resource areas against use by intermountain peoples, but a certain level of theft might be tolerated if benefits accruing from positive aspects of symbiotic relationships outweigh the cost of defending the resources (Bliege Bird and Bird 1997). Conditions varied considerably across the region, however. In certain cases important resources (such as anadromous fish and wild game) were sufficiently abundant and predictable to warrant vigorous competition and defense, and these may result in boundary-maintenance activities including display and defense, raiding, or more serious hostile contests (see chapters by Bayham et al. and Reid and Pitkin, this volume).2 Overt conflict of group against group appears to have been fairly rare, but it did occur: the demise of the Saiduka in the Lahontan Basin (Fowler and Fowler 1970:​143; Hopkins 1883:​73–75; Stewart 1939:​140), the great expansion and contraction of the Eastern Shoshone (Shimkin 1986a), and battles between Chemehuevi and Desert Mohave (Earle 2005; Laird 1976:​141; ­Kroeber 1925, 1959) are cases in point (see also Reid and Pitkin, this volume). According to some interpretations, relationships between neighbors sometimes became extremely discourteous (e.g., Kloor 2007; Novak and Kollman 2000; Turner and Turner 1999). As Albers (1993) has discussed, such conflicts and raids were often one aspect of a broader symbiotic relationship in the redistribution of commodities (however occasionally tense or terrifying) that also included more benign and formalized exchange mechanisms (see also Ford 1972).

Resource Sharing and Competition The resource base in the Intermountain West is generally regarded as too patchy, unpredictable, or unproductive to warrant much concerted defense or aggression, hence vigorous territorial defense was neither to be expected nor generally prosecuted (Bettinger 1982; Cashdan 1983; ­Dyson-​ Hudson and Smith 1978; Jorgensen 1980:​141–142; Kelly 1995:​190–201; Steward 1938; Thomas 1981; but see Bayham et al., this volume). Instead, the promise of good relations with people from territories with more predictable and abundant resources was a better bet, fostering reciprocity and exchange and the development of loose alliances and coalitions (Winterhalder 1986, 1997). Sharing of resource areas tended to be open, typically without elaborate rules of private ownership (Jorgensen 1980:​141–142; Steward 1938), though some particular resources might require particular rules of engagement (requesting permission,

Exchange Systems Exchange systems between groups, whether formal or informal, are a major source of resource sharing between groups and, of course, a powerful force in conditioning the political geography of a region and the development of networks of wealth, power, and alliances (Albers 1993; Earle 1994; Earle 2005). In the intermountain context, the most important interregional exchange systems included trans-Sierran trade for a variety of goods (Basgall 1989; Bettinger 1982; Bouey and Basgall 1984; Davis 1961; Heizer 1978; Hughes 8

Intergroup and Interregional Interactions In and Around the Intermountain West

1994; Hughes and Bennyhoff 1986; Jackson 1988; Jackson and Ericson 1994; see McGuire et  al., this volume); trade and social interaction in the southern deserts (Earle 2005; Fitzgerald et  al. 2005; Sutton 1989; see Eerkens, and Roberts and Ahlstrom, this volume); exchange among Fremont societies and their neighbors (Gunnerson 1960; Janetski 1997, 2002; Malouf 1940; ­McDonald 1994; see Metcalf and McDonald, this volume); and regional trade fairs of the Plains and Plateau, particularly under the influence of the fur trade and the adoption of horses (Anastasio 1972; Galm 1994; Hayden and Schulting 1997; Shimkin 1986b; Stern 1998; Wood 1972, 1980).

marriage or assimilation, and these individuals or groups adopted some or many of the host culture’s practices, even while they might be recognized as ethnically distinct in their new home. Such kin ties with outside groups were often essential in maintaining viable population levels, and those kin ties were crucial in facilitating many of the other modes of interaction already discussed: sharing of ideas and styles, sharing of resources and resource areas, political alliances, and exchange (see, e.g., Fowler and Hattori, this volume). Recent advancements in the field of paleogenetics open a new window on the possibility of tracing kin ties and their spread through prePolitical Relationships history. Kaestle and Smith (2001) show that the In some neighborhoods, relations between groups mito­chondrial genetic haplogroup profile of anmay have been less reciprocal, c­ omplementary, cient skeletal populations from Stillwater Marsh, and mutualistic, trending toward relations in western Great Basin, differs significantly from which one group dominated politically and eco­ modern Northern Paiute populations in the area nomically and another group was dependent, but is closely related to modern California groups marginalized, or encapsulated, with impor- who speak languages of the Penutian macro­ tant effects on economic and social o ­ rganization family. Hence the paleogenetic evidence appears (Wood­burn 1988).3 For example, Madsen and to document a transition in both demic and lanSimms suggest that relationships between Fre- guage groups: Penutian speakers early on, ­Numic mont farming communities and ­neighboring speakers later. The population shift may not have foraging groups might be “something of a ­client–​ involved complete replacement, however, but, patron relationship, with the lower s­ tatus hunter- rather, admixture of the two populations or even gatherers adopting many of the social character­ in situ genetic drift within a continuously evolvistics, including language and symbolism, as well ing community (Cabana et al. 2008; Eshleman as material culture items, of the higher-status­ et al. 2004; Kaestle and Smith 2001). Genetic simfarmers” (1998:​285), similar to that reported ilarities are also demonstrated between Northern ethnographically in some cases (e.g., Jolly 1996; Paiute and Plateau Sahaptian populations (Malhi Woodburn 1988). But as Madsen and Simms et  al. 2004), suggesting genetic admixture bepoint out, we really do not know if inter­actions tween speakers of Numic and Penutian languages between Fremont farming communities and Fre- in this direction as well. mont (or other) foragers were egalitarian or hiThe genetic profile of ancient burial populaerarchical; if the balance of reciprocity vs. de- tions in the western Great Basin apparently difpendency ­varied with reliance on agriculture, fers significantly from that found in northern sedentariness, or overall resource productivity; or Fremont burial populations in the eastern Great how political relations were maintained among Basin (Kaestle et al. 1999; O’Rourke et al. 1999), communities. The subject of political relation- suggesting “a heterogeneous group of ancient ships between groups is one deserving greater populations inhabiting the Great Basin in antiqattention in the Intermountain West. uity” (O’Rourke et al. 1999:​101). If so, the genetic diversity within the intermountain region may Kin and Mating Networks match the diversity seen on its margins (Malhi Establishing family ties between neighboring et al. 2003; Malhi et al. 2004), emphasizing the groups was extremely common around the Inter- importance of demic differentiation and mixture mountain West. Individuals or families from out- through prehistory. This result also reinforces the groups often crossed cultural margins through idea that populations in the eastern and western 9

Rhode

Great Basin may have been quite distinct through much of prehistory, with relatively limited sharing of genes and even ideas (see, e.g., Adovasio, this volume).

have expanded directly involves the nature of intergroup interactions. Prehistorians have hypothesized all sorts of interactions occurring between Numic migrants and neighbors, ranging from essentially none (in situ development [Goss 1977] or reversion of extant populations to nomadic lifestyles [Gunnerson 1962; Upham 2000]) to occupation of abandoned territory (e.g., Aikens and Witherspoon 1986), economic competition (Bettinger 1994, 1999; Bettinger and Baumhoff 1982, 1983; Layton 1985), and aggressive expansion marked by takeover, defense, and/or overexploitation of critical resource patches (e.g., Sutton 1986, 1987, 1993, 1994; see Reid and Pitkin, this volume); or a complex pattern of niche appropriation and cultural assimilation, possibly related to climate change, as among the Western Mono migrating into California (Morgan 2009, 2010). The Numic expansion was by no means the only movement of peoples into, out of, and through the Intermountain West. Other migrations, their sources, how they came about, and their influence in the long-term history of the region remain open and important issues of current investigation: the spread of Uto-Aztecan ­speakers into or out of the Great Basin (e.g., Hill 2001; Merrill et  al. 2009; Sutton 1994), for example, or the spread of Penutian speakers (e.g., Hattori 1982; see Delacorte and Basgall, and Chatters, this volume) or of Athabascan speakers into northern Utah (Aikens 1966; J. Ives and J. Janetski, personal communication 2011). Several chapters consider the possibility and outcomes of other likely prehistoric migrations, including those by Delacorte and Basgall, Chatters, and Metcalf and ­McDonald.

Migrations Borderlands serve as the front line for out-group migration, a major “engine for social change” (Richerson and Boyd 2008). If a group perceives that the lands around its home range are available, subgroups may split off and expand into them, relieving pressure on the group’s resources in its core territory. Conditions at the frontier may differ strongly from other parts of a group’s home range, yielding a different set of selection pressures and fostering cultural change. In cases of economic opportunism or population pressure, members of one group may expand into a neighbor’s home range but employ a separate set of resources and thereby establish a ­different and complementary economic niche within the same region (Abruzzi 1982; Barth 1956, 1969). These culturally distinct immigrants may benefit from their “minority” status within the larger social fabric, as opportunities not available to the majority may be open to them (Gladwell 2008). Expanding groups often adopt practices used by the original inhabitants of the region and ultimately may come to assimilate with or displace those previous inhabitants, as may have ­occurred among the Ute and the Wind River Shoshone (cf. Jorgensen 1994; Kroeber 1939) and the Mono (Gayton 1948; Morgan 2010). Distinct ethnic groups may merge, forming a single s­ ociopolitical entity (Albers 1993). The merged group may essentially subsume one group into the cultural milieu of the other, or the result may be a heterogeneous hybrid of the two, yielding an entirely novel cultural configuration, as apparently occurred with the Eastern Shoshone (Murphy and Murphy 1960; Shimkin 1986a). The most influential migration model in the intermountain region is undoubtedly the Numic expansion hypothesis, the proposed late prehistoric migration of Numic-speaking groups through the Intermountain West (Aikens and Witherspoon 1986; Bettinger and Baumhoff 1982; Hill 2001; Lamb 1958; Layton 1985; Madsen and Rhode 1994; Miller 1986; Morgan 2010; Sutton 1987; Wright 1978). How the Numic people might

Overview of the Volume Having briefly outlined the intermountain region and major modes of interregional interactions, a brief introduction to the individual contributions is now in order. We begin with two essays that identify distinct cultural groupings from the earliest period of occupation in the Americas. Charlotte Beck and George T. Jones recognize the existence of two distinct but coeval systems: the Clovis culture, which they argue arose from eastern North America and later spread to the Intermountain West, only to find it already occupied by peoples who had developed a very different 10

Intergroup and Interregional Interactions In and Around the Intermountain West

lithic technology, the Western Stemmed Tradition (see also Beck and Jones 2010; Bryan 1988). Loren Davis, Samuel Willis, and Shane Macfarlan examine this Western Stemmed Tradition lithic technology in some detail and highlight its widespread distribution throughout western North America. Together these contributors persuasively argue for a picture of the earliest occupation of the Americas in which distinct groups occupied different regions with different technologies from the earliest periods of prehistory. How these technologically different groups interacted upon initial contact and over the ensuing centuries is fascinating to contemplate. These two chapters come to rather divergent conclusions about the nature of these early interactions. The remaining contributions treat more recent prehistory. We start with a series of essays from the western frontier of the Great Basin, along the Sierra front. Michael Delacorte and Mark Basgall summarize the prehistoric record of the western Great Basin and its relationship to neighboring areas, particularly California, the Sierra Nevada, and the Columbia Plateau. They find early Holocene technologies and adaptive patterns to be broadly similar across much of the region, followed by greater localization of adaptive patterns in the post-Mazama period (.20). This is the case as well for the other variables that show significant differences. Thus, about two-thirds of the points in the Western Fluted data base could possibly be Clovis, but at least one-third are not. Such a transition in fluted forms should not be surprising, since it is documented on the Plains as well as in both the northeast and southeast. The derivation of WST from Clovis grows less credible if the time span ascribed to the transition is decreased, which is what the radiocarbon dates support. The radiocarbon dates compiled since the early 1970s suggest a greater age for the WST, at least as early as 12,750 or 12,700 cal bp (Table 2.1, Figure 2.11). Sites like Marmes, Connley Cave No. 4, Smith Creek Cave, Handprint Cave, and the Sunshine Locality fit this time frame, which pushes up against the purported entry time of Clovis into the intermountain region. Add to this that several sites appear to date in the pre–13,000 cal bp time frame, such as Cooper’s Ferry and 34

Figure 2.11. Distribution of radiocarbon dates associated with Western Stemmed points. Dates and associated point types are shown in Table 2.1.

Beck and Jones Table 2.2. Obsidian Source and

Source

Beatty’s Butte

Clovis Points (N)

3

Big Stick Buck Mountain Buck Spring

18

Hydration Data from the Dietz Site.

Clovis Preforms (N)

Clovis (N [%])

Flakes (N)

Clovis with Flakes (N [%])

3

6 (7.5)

6 (6.5)

1

1 (1.3)

1 (1.1)

3

21 (26.3)

1

9

1 (1.3)

30 (32.3)

Cougar Mountain

6

4

10 (12.5)

8

3

11 (13.8)

5

20 (25.0)

McKay Butte

1

1 (1.3)

1 (1.1)

Sycan Marsh

1

1 (1.3)

1 (1.1)

Hager Mountain

5 15

1

1 (5.3)

2

2 (10.5)

10 (10.5)

2

2 (10.5)

2

13 (23.7)

4

4 (25.0)

2

22 (23.7)

5 (6.3)

5 (5.4)

Tank Creek

3

2

1

Tough Butte

1

1 (1.3)

1 (1.1)

Unknown B

2

2 (2.5)

2 (2.2)

Unknown D

1

21

80 (100.0)

13

93 (100.0)

16

1 (5.3) 2 (10.5)

1 59

5 (26.3)

1 (5.3)

2

Yreka Butte Total

WST (N [%])

1 (1.1)

Glass Buttes Horse Mountain

WST WST Crescents Points (N) (N)

1 (5.3) 3

19 (100.0)

Note: WST = Western Stemmed Tradition.

and fluted points is unresolved. We are now in a position to test Willig’s hypothesis. The Dietz site lies adjacent to the Horse Mountain obsidian source and within a relatively short distance from other sources. Thus it is not surprising that nearly all of both fluted and stemmed assemblages are manu­factured from obsidian. Horse Mountain obsidian, however, is not the predominant material from which these points are made. Of 113 artifacts sent for source and hydration analysis, 80 are fluted points and preforms, 16 are WST points, three are crescents, and 13 are flakes.3 Only 20 (25 percent) of the fluted points/preforms and five (31 percent) of the stemmed points are made from Horse Mountain obsidian (Table 2.2). Twelve different source areas are represented among the fluted points, and nine are represented among the stemmed points. The most common sources, however, making up 72 percent of the points ana­lyzed, are Buck Mountain, Cougar Mountain, Glass Buttes, and Horse Mountain. Hydration results with respect to these sources are not what might be expected if one believes that Clovis and WST are chronologically discrete. As Figure 2.12 shows, not only are stemmed point hydration rim readings completely con-

tained within the distribution of fluted points, but also for three of the four sources, they ­occur at the “oldest” end of the distribution. These results strongly suggest that the two forms are contemporaneous at this site. We might interpret these results in two ways. On the one hand, the two forms could be components of the same lithic industry. On the other hand, they could represent two different cultural traditions associated with different populations who utilized the site but not concurrently. We suspect that the latter may be the case for two reasons. First, in the discussion of our comparisons between Western Fluted and Clovis points above we noted that a large portion of the former points are likely representative of Clovis. The Dietz fluted points fall within this category and thus are not likely a component of WST technology at the site. Second, although source representation overlaps between Clovis and WST (Table 2.2), there are some interesting differences. Horse Mountain is well represented in both Clovis and WST as might be expected, given its proximity to the site. But Buck Mountain is utilized in ca. 26 percent of Clovis points and preforms, while only 10.5 percent of WST points are made from this obsidian. It is 36

The Clovis-Last Hypothesis

Figure 2.12. Distribution of hydration depths measured on obsidian Clovis and Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) points within four different sources from the Dietz site in central Oregon.

Glass Buttes obsidian that is the next most common source for these points. If the 13 flakes are included with Clovis (see note 3), these differences are even greater. More interesting, however, is that ca. 21 percent of WST artifacts are manufactured from three different obsidians not represented in Clovis artifacts. Given that the Clovis assemblage is over four times as large as the WST assemblage,

we might expect just the opposite, for rare obsidians to be better represented in the larger, not the smaller, assemblage. Chi-square results (including the 13 flakes) indicate a significant association between source and assemblage type (χ2 = 25.788, df = 15, p = .04; without flakes, χ2 = 22.353, df = 15, p = .099). These data support the presence of two different but contemporaneous technologies at the Dietz site.4 37

Beck and Jones

Discussion and Conclusion The patterns we have discussed regarding Clovis and WST technologies argue strongly against the derivation of the latter from the former. Further, it seems untenable that Clovis and WST reduction strategies were elements of a single technology. We have pointed to two lines of evidence, differences in patterns of raw material use and distinctive reduction techniques, that support this argument. The content of Clovis caches argues as well for this claim. If stemmed point technology was part of the Clovis tool kit, then it is reasonable to expect that stemmed biface preforms or finished stemmed points would occur in those caches. All other tool types are represented, including heavily used and resharpened scrapers and gravers (Bamforth 2009). Given the prevalence of stemmed points in the intermountain region, their absence in the Fenn, Simon, and East Wenatchee caches is telling. We do, however, believe that a post-Clovis fluted point eventually becomes a component of the WST tool kit (see below). Contemporaneous WST and Clovis assemblages derive, we believe, from the technologies carried by distinct populations that, respectively, entered the intermountain region from the west and east. Although Clovis and WST ­technologies shared several common tool types, such as ­scrapers, gravers, and multiuse tools, the diagnostic tool types, including blades and fluted points, on the one hand, and crescents and stemmed points, on the other, are quite distinctive and indicate not only use of different techniques to reduce toolstone but also different emphases in subsistence. The focus of Clovis subsistence in the intermountain region is unknown, since there are no associations of Clovis diagnostics with organic remains. Cannon and Meltzer’s (2004) data from their examination of Clovis subsistence remains across North America suggest that those popu­ lations moving through the Plains had a large mammal focus. Indeed, were it is possible to map the distribution of bison and other large game ani­mals in the intermountain region just before the Younger Dryas, we might expect a strong correlation with the geographic pattern of western Clovis sites. Evidence for early WST subsistence is likewise thin, but it appears to have been

more generalized. Moreover, as archaeologists have long noted (e.g., Bedwell 1973; Cressman et al. 1942; Davis 1978; Grayson 1993; Willig and ­Aikens 1988), WST sites are strongly associated with shallow-water habitats, suggesting that this was an important emphasis in WST adaptation. If the subsistence of early WST populations instead emphasized large mammal hunting, as some have suggested (e.g., Elston 1982), competition with Clovis colonizers might be expected to have resulted in some adjustment of the niches of one or both groups. Yet it strikes us as unrealistic that members of these cultural traditions would remain independent geographically and maintain social boundaries for long. As discussed by several archaeologists (e.g., Meltzer 2002, 2009; Surovell 2000), for Clovis groups to remain reproductively viable they must have had high birth rates and also kept open social networks to ensure access to mates. Like Clovis populations, WST numbers also probably were small if estimates of subsistence range size are at all accurate (e.g., Jones et al. 2003; Smith 2010).5 We suspect that rather than the formation of social ­boundaries, sustained interaction would have taken place soon after initial contact, and amalgamation of the two would have occurred within, at most, a few generations. The strongest evidence for the fusion of these two demes is the rapid disappearance of the Clovis pattern. More significant to this argument than the loss of any tool category is the virtual disappearance of caching behavior and the attendant technological package. Caching appears to have been integral to the success of Clovis coloni­zation, and yet this behavior was not apparently practiced by Clovis populations in the Great Basin. Indeed, the only records of Clovis caches are known from the Columbia Plateau and Snake River Plain, but there are none in the Great Basin. Further, “pure” Clovis components are rare in the Great Basin; Clovis diagnostics nearly always are contained in assemblages dominated by WST artifacts. Such circumstances appear to suggest that Clovis and WST groups were target­ing some of the same subsistence opportunities. As a result the co-occurrence of ­Clovis fluted points and stemmed points reflects roughly ­coeval occu­ pations by distinct groups, leaving behind archaeological palimpsests that resist our analytic efforts 38

The Clovis-Last Hypothesis

to disentangle them (of which the Dietz site seems to be an example). Such assemblages are confused often with somewhat more recent ones containing more gracile fluted points and stemmed points. We believe that such ­assemblages represent examples of a later WST technology into which a descendant of the C ­ lovis weapon system had become fully embedded. If, as we have conjectured, these two distinct populations utilizing Clovis and WST technologies encountered each other in the northern intermountain region about 13,000 cal bp but merged some short time after, this process will be difficult to analyze given the nature of this record and our inability to retrieve temporal relations. There are, however, certain factors of which we can be fairly certain: 1. Several key components of Clovis technology that are present in the Fenn, Simon, and East Wenatchee caches disappear relatively quickly. Outrepasse flaking is uncommon in the northern intermountain region and rarely represented to the south. Bone rods, present in two of the caches, are also present at the Lind Coulee site as late as ca. 11,500 cal bp (­Craven 2004) but have been only rarely reported in the Great Basin (e.g., Dansie and Jerrems 2005), although this could be a preservation problem. Finally, prismatic blades, so prevalent in the southern Plains but far less common to the north, are extremely rare in the intermountain region (Beck and Jones 2010). 2. Following Clovis, fluting persisted for some time over a broad geographic area. While a single, highly specialized fluted form, Folsom, evolved on the Plains, a number of regional forms appeared in eastern North America. The same regional development seems to have occurred in the intermountain region. As our comparisons have shown, even though ­Clovis-like points constitute a large portion of the Western Fluted data set, at least a third, if not more, do not conform to Clovis morphology but, rather, are smaller, thinner forms that represent a regional development. Analyses of the 17 fluted points from the Sunshine Locality in eastern Nevada (Beck and Jones 2009a), for example, indicate that only two of these points could possibly be identified as Clovis. The Sunshine fluted points probably postdate

13,000 cal bp and represent an instance of fluting technology encompassed within the WST lithic reduction system. 3. Unfluted lanceolate points are present to a much greater degree than fluted ones in Paleo­ archaic assemblages. Using the Sunshine assemblage again as an example, among 92 lanceolate points known from this site, 19 are fluted (two were collected by Robert York [see York 1995] and not included in our 2009 analysis discussed above), while 73 are not. We cannot be sure of the chronological relations among these points, but statistical comparisons between fluted and unfluted specimens indicate that they are virtually identical in terms of quantitative attributes (Beck and Jones 2009a:126). They are also quite ­similar with respect to qualitative attributes except for flaking patterns. The Sunshine fluted points consistently exhibit parallel collateral ­flaking on both sides, whereas unfluted lanceolates exhibit much greater variation in this ­attribute. This difference makes a case against a Folsom/ Midland-like situation as suggested by Hofman (1992), in which he argues that Midland points were made once raw material became scarce and thus were too thin to flute. The difference in flaking patterns as well as a lack of significant difference in thickness between these two forms are evidence against such a relationship. This does not mean, however, that they could not be contemporaneous. There are two possible relationships between the two: they are contemporaneous, and both are derived from Clovis; or unfluted lanceolates are younger than, and derived from, Western Fluted, which was derived from C ­ lovis. 4. Whereas few fluted points have been found in the intermountain region compared with other areas of North America (Anderson and Faught 2000), stemmed points are widespread. Pre–13,000 cal bp radiocarbon dates are rare, but there are six sites (four on the Plateau and two in the Great Basin) from which dates between 13,000 and 12,500 cal bp have been obtained. Stemmed points persist until ca. 9000 cal bp, with their use probably peaking between 12,500 and 11,500 cal bp. Fluted points, however, likely disappear by 11,500 cal bp, as they do elsewhere in North America. 39

Beck and Jones

5. A number of stemmed point types have been defined for the intermountain region, some of which likely describe similar forms in different areas. For example, Daugherty (1956) defined three types (Lind Coulee Types 1, 2, and 3) based on points found at the Lind Coulee site in Washington State. Layton (1972) later defined two types (Cougar Mountain and Parman) based on his work in the high rock area of northwestern Nevada. A c­omparison of Daugherty’s and Layton’s types shows considerable similarity between Lind Coulee Type 1 and Cougar Mountain and Lind ­Coulee Types 2 and 3 and Parman. The Haskett type, defined by Butler (1963) from collections in Idaho, is also found in the northern Great Basin and the Old River Bed area in western Utah; it bears a close resemblance as well to points we have referred to as Ovate in eastern Nevada (Beck and Jones 2009a). Two additional types were defined by Amsden (1937) from collections adjacent to Pleistocene Lake Mohave: Lake Mohave and Silver Lake. These two types have no counterparts in the northern Great Basin or on the Plateau. 6. The spatial distributions of fluted and stemmed points differ as well. Fluted points almost always occur in the valleys (Grayson 1993), but stemmed points occur in both valleys and uplands. Given that stemmed points persist much longer in the region, this suggests an increasing population and an increasing diet breadth for WST over time.

In sum, we suspect that the appearance of gracile fluted points in WST assemblages reflects the adoption of components of a weapon system introduced to the intermountain region by Clovis populations and the probable merging of WST and Clovis populations. Stemmed points, such as Lind Coulee and possibly Haskett, which early in the sequence represented an alternative weapon technology (see Lafayette 2006, 2008), expanded in morphology and took on a wider range of functions. These expanded functional roles seem to have paralleled increases in diet breadth and the use of a wider range of subsistence patches. As more radiocarbon dates in the 13,500– 13,000 cal bp time range are compiled for WST sites in the intermountain region, culturalhistorical­convention that regards Clovis as ancestral grows less tenable. Instead, we have suggested that the region was first colonized by foraging groups coming from both the west and the east. At this point we are unable to discern from the predominantly surface record how long these two populations remained distinct, perhaps using similar parts of the landscape for different activities and creating palimpsests that mixed their distinct technologies. What seems clear, however, is that these two populations became one, and we believe this to have happened shortly after they came into contact. As we interpret this early record, contact between two demes did not foster territorial aggression but, rather, cooperation.

Notes 1. We use the term demic here in the most general way because the archaeological record of the Paleoarchaic is almost completely made up of lithic artifacts, primarily from surface contexts. Further, this period has no modern analogues, either environmental or cultural, and thus such aspects as “ethnicity” or language affinity are unattainable for its populations. Certainly we can hypothesize from models, such as that presented by Elston and Zeanah (2002), but these are hypotheses nonetheless. 2. Eight radiocarbon dates were obtained from Unit A at Cooper’s Ferry, where two pit features were encountered (Davis and Schweger 2004:​698–699). Six of the dates relate to the lower feature, Pit Feature 2, and the unit (LU3) into which it intruded.

Of the four dates from within the pit feature, three were rejected by the authors, one (12,020 ± 170 [Beta-109971]) believed to be contaminated and the other two (7300 ± 70 [Beta-114948] and 8710 ± 120 [TO-7346]) on charcoal that is believed to have been displaced. The date of 10,050 ± 180 (TO-7357) from the LU3 unit is also on charcoal believed to be out of place. The date of 11,410 ± 130 (TO-7349) is on wood charcoal lying on the surface of LU3 and is believed to be in primary context. This date is supported by two dates of 11,320 ± 80 (TO-7352) and 10,740 ± 220 (TO-7351) on wood charcoal from the Rock Creek Soil horizons developed in Qae3 loess, the same soil as comprises LU3. The authors thus accept that Pit Feature 2 containing the Lind 40

The Clovis-Last Hypothesis Amick, Daniel S. 2004 A Possible Ritual Cache of Great Basin Stemmed Bifaces from the Terminal ­Pleistocene–​Early Holocene Occupation of NW Nevada, USA. Lithic Technology 29:​119– 145. Amsden, Charles A. 1937 The Lake Mohave Artifacts. In The Archeology of Pleistocene Lake Mohave, by Elizabeth W. C. Campbell, William H. Campbell, Ernst Antevs, Charles A. Amsden, J. A. Barbieri, and F. D. Bode, pp. 51–98. Southwest Museum Paper No. 11. Los Angeles. Anderson, David A. 2004 Paleoindian Occupations in the Southeastern United States. In New Perspectives on the First Americans, edited by Bradley T. Lepper and Robson Bonnichsen, pp. 119–128. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University, College Station. Anderson, David G., and Michael K. Faught 2000 Palaeoindian Artefact Distributions: Evidence and Implications. Antiquity 74:​507–513. Bamforth, Douglas B. 2009 High Tech Foragers? Folsom and Later Paleoindian Technology on the Great Plains. Journal of World Prehistory 16:​55–98. Beck, Charlotte, and George T. Jones 1997 The Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene Archaeology of the Great Basin. Journal of World Prehistory 11:​161–236. 2007 Early Paleoarchaic Point Morphology and Chronology. In Paleoindian or Paleoarchaic? New Insights of Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene Archaeology in the Great Basin, edited by Kelly Graf and Dave N. Schmitt, pp. 23–41. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. 2009a The Archaeology of the Eastern Nevada Paleoarchaic, Pt. 1: The Sunshine Locality. With contributions by Jack M. Broughton, Michael D. Cannon, Amy Dansie, Amy M. Holmes, Gary A. Huckleberry, Philip W. Hutchinson, Stephanie D. Livingston, and Donald R. Tuohy. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 126. Salt Lake City. 2009b A Case of Extinction in Paleoindian Lithic Technology. Paper presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, April 22–26, Atlanta. 2010 Clovis and Western Stemmed: The Meeting of Two Technologies in the Intermountain West. American Antiquity 75:​81–116. Beck, Charlotte, Amanda Taylor, George T. Jones, Cynthia Fadem, Caitlyn Cook, and Sara Millward 2002 Rocks Are Heavy: Transport Costs and

Coulee points dates to between 11,410 and 11,370 14C bp (Davis and Schweger 2004:​700). 3. At the 1996 Great Basin Anthropological Conference John Fagan reported on source and hydration analyses performed by Craig Skinner (then at Biosystems Analysis, Inc.) on 71 artifacts from Dietz. In 2002 we sent an additional 42 to Craig Skinner (at Northwest Research Obsidian Studies Laboratory) for analysis. In addition, we sent four of the artifacts sent by Fagan but which Skinner had previously been unable to identify with a source; he was able to do so in 2002. Fagan kindly shared his data with us, and thus the 113 artifacts discussed are the combined Fagan and Beck/Jones data sets. Although the 13 flakes are not identified as such by Fagan in the data he sent to us, we suspect that they are flute flakes rather than simply debitage. Because this is unclear, however, we give results with and without the flakes included. 4. Estes (2009) reports on obsidian hydration analyses performed on a number of fluted and stemmed points from Jakes Valley in eastern Nevada. The points examined are manufactured from three different obsidians: Modena, also known as Panaca Summit (southeastern Nevada); Browns Bench (northern Nevada and southern Idaho); and Wild Horse Canyon (western Utah). Statistical comparison of the points of Modena obsidian revealed no significance difference in hydration rind depth, but a comparison of those made from Browns Bench did reveal a significant difference (t = –2.381, df = 13, p = .033 [Estes 2009:Table 5.21, 174]), with WST points having greater rind depth. The sample size of those from Wild Horse Canyon is too small for comparison. Estes states that the “results are ambiguous” (2009:​173), but this is, of course, only if the expectation is that fluted points should be older. We add that several of these points were collected from the Jakes Depression site by Ted Goebel (unpublished) and were included in our analysis of Great Basin fluted points mentioned earlier. These points are among those that identified with the Clovis criteria. 5. Even with recent reappraisals of sizes of lithic conveyance zones (e.g., Jones et al. 2012; Page 2008; Smith 2010), WST groups were traversing large tracts with little containment resulting from others competing for the same space.

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chapter 3

Lithic Technology, Cultural Transmission, and the Nature of the Far Western Paleoarchaic/Paleoindian Co-Tradition Loren G. Davis, Samuel C. Willis, and Shane J. Macfarlan

Over 20 years ago, Alan Bryan challenged the idea that Clovis should lie at the base of all far western culture histories. His main claim and associated hypothesis on this topic are as follows:

Tradition (Bedwell 1973), the Old Cordilleran Complex (Butler 1961), the Western Lithic CoTradition (Davis et al. 1969), the Paleo-Coastal (Davis et al. 1969), the Western Stemmed Tradition (Bryan 1980, 1988), and most recently, the Paleoarchaic Tradition (cf. “paleo-Archaic” [Beck and Jones 1997; Jennings 1957, 1964; Willig 1988]). More recently, Beck and Jones (1997) revived the term Paleoarchaic in a more expansive ­manner to signify this early nonfluted point-bearing cultural pattern in order to highlight what they argue is a late Pleistocene–early Holocene cultural pattern with distinctly non-Clovis technological attributes. This has not been accepted by all and has recently been the topic of debate (e.g., Haynes 2007). Gary Haynes argues that the etymology of the word Paleoarchaic is invalid and its use must be discontinued: “This coined word is made from two Greek roots that just cannot be assembled comfortably: paleo means ancient, and archaic means early or old. Thus, Paleoarchaic literally means ‘ancient old’” (2007:​258). If Haynes is right, then we should reconsider our ­modification of Early, Middle, and Late Archaic since they literally mean “early old,” “middle old,” and “late old.” In this light, the need to discontinue the use of Paleoarchaic hardly seems relevant or important. The logic that the term Paleoarchaic should be abandoned because it implies “an old-fashioned or outmoded form of the Archaic” (Haynes 2007:​ 252) must also be applied to the term Paleoindian, which is unlikely to be accepted as it too implies

It has generally been assumed that fluted points should everywhere precede stemmed and notched points as they do on the High Plains. However, this assumption has never been properly demonstrated, either stratigraphically or by independent means of dating. An alternative hypothesis which should be tested is that the Stemmed Point Tradition developed in the Great Basin, perhaps even before the Fluted Point Tradition appeared in the area [1988:​59]. Bryan’s arguments against the uncritical acceptance of a Paleoindian–Archaic culturehistory­model in the far west accurately reflect a problem still unresolved. Progress toward the accumulation of hard facts that might allow us to assess Bryan’s Stemmed Point Tradition hypothe­ sis has been relatively slow; however, available information collected since 1988 can be used to discuss what seems to be an emerging pattern of far western, late Pleistocene prehistory. Most important, evidence indicating a co-occurrence of fluted and nonfluted point and lithic traditions in the far west continues to accumulate. Many terms have been advanced through the years to account for early but distinctly non-Clovis patterns in the far west region, including the ­Desert Culture (Jennings 1957, 1964), the Western Pluvial Lakes 47

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a period of old-fashioned or outmoded form of Indians. To quibble over these details gives the impression that the primary basis for highlighting a distinctly different perspective on far western Pleistocene prehistory rests primarily with its moniker. This misses the larger point, which is that the conceptual elements associated with the term Paleoindian fall short of explaining what we see in the early archaeological record of the far west. Use of the Paleoarchaic concept indicates a hypothetical perspective that questions the assumption that Clovis was an ancestor to all farwestern cultural groups. In contrast, to use the term Paleoindian as a universal, one-size-fits-all label implies knowledge of a clear evolutionary relationship between fluted and nonfluted technologies in the far west, which has not been demonstrated to any degree. To simply subsume all Pleistocene-age cultural components into a Paleoindian category in the absence of proof of an evolutionary relationship with fluted traditions is incorrect because it inappropriately generalizes the archaeological record. Clearly, we must view the primacy of the Paleoindian evolutionary pattern as hypothetical in the far west, particularly since the regional archaeological record of Clovis and other nonfluted Paleoindian traditions exists almost entirely as surficial finds or otherwise undated, largely uninformative (at least to the thematic topics discussed here) surficial sites. The inclusion of the “Archaic” concept in the term Paleoarchaic is meant to indicate continuity of an economic lifeway across the Pleistocene– Holocene boundary. We justify the modification of the Archaic term, despite apparent economic continuity that might otherwise simply warrant a simple modification of the word (e.g., “Pleisto­ cene Archaic” [Haynes 2002]), because the Paleo­ archaic period context includes evidence of people living in significantly different ­marine, alluvial, lacustrine, and terrestrial ­environments. Thus, while the economic pursuits show focus on “a wide range of locally available plants and animals [that] are exploited across regional ­ micro-​ ­ environments by populations familiar with their distribution and seasonality” (Willig and Aikens 1988:​5), the environmental context in which these economic activities were performed is dramatically different than that associated with

the Archaic Holocene epoch. Although the timing of a Paleoarchaic–Archaic transition may vary from place to place in the far west depending on environmental histories, we generally con­ sider this transition to have occurred during the early Holocene. As currently defined, there is no accommodation in the Paleoindian Tradition concept for the early nonfluted archaeological ­patterns seen in the far west. For this reason, we require other testable ideas to explain the distinct, highly visible, and arguably contemporaneous archaeological tradition that clearly stretches along the far western edge of North America. In this chapter, we seek to answer the following questions: (1) Are the Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian archaeological patterns distinct enough to warrant the interpretation that they actually represent a cultural co-tradition in the far west? (2) What might have led to the existence of a cultural co-tradition in the late Pleistocene period? and (3) What kinds of intergroup interactions might have occurred within the context of this cultural co-tradition, and how can these be measured in the archaeological record?

Defining the Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian Patterns in the Far West In order to address our first question regarding evidence of an early cultural co-tradition in the far west, we examine the available evidence as it relates to the temporal concept and timing of the Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian archaeological patterns and their related technological patterns (Figure 3.1). Temporal Context Late Pleistocene–aged (i.e., chronometrically dated in excess of 11,500 cal bp) archaeological components are known from a relatively small number of sites in the far west, including K1 Cave on Haida Gwaii (Fedje et al. 2004b), Indian Sands (Davis 2006, 2008; Davis et al. 2004; Willis 2005; Willis and Davis 2007), Newberry Crater (Connolly 1999), Lind Coulee (Daugherty 1956; Irwin and Moody 1978), Marmes Rockshelter (Hicks 2004), Hatwai (Ames et al. 1981; Sanders 1982), Wewukiyepuh (Schuknecht 2000), Connley Caves (Bedwell 1973), Paisley Five Mile Rockshelter (Jenkins 2006; Jenkins et al. 2010), Cooper’s Ferry (Butler 1969; Davis and Schweger 48

Lithic Technology, Cultural Transmission, and the Nature of the Paleoarchaic/Paleoindian Co-Tradition

Figure 3.1. Map showing sites and localities mentioned in the text.

2004), Smith Creek Cave (Bryan 1979), the Sunshine Locality (Beck and Jones 1997), Bonneville Estates Rockshelter (Goebel 2007; Graf 2007), Cerro Pedregroso on Baja California’s Cedros Island (Des Lauriers 2006), Jaraguay Volcanic Field (Willis 2010), and Covacha Babisuri on Espíritu Santo Island in Baja California Sur (Fujita 2006). Of these sites, only Marmes Rockshelter, Connley Caves, Cooper’s Ferry, Paisley Five Mile Rockshelter, and Smith Creek Cave include cultural components with nonfluted lanceolate projectile points dated in excess of 12,900 cal bp. Although Clovis points have been identified from all far western states and from the Baja California peninsula, Clovis artifacts have not yet been found in association with radiocarbon ages associated with the Clovis Tradition (13,350– 12,870 cal bp [Haynes 1980, 1982, 1987; Haynes et al. 1984]; 13,125–12,925 cal bp [Waters and Stafford 2007]). The Richey-Roberts Clovis site of eastern Washington includes fluted points reportedly in contact with grains of Glacier Peak tephra (which initially erupted at 13,120 cal bp [Mehringer and Foit 1990]); however, this can

only be considered a relative, maximum age, not a chronometric age estimate. The absence of chronometric ages for Clovis archaeological components in the far west means that we also lack empirical proof that the age of the Plains Clovis cultural tradition will be the same in the far west. If we are to treat the Clovis model as a testable hypothesis, we are correct to require such proof. Our guess, however, is that the appearance of Clovis technologies in the far west probably dates within the range of Clovis sites in the Plains and Southwest. That said, the best, most current information indicates that Paleoarchaic components are earliest in the far west and thus leads us to reject the hypothesis that a Clovis Paleoindian cultural tradition gave rise to the Paleoarchaic tradition. Evolutionary Links Through Technology? Evolutionary relationships between Paleoindian and Paleoarchaic traditions are most commonly discussed in relation to supposed technological similarities or dissimilarities. In their review of the prehistory of the southern Columbia River 49

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Plateau, Ames et al. succinctly summarize a commonly held view about the place Clovis holds in the cultural-historical sequence of the interior Pacific Northwest:

late forms. This conceptualization of early technological evolution is an oversimplification and seems to consider only the most basic morphological features of artifacts as meaningful indicators of ancestor–descendant continuity. We question the value of evolutionary interpretations made only on typological grounds. Instead, we seek to understand the technological basis of a Paleoindian–Paleoarchaic evolutionary relationship (cf. Beck and Jones 1997; Bryan 1988, 1991; Fagan 1988; Warren and Phagan 1988), if it indeed exists. We do this next by considering the technological continuum as a whole. Early Paleoarchaic lithic assemblages are known from excavated contexts in the 15 sites listed earlier and include the hallmark stemmed and/or foliate (i.e., willow leaf–shaped) finished biface forms. The presence of Paleoindian cultural traditions in the far west is inferred almost entirely from isolated surficial finds of fluted and unfluted bifaces. Exceptions to this are seen in the discovery of the Simon, Fenn, and RicheyRoberts “Clovis caches” in the far west (Frison 1991; Gramly 1993; Mehringer 1988; Mehringer and Foit 1990; Woods and Titmus 1985). Of these, only the Richey-Roberts site was systematically excavated by archaeologists. Because bifacial tools dominate these “caches,” and lithic debitage either is absent or was not recovered, they do not provide a detailed view of an entire Paleoindian lithic assemblage. In the absence of direct knowledge about Paleoindian lithic technology from far western sites, we must rely on studies made on Plains Paleoindian assemblages in order to make a comparison with Paleoarchaic lithic technology. Far western Paleoarchaic and Plains Paleoindian lithic technologies differ in two fundamental ways. First, fluted bifaces and stemmed and foliate bifaces consistently use separate hafting elements. Second, the lithic reduction sequence models (sensu Bleed 2001) for Paleoindian and Paleoarchaic technological assemblages are, we argue, completely different and readily distinguishable (cf. Fagan 1988; Figure 3.2).

Rare surface finds of Clovis points occur throughout the region (Galm et  al. 1981; Hollenbeck 1987). The similarity of these finds to dated sites in other regions implies an early link to areas south and possibly east of the Plateau. Less evident is the nature of relationships between C ­ lovis and succeeding phases of prehistory. There is little evidence of a cultural continuum from Clovis to later-dating cultural mani­ festations in this area, though Aikens (1984) describes what may be transitional artifact forms in Oregon. Thus, while a Clovis presence is documented, it is unknown whether this culture had any bearing on subsequent cultural development in the Plateau region [1998:​103]. Taking an alternative view, Willig and Aikens provide a summary of a long-standing argument for evolutionary continuity between fluted and nonfluted technologies in the far west based on the simple application of a Plains-style early Paleoindian–late Paleoindian culture-history model to all early far western sites: The typology of early western assemblages could be interpreted as representing a complete temporal continuum of forms, with fluted Clovis grading into fluted and nonfluted basally thinned, concave based and stemmed and shouldered styles of later Archaic periods (Willig [1989]). As pointed out by Aikens (1978), this “continuum” of gradual blending from fluted into stemmed points and later forms is well documented from dated sequences in the Plains and Southwest (Frison 1978; Frison and Stanford 1982; Haynes 1964, 1980), where Clovis gives rise to Folsom and Plano forms [1988:​20]. Embedded in this statement are unspecified concepts of “grading” and “gradual blending” wherein earlier fluted Paleoindian point styles undergo a kind of metamorphosis into later nonfluted Western Stemmed and foliate lanceo-

Paleoarchaic Lithic Technology Paleoarchaic lithic reduction strategies consistently include the following elements: raw material use is diverse and often focused on local sources of varying quality (Figure 3.2a); reduc50

Lithic Technology, Cultural Transmission, and the Nature of the Paleoarchaic/Paleoindian Co-Tradition

Figure 3.2. Paleoarchaic lithic reduction sequence, including unidirectional core production (a), followed by the creation of flake tools and simple modified flakes, projectile points, and crescents from blades and macroflakes (b); centripetal core production (c), resulting in macroflakes that are crafted into flake tools or simple modified flakes (d); centripetal core production (c) that leads to discoidal macroflakes and subsequent projectile point and crescent production (e–f ).

tion of macroflakes struck from cores provides the primary means for all tool production (Figure 3.2b); core forms are diverse (centripetal, unidirectional, multidirectional) and appear to be a key characteristic of the Paleoarchaic technological sequence model (Figure 3.2a, c–2f); some stemmed and foliate finished bifaces are made on macroblades (Figure 3.2b); most stemmed and foliate finished bifaces are made on macroflakes (Figure 3.2d); direct, multistage reduction of large bifacial preforms to smaller finished biface forms is relatively uncommon but present in some instances. The diversity of raw material use patterns and core forms and the presence of biface production directly from macroblades and macroflakes may offer the best evidence for conceptualizing Paleoarchaic lithic technology as distinctly

separate from Paleoindian lithic technology. Paleoarchaic core diversity promotes use of the widest variety of raw material types and forms. The ability to create a tool kit from igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks in both nodule and rounded cobble form — ​the latter being ubiquitous in the far western landscape — ​­undoubtedly enhanced knappers’ ability to use the broadest range of regional environments and reduced the need for exotic, distant lithic sources. This approach directly contrasts with fluted biface site assemblages based on far-ranging, high-quality­ toolstone sources: namely, fine-grain cherts, quartz, and obsidians. Core forms include formal centripetal and unidirectional designs as well as nonformal amorphous or multidirectional forms. The ­presence of 51

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a centripetal core reduction strategy is notable and likely a distinct behavioral adaptation for producing macroflakes and blade-like flakes of predetermined sizes from rounded ­cobbles of varying quality. In the far west, the early use of centripetal cores includes similar reductive elements to Old World Levallois technology. A distinct ­Levallois-​ like lithic technology has been documented for early Holocene lithic ­assemblages in the Pacific Northwest by Muto (1976) and can be applied to other far western sites where centripetal core forms are present. Recent excavations at the American Bar site in the Lower Salmon River canyon of western Idaho produced a crescent associated with early Holocene radiocarbon ages (L. G. Davis, unpublished data). Crescents are rare in the Columbia River Plateau, seen elsewhere at the Lind Coulee site (Daugherty 1956), but are commonly associated with Great Basin Paleoarchaic lithic assemblages (e.g., Beck and Jones 1997, 2010). Most important to this discussion is the observation that the American Bar crescent appears to have been made on a transverse flake struck from a centripetal core, exhibited by its retention of the distal portion of a large flake scar on its dorsal face. In this way, the American Bar crescent appears to show a direct link with Levallois-like, centripetal core reduction (Figure 3.2f). Formal unidirectional core forms are an additional design found in Paleoarchaic assemblages throughout the far western region. Many of these cores have been ascribed to categories such as “scraper planes,” “domed scrapers,” or “­discoidal scrapers,” suggesting use as steep-edged tools (Fedje et al. 2004b; Rogers 1966; Warren 1967). While we agree that these artifacts were used in many cases as scraping implements, it is very apparent that these artifacts served as highly formalized cores. These unidirectional core tools include a single prepared platform with faceted blade-like flake removals. Flake removals from the single core edge were serially driven off downward along the entire circumference of the core edge. Amorphous or multidirectional core forms were also used to produce blanks for direct modification into tools or for direct use as unmodified flake tools. While the indistinct morphology of these cores is synchronically and diachronically ubiquitous in the far west, they represent yet an52

other way in which the more generalized Paleo­ archaic core and flake reduction pattern is applied to virtually any kind of toolstone. Early Paleoindian Lithic Technology Wilke et al. (1991), Collins (1999), and Morrow (1995) provide examples of early Paleoindian lithic reduction sequences from beyond the far west. In general, fluted biface site assemblages include evidence for bifacial reduction and formal conical and wedge-shaped core and blade reduction (Figure 3.3). The production of fi ­ nished bifaces is nearly always seen to be a result of extended bifacial reduction from larger bifacial preforms (Figure 3.3c–f). While Collins (1999) notes that fluted biface technology largely included tools made from bifacial reduction and conical and wedge-shaped cores, tools made on core-struck macroflakes are also present, albeit rarely. Moreover, macroflakes used for tool manufacture are typically attributed to debitage produced during extensive bifacial reduction, rather than through a formal core and flake reduction process (Collins 1999). A further distinction of the Paleoindian technological sequence model is the presence of the blade industry as a reduction “subsystem” (Figure 3.3a–b). Formal unidirectional conical and wedge-shaped cores were used to make true blades. These blades were not used for bifaces but instead served as specialpurpose­tools apart from the biface. The existence of this highly formalized core and blade industry also serves to further distinguish Paleoindian technology from Paleoarchaic technology. That is, fluted biface manufacture is extremely limited to direct biface reduction, which is not a diverse use of core technology or tool production. Instead, early Paleoindian lithic assemblages are quite standardized and restrictive. As is commonly known, the defining characteristic of early Paleoindian technology is the removal of fluting flakes, which were typically driven off the biface before completion of the point, suggesting an implicit and integrated reduction and design strategy (Callahan 1979; Collins 1999). However, unlike in regions f­arther east, the far west manifestation of fluted Clovis technology does not share a diversity of fluted forms (e.g., Suwanee, Cumberland, Redstone) and is commonly considered to be “different”

Lithic Technology, Cultural Transmission, and the Nature of the Paleoarchaic/Paleoindian Co-Tradition

Figure 3.3. Paleoindian lithic reduction sequence, including unidirectional core production (a), followed by the creation of blades, flake tools, and simple modified flakes (b); a large bifacial preform created from extensive reduction of a large nodule or macroflake/spall (c); and repetitive stages of bifacial reduction producing usable flakes (d) and refining the bifacial preform (e); ultimately leading to a fluted Clovis point (f ) or a nonfluted Paleoindian point type.

from Clovis elsewhere (Beck and Jones 2007, 2009; Beck et al. 2004), based on its shape form, degree of basal indentation, and variation in fluting (i.e., absent to “basally thinned”). Moreover, the nature of technological variability inherent in the Western Fluted tradition is mainly understood from basic morphometric comparisons (e.g., Beck and Jones 2010:Table 4). While diagnostic biface characteristics are commonly used to separate early site types in the far west (i.e., fluted = Paleoindian, and stemmed/ foliate = Paleoarchaic), we feel that the morphological end product of the bifaces was probably less important than the reduction sequence behind their production. We believe that close examination of fluted and nonfluted stemmed/ foliate site assemblages reveals vastly different

reduction methods, core strategies, tool forms, and raw material preferences. Until better chronometric dating control on early sites is ­available, this technological evidence of distinctly separate lithic reduction sequences is perhaps the ­strongest indication for the presence of two contemporaneous cultures or co-traditions during the late Pleistocene–early Holocene period in the far west. Divergent Technologies Significant differences exist between Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian lithic technological organization that cannot be explained as having resulted from an evolutionary process wherein one is derived from the other. Whereas the argument of early lithic co-traditions has been in play for decades, 53

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it has not been adequately tested. We believe that the hypothesis that Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian lithic traditions are derived from separate evolutionary lines can be evaluated from the different ways in which their technological systems are organized. We explore the hypothesis of early far western lithic co-traditions by comparing aspects of Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian lithic reduction sequences as related to core technologies and their products. Variation in core design and their reduction strategies represents a major difference between Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian lithic technological organization. Paleoarchaic core strategy is highly variable, with a reliance on multidirectional and amorphous core designs. There also exists a patterned use of formal centripetal and unidirectional core forms in multiple Paleoarchaic assemblages, yet these strategies are not as prevalent as the multidirectional forms. While prepared unidirectional core and flake strategies are common in the Paleoarchaic lithic ­reduction trajectory, so are core and blade approaches. Paleoarchaic core and blade technology is in no manner morphologically or technologically cognate to the hallmark large, cylindrical wedgeshaped unidirectional blade cores recovered at numerous Paleoindian sites (Collins 1999). In contrast, Paleoarchaic unidirectional cores are typically smaller, due to both exhaustion and original nodule size, and are typically used for macroflake production. In many cases, Paleoarchaic core forms serve additional functions as ­scraping implements and are commonly referred to as scraper planes, domed scrapers, steep-edged unifacially retouched tools, or core scrapers (e.g., Des Lauriers 2006). The patterned use of this unidirectional core tool type is associated with early sites from the northern Northwest Coast of British Columbia (Fedje et al. 2004b), the Great Basin (Warren 1967), and the Baja California peninsula (Des Lauriers 2006). We may further distinguish the use of the unidirectional core form by the different traditions and their respective by-products. Macroblade production is present within Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian site assemblages; however, where this specialized reductive technique is present at a few Paleoarchaic sites, including Cooper’s Ferry (Davis 2001) and Connley Caves (Bedwell

1973) — ​and probably Marmes (Hicks 2004), Lind Coulee (Daugherty 1956), and Buhl (Green et al. 1998) — ​a formal core and macroblade strategy does not appear to be a consistent part of Paleoarchaic technological organization. Paleoarchaic macroblade production also includes centripetal core technology similar to the Old World Levallois technique (Muto 1976). Not only is there an apparent absence of the larger, formal cylindrical/ wedge-shaped cores (sensu Collins 1999) at Paleoarchaic sites, but the dimensions of the macro­ blades are significantly smaller when compared with the Paleoindian forms. Comparatively, the use of the core and macroblade strategy, or blademaking strategy (sensu Boldurian and Cotter 1999), has been highlighted at Paleoindian sites in the far west and greater North American continent, exemplified at sites like Richey-Roberts (Mehringer 1988), Blackwater Draw, and Kevin Davis (Collins 1999). Describing northern Plains Clovis technology, Bradley states, “Most Clovis tools are either bifaces or are made from flakes that resulted from the biface manufacturing process” (1991:​370). Bifacial core use is present in both Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian core reductive strategies; however, while Paleoarchaic bifacial core use is inconsistent — ​likely reflecting an opportunistic core strategy — ​Paleoindian use of bifacial cores is a fundamental aspect of its technological organization. Generally held notions of the Paleoarchaic tool kit as an evolutionary descendant of fluted point technology are untested assumptions based largely on adaptations of technological evolutionary models from neighboring regions. To understand the basis for this assumption we may look farther east to the Rocky Mountain region, where Frison (1991), Bradley (1991), and Boldurian and Cotter (1999) offer a more substantial example of the evolution from fluted point technology to unfluted stemmed and lanceolate forms. The Plains model of Paleoindian technological evolution differs from archaeological patterns seen in the far west in two significant ways. First, unlike the far west, the Rocky Mountain region possesses a substantial chronological record that clearly demonstrates fluted point assemblages occurring earlier than cultural components associated with what Bradley (1991) terms the Collateral Point Complex. Projectile points associated with the 54

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Collateral Point Complex include well-known Goshen, Plainview, Eden, Scottsbluff, and Cody types. Because the reduction sequence of fluted and nonfluted Collateral Point Complex projectile point technologies is based on the same processes of raw material selection, core production, and bifacial reduction (Bradley 1991), a clear case is made for technological continuity between Paleoindian fluted and Collateral Point Complex traditions (i.e., the Llano–Plano continuum). Bifacial core reduction remains as the most prevalent core strategy associated with the Collateral Point Complex, further indicating a ­connection with earlier Clovis technology; however, the Collateral Point Complex also shows the discontinuation of fluting and the serial production of macro­blades. Although it is reasonable to assume that the evolution of early far western lithic technologies followed the same unilinear trajectory embodied in the Llano–Plano continuum, this model has not been borne out by the facts of the archaeological record. It is possible to identify far western sites that bear artifacts that could be easily classified within the Collateral Point Complex; however, these are quite rare (e.g., Sentinel Gap [Galm and Gough 2008]). Instead, evidence suggests that nonfluted, non–Collateral Point Complex, stemmed projectile point traditions are widespread in the far west. Whereas a technological continuum is plausible between fluted and nonfluted Collateral Point Complex point traditions based on their shared technological elements, the same cannot be said for Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian technologies. The majority of Paleoarchaic stemmed and foliate finished bifaces are manufactured from corestruck macroflakes. This reduction process is commonly indicated by the retention of original macroflake landmarks such as portions of the dorsal ridge, distal striking platform, and planoconvex cross section. This different approach to projectile point manufacture is, we believe, tremendously significant because of its place within the Paleoarchaic sequence model and given the fact that point manufacture from core-struck macroflakes is not a normal part of fluted biface assemblages. Juliet Morrow (1995) provides a rare exception to this last statement as she interprets the presence of a macroflake-to-finished fluted Clovis point trajectory in the Clovis technologi-

cal sequence model from the Ready/Lincoln Hills site in Illinois. One hallmark of the Paleoindian fluted biface is the patterned use of overshot and collateral flaking applied in the final stages of ­biface manu­ facture. Like their fluted predecessor, stemmed and lanceolate bifaces of the Collateral Point Complex include a consistent collateral flaking pattern as well as many instances of overshot flaking. This is not the case for the majority of Paleoarchaic stemmed and foliate bifaces, which often exhibit relatively unpatterned flaking. Although rare examples of collateral and overshot flaking patterns can be found on some Paleoarchaic stemmed and foliate bifaces (e.g., Lind Coulee [Daugherty 1956], Hatwai I [Ames et al. 1981]), these techniques do not seem to be significant or consistent aspects of Paleoarchaic biface shaping strategy.

Potential Explanations for a Paleoarchaic/Paleoindian Co-Tradition On the basis of our earlier reasoning, we consider the Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian archaeological traditions to represent separate, early, and at least partially contemporaneous New World technological systems. While we do not know for certain, we speculate that the appearance and persis­tence of these two different t­echnological systems represent separate peoples, probably ethnic groups bearing their own languages, who spread into the New World from different areas (see also Goebel et al. 2008 for an additional perspective on this sort of two-pronged migration process). To begin to answer the question of how an early cultural co-tradition came to be in the first place, we consider the fact that very few sites bearing what might be interpreted as Paleoindian artifacts are found in the far west and very few Paleoarchaic sites are found east of the Rocky Mountains. We find this pattern to be highly significant, and it probably reflects the manner in which their related peoples came to be separated in mid-​latitude­North America. The Late Wisconsinan glacial history of North America provided critical opportunities at different stages during the late Pleistocene that may have allowed Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian peoples to migrate south of the ice sheets at different times, in different ways. Close examination of the Dyke 55

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Figure 3.4. Explanatory models for the occurrence of the Paleoarchaic/Paleoindian co-tradition: (a) Full Maritime Migration (FM2) and Partial Amphibious Migration (PAM) routes along the northeastern Pacific Rim lead to the entry of Paleoarchaic (PA) peoples by or before 16,000 cal bp; (b) model showing an early entry of Paleoindians (PI) through Ice-Free Corridor Migration (IFC), via pedestrian travel (solid black line) and water crossings of ice-impounded lakes (dashed line) at 14,675cal bp, into mid-latitude North America, with an existing PA population (noted by larger font) concentrated in the far west; (c) model showing a later (13,350 calbp) PI entry via pedestrian travel through IFC into mid-latitude North America, with an existing PA population largely concentrated in the far west; (d) the traditional Clovis-First model of IFC entry at or after 13,350 cal bp. Glacial base maps were modified from Dyke et al. 2003.

et al. (2003) reconstructions of Late Wisconsinan glacial ice sheets indicates the presence of a hypothetical coastal route by at least 16,000 cal bp and that a hypothetical ice-free corridor had opened by 14,675 cal bp or was perhaps delayed until 13,350 cal bp. Within the context of these late Pleistocene environmental conditions, we consider the process of early human migration along coastal and interior routes of entry and offer a possible explanation for the Paleoarchaic/Paleoindian co-tradition problem. These processes of early human migration into the Americas include Full Maritime Migration, Partially Amphibious Migration, and Ice-Free Corridor Migration. We briefly discuss these three migration scenarios, which are illustrated in Figure 3.4, and their implications for the Paleoarchaic/Paleoindian cotradition problem.

Full Maritime Migration Early peoples bearing a fully maritime adaptation that enabled long-distance oceangoing travel and broad use of coastal economic resources, including areas along extensive glacial ice ­margins, could easily negotiate movement across the Bering Strait and continue along the eastern Pacific coast at or before 16,000 cal bp (Figure 3.4a). Whether a full-fledged maritime orientation was an adaptive aspect of the first Americans is not clear; however, others have argued for its existence based on global patterns of human migration in coastal regions (e.g., Dixon 1999, 2001; Erlandson 2002). Under a Full Maritime Migration (FM2) strategy, migrants could be expected to create fewer sites with highly ephemeral traces and may not have colonized all or any of the available coastal areas. If FM2 migrants 56

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traveled great distances along the eastern Pacific coast in short time intervals, perhaps in the process of following migratory waterfowl or some other marine animals, then their transit time from Beringia to the Olympic Peninsula could have been relatively brief. If the FM2 strategy was employed, we would expect the Alaskan and British Columbian coastlines to hold the earliest sites in the Americas; however, a highly mobile population that was focused on nearshore ecosystems would be expected to leave little to no archaeological evidence in most of today’s modern coastal environment. Conversely, some early FM2 migrants could have stopped their voyage at different points along the unglaciated Alaskan and British Columbian coast, colonizing New World coastal regions, while others continued on to points south. If this occurred, then we should expect that the earliest New World sites should be found along the northeastern Pacific Rim.

hind colonizing populations as they moved south along the coast, early human occupation of the coastal landscape might limit the ability of later migrants to follow the PAM route south of the ice sheets. If this indeed occurred, and if the early coastal colonizers competed to deny outsiders access to their territorial resources, such a settlement process could close a PAM route to other, later migrants within a few generations after becoming settled. Such a process might cause pronounced cultural and genetic divergence between Pacific coastal and Beringian peoples. As well, the presence of FM2 settlers along the northeastern Pacific Rim prior to 16,000 cal bp could have limited or excluded others from later employing a PAM model. Ice-Free Corridor Migration According to Dyke et  al. (2003), Late Wisconsinan deglaciation produced an ice-free corridor between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets as early as 14,675 cal bp; however, DukRodkin and Hughes (1991, 1992) argue that the Mackenzie Mountains’ glacial ice did not retreat until 13,350 cal bp, delaying the full opening of the corridor. Mandryk et al. (2001) argue that the initial opening of the ice-free corridor was accompanied by the simultaneous growth of an inland sea, which persisted until 13,350 cal bp and initially impeded human migration; however, Haynes (2005) has speculated that Clovis migrants could have solved this problem by building boats to cross the water obstacle. If boats were used to cross water bodies within the ice-free corridor, then the Ice-Free Corridor Migration (IFC) route could hypothetically have been traversed by 14,675 cal bp (Figure 3.4b). A fully terrestrial IFC route was apparently open by 13,350 cal bp (Figure 3.4c). The opening of the corridor by 14,675 cal bp or 13,350 cal bp could have offered an alternative interior route of southward migration at least a thousand years after a PAM strategy could have been pursued along the Pacific coast. Moreover, the IFC could have offered an alternative to an earlier but already occupied coastal route of entry for Beringian populations. Although it fails to account for evidence of pre-Clovis-aged human occupation at sites like Monte Verde (Dillehay 1989) and Paisley Five Mile Rockshelter (Jenkins 2007; Jenkins et al. 2010), the traditional Clovis-First

Partially Amphibious Migration Dyke et al. (2003) indicate that the Copper River Basin was deglaciated by 16,000 cal bp, opening a route for human migration from southeastern Beringia to the Pacific Ocean. South of the Copper River’s mouth, large, scattered areas of coastal Alaska and British Columbia were never glaciated, or were deglaciated by 16,000 cal bp, providing a mosaic of terrestrial environments extending to Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula (Dixon 1999, 2001; Fedje et al. 2004a; Mandryk et al. 2001), from which early human migrants could easily move into mid-latitude North America and beyond (Figure 3.4a). This particular scenario considers coastal migration as an “amphibious” process involving a mix of terrestrial and maritime movements and adaptations within coastal and pericoastal environments (see Dixon 1999, 2001; Fedje et al. 2004a), perhaps only requiring relatively limited seafaring efforts. If the initial peopling of the Americas occurred via a Partially Amphibious Migration (PAM) strategy, we should see the earliest New World sites occurring between the Copper River and Vancouver Island, dating as early as 16,000 cal bp. In contrast to the FM2 model, early human migrants who employed a PAM approach would undoubtedly produce a greater number of sites in more places along the coastal route. If PAM settlers left be57

Davis et al.

model of entry via an IFC route is also shown in Figure 3.4d simply for comparison.

Great Plains/U.S. Southwest) and each population used a different strategy for manufacture, then we should see the signature of these strategies in the covariation of design elements (i.e., length, width, thickness, and basal indentation) from projectiles recovered from these regions (see Bettinger and Eerkens 1999). Based on an analysis of 87 Clovis projectiles recovered from the Great Plains/Southwestern region (Table 3.1), we find that maximum width has a positive relationship with basal indentation, while total length and maximum thickness do not (Table 3.2). On the other hand, when the same package of covariates is examined against basal indentation in the Great Basin Clovis sample just the opposite pattern is found; total length and maximum thickness predict basal indentation, while maximum width does not (Table 3.3). To account for the small sample represented in the Great Basin, standard error estimates were bootstrapped (Brownstone and Valetta 2001). In the Great Basin, as total length increases, basal indentation decreases; and as maximum thickness increases, basal indentation increases. If basal indentation is a significant indicator of a tradition’s lithic reduction sequence, then it appears that two separate lithic technological schemes are present: one whose cultural signature is indicated by a package of ideas for reducing lithics that causes maximum width and basal indentation to correlate, the other whose signature links maximum thickness and total length with basal indentation. Indeed, Beck and Jones (2010:​96) describe “Western Clovis” points as shorter and thinner, with deeper basal concavities (absolute and relative to basal width) than Plains Clovis points. Beck and Jones (2010:Figure 10) also show several examples of fluted point fragments from the Sunshine Locality of Nevada, which mostly appear to retain minor basal thinning or weakly expressed fluting and were only minimally modified from a macroflake preform. If Paleoarchaic knappers replicated Clovis-style lanceolate projectiles mostly by pressure flaking a macroflake preform, as is typical in the manner of their lithic reduction sequence model, they probably did not need to remove a fluting flake since the point’s base would be thin enough or would only require minimal preparation (e.g., “basal thinning”). Thus, the existence of archaeological phenomena

Early Intergroup Interaction If the Paleoarchaic peoples initially entered midlatitude North America via a coastal route of entry before or soon after 16,000 cal bp and, by pursuing economic-settlement strategies focused on water-based environmental zones, mainly ­settled in the unglaciated coastal, pericoastal, riparian, and lacustrine ecosystemic niches of the far west, we would expect to see the greatest number of Paleoarchaic sites in areas west of the Rocky Mountains and their numbers declining in frequency toward the east (e.g., Figure 3.4a). Less populated regions east of the ­Rockies could be rapidly infilled by a later entry of Paleo­ indians via an IFC route after 14,675 cal bp or 13,350 cal bp. Interaction between the Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian populations undoubtedly occurred once both peoples were south of the ice sheets. Depending on the distribution of Paleoarchaic peoples in the far west, there may or may not have been unoccupied areas for Clovis Paleoindians to establish their own territories west of the Rockies. If a population of Clovis Paleoindians actually moved into the far west and established territorial ranges, we should expect to see sites clearly bearing Plains-style Clovis assemblages, complete with “Clovis-like” artifacts. Because the far western Clovis data set lacks Paleoindian assemblages from buried archaeological contexts (i.e., apart from the Richey-Roberts cache), we can only attempt to address the issue of population influx from the available “Western Clovis” projectile points. If Clovis Paleoindians were unable to settle throughout the far west due to the presence of a preexisting Paleoarchaic population, intergroup interaction at the margins of the far west could have introduced fluted points through trade, and/or the technological ideas behind fluted lanceolate points may have been spread throughout the population. Testing this particular interpretation in the absence of undisturbed lithic assemblages bearing fluted points that might be studied to elucidate the nature of far western fluted point reduction sequences is difficult but not impossible. If Clovis projectiles were made by two distinct populations (one in the Great Basin, the other in the 58

Lithic Technology, Cultural Transmission, and the Nature of the Paleoarchaic/Paleoindian Co-Tradition Table 3.1. Descriptive Statistics for the

Variable

Clovis Projectile Sample by Region.

Total Length (mm)

Maximum Width (mm)

Maximum Thickness (mm)

Basal Indentation (mm)

Mean (SD) Great Plains/Southwest (n = 86)

89.2 (36.5)

31.2 (6.8)

7.7 (1.3)

3.5 (1.9)

Great Basin (n = 47)

57.4 (20.5)

26.7 (5.7)

6.9 (1.6)

3.5 (1.5)

Great Plains/Southwest (n = 86)

83.0

30.7

7.8

3.1

Great Basin (n = 47)

50.5

26.1

6.7

3.4

Median

such as the Sunshine Locality’s “non-Clovis-like fluted points” (Beck and Jones 2010:Figure 10) may signal the desire of Paleoarchaic knappers to produce a facsimile of the Clovis lanceolate point without having to give up the use of a distinctly non-Paleoindian lithic reduction sequence. What could have led to the transmission of ideas about Clovis technology, but in such an indirect, experimental fashion? We interpret the observed variations in “Western Clovis” points to further suggest that Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian peoples were separate ethnolinguistic groups who probably maintained separate territories during the late Pleistocene (cf. Bettinger and Eerkens 1999). The higher frequency of fluted and unfluted Western Clovis points in the Great Basin (Anderson and Gillam 2000:Figure 9) and their relative scarcity in other outlying areas of the far west might reflect the way in which concepts of Paleoindian technology entered and later spread throughout the far west. If Paleoindians first encountered the far western Paleoarchaic population in the areas south of the rugged and glaciated Rocky Mountains, Paleoindian technological ideas would spread first into the Great Basin physiographic province and later into the rest of the far west. From the perspective of an age-area effect, this scenario of intergroup interaction and cultural transmission makes the best sense of the known distribution of fluted points in the far west (Anderson and Gillam 2000:​ Figure­ 9).

Conclusion In this chapter, we take up the argument that the late Pleistocene prehistory of the far west includes an archaeological tradition, termed the Paleoarchaic, that is characteristically different and not 59

Table 3.2. Regression Model (Using Robust Standard Errors) Examining Great Plains and Southwestern Clovis Point Basal Indentation and Projectile Diagnostics.

Variable

Maximum width Total length Maximum thickness

β

p

.5

.003

–.1

.43

.01

.89

Note: Model R2= .21; n = 86; p < .001. The analysis is based on data provided by Charlotte Beck (personal communication 2010) and is a more detailed version of that presented in Beck and Jones 2009:Table 6.2.

Table 3.3. Multiple Regression Model (Using Bootstrapped Standard Errors [BSE], 50 Replications) Examining Great Basin Clovis Point Basal Indentation and Projectile Attributes.

Variable

Total length

B (BSE)

p

–.07 (.02)

.003

Maximum thickness

.63 (.3)

.05

Maximum width

.05 (.06)

.4

Constant

1.7 (1.2)

.2

Note: Model R2= .21; n = 48; p < .03. The analysis is based on data provided by Charlotte Beck (personal communication 2010) and is a more detailed version of that presented in Beck and Jones 2009:Table 6.2.

descendant from the Clovis Paleoindian Tradition. Our basis for arguing for the presence of a cultural co-tradition is drawn from the fact that the lithic reduction sequences of the two traditions are significantly different and also that the timing of the Paleoarchaic pattern appears to overlap and probably precede the appearance of Clovis Paleoindians in North America. We offer a hypothesis that the Paleoarchaic and Paleo­indian cultural patterns ­represent ­separate

Davis et al.

e­ thnolinguistic populations who arrived south of the ice sheets at different times and in different ways. The presence of fluted and unfluted “Western Clovis” points in the far west, then, is best explained as the result of intergroup exchange of technological knowledge, which was further spread throughout Paleoarchaic populations in the far west under a guided variation mode of cultural transmission and not as the actual spread of Paleoindian peoples. In contrast, our analysis reveals that greater correlation exists among the attributes of Plains and Southwestern Clovis fluted points, which is interpreted to indicate the operation of an indirect bias in the transmission of technological knowledge within Paleoindian populations. To us, the clear morphometric differences between these regions indicate separate modes of projectile point manufacture. That such diversity in fluted point design should be widespread between central and western North America is hard to reconcile under a Clovis-first model of rapid, widespread distribution of Paleoindians. If Clovis peoples spread quickly throughout North America, perhaps within a century or so, it seems reasonable to expect to see great regional homogeneity in fluted point design; however, our study shows this not to be the case. In accordance with the precepts of cultural transmission theory (Boyd and Richerson 1985), and in a similar manner as Bettinger and Eerkens (1999), we hypoth-

esize that the technological concepts of Clovis fluted point production were transmitted and applied within the far west in a way that emphasized individual learning and experimentation separate from the original knowledge base. In contrast, knowledge of Clovis fluted point production was transmitted in the Plains and Southwest through a process of social learning wherein technological production techniques were carefully learned and maintained. To us, the presence of two different modes of cultural transmission is highly significant and lends weight to our view that the Paleoarchaic and Paleoindian archaeological patterns probably represent separate ethnolinguistic populations who arrived in North America in different ways and maintained a general state of separation during the late Pleistocene. Although direct evidence that Western Clovis points were actually produced through a Paleoarchaic lithic reduction sequence is not yet available due to a lack of extensive, intact lithic assemblages containing fluted points, we speculate that the lack of uniformity among point attributes and the presence of particular design elements (e.g., greater basal indentation commonly coupled with weak to absent fluting) among Western Clovis projectile points might ultimately reflect attempts to produce fluted points within a Paleoarchaic-style lithic reduction sequence.

Acknowledgments Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Oregon State Office, Portland. Anderson, David G., and J. Christopher Gillam 2000 Paleoindian Colonization of the Americas: Implications from an Examination of Physiography, Demography, and Artifact Distribution. American Antiquity 65:​43–66. Ames, Kenneth M., Don E. Dumond, Jerry R. Galm, and Rick Minor 1998 Prehistory of the Southern Plateau. In Plateau, edited by Deward E. Walker, Jr., pp. 103–119. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 12, William C. Sturtevant, general editor, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Ames, Kenneth M., J. P. Green, and M. Pfoertner 1981 Hatwai (10NP143): Interim Report. Archaeological Reports No. 9. Boise State University, Boise.

We are indebted to Charlotte Beck, who graciously provided detailed metric data on Great Basin, Plains, and Southwestern fluted points. Data were also generated from projects supported by the Keystone Archaeological Research Fund, the Bernice Peltier Huber Charitable Trust at Oregon State University, and the Bureau of Land Management’s Cottonwood Field Office. Thanks also go to our reviewers, who encouraged us to make important improvements to our original manuscript. We greatly appreciate David Rhode’s editorial guidance and management of the publication process.

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Galm, Jerry R., and Stan Gough 2008 The Projectile Point/Knife Sample from the Sentinel Gap Site. In Projectile Point Sequences in Northwestern North America, edited by R. L. Carlson and M. P. R. Magne, pp. 1–14. Archaeology Press Publication No. 35. Simon Frasier University, Burnaby. Galm, Jerry R., Glenn D. Hartmann, Ruth A. Masten, and Garry O. Stephenson 1981 A Cultural Resource Overview of Bonneville Power Administration’s Mid-Columbia Project, Central Washington. Eastern Washington University, Archaeological and Historical Services, Reports in Archaeology and History, Cheney. Goebel, Ted 2007 Pre-Archaic and Early Archaic Technological Activities at Bonneville Estates Rockshelter. In Paleoindian or Paleoarchaic? Great Basin Human Ecology at the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition, edited by Kelly E. Graf and Dave N. Schmitt, pp. 156–184. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Goebel, Ted, Michael R. Waters, and Dennis H. O’Rourke 2008 The Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas. Science 319:​1497– 1502. Graf, Kelly E. 2007 Stratigraphy and Chronology of the Pleisto­ cene to Holocene Transition at B ­ onneville Estates Rockshelter, Eastern Great Basin. In Paleo­indian or Paleoarchaic? Great Basin Human Ecology at the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition, edited by Kelly E. Graf and Dave N. Schmitt, pp. 82–104. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Gramly, Richard M. 1993 The Richey Clovis Cache. Persimmon Press, Kenmore, N.Y. Green, Thomas J., Bruce Cochran, Todd W. F ­ enton, James C. Woods, Gene L. Titmus, Larry Tieszen, Mary Anne Davis, and Susanne J. Miller 1998 The Buhl Burial: A Paleoindian Woman from Southern Idaho. American Antiquity 63:​437–456. Haynes, C. Vance, Jr. 1964 Fluted Projectile Points: Their Age and Dispersion. Science 145:​1408–1413. 1980 The Clovis Culture. Canadian Journal of Anthropology 1(1):115–121. 1982 Were Clovis Progenitors in Beringia? In Paleoecology of Beringia, edited by David M. Hopkins, J. V. Matthews, Jr., Charles E. Schweger, and S. B. Young, pp. 383–398. Academic Press, New York. 1987 Clovis Origin Update. Kiva 52(2):83–93. 63

Davis et al. by J. A. Willig, C. M. Aikens, and J. L. Fagan, pp. 121–130. Nevada State Museum Anthropological Papers No. 21. Carson City. Waters, Michael R., and Thomas W. Stafford, Jr. 2007 Redefining the Age of Clovis: Implications for the Peopling of the Americas. Science 315:​1122– 1126. Wilke, Philip J., J. J. Flenniken, and T. L. Ozbun 1991 Clovis Technology at the Anzick Site, Montana. Journal of California and Great Basin ­Anthropology 13:​242–272. Willig, Judith A. 1988 Paleo-Archaic Adaptations and Lakeside Settlement Patterns in the Northern Alkali Basin. In Early Human Occupation in Far Western North America: The Clovis–Archaic Interface, edited by Judith A. Willig, C. Melvin Aikens, and John L. Fagan, pp. 417–482. Nevada State Museum Anthropological Papers No. 21. Carson City. 1989 Clovis Technology and Adaptation in Far Western North America: Regional Pattern and Environmental Context. In Clovis: Origins and Adaptations, edited by Robson Bonnichsen and K. Turnmire, pp. 91–118. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Oregon State University, Corvallis. Willig, Judith A., and C. Melvin Aikens 1988 The Clovis–Archaic Interface in Far Western North America. In Early Human Occupation in Far Western North America: The Clovis– Archaic­Interface, edited by Judith A. Willig, C. Melvin Aikens, and John L. Fagan, pp. 1–40. Nevada State Museum Anthropological Papers No. 21. Carson City. Willis, Samuel C. 2005 Late Pleistocene Technological Organization on the Southern Oregon Coast: Investigations at Indian Sands (35CU67-C). Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, Oregon State University, Corvallis. 2010 Progress Report of the Central Desert Early Prehistory Project, Baja California. Report on file, Archaeological Council of Mexico, Mexico City. Willis, Samuel C., and Loren G. Davis 2007 A Discussion of Two Early Headland Sites on the Southern Oregon Coast. Current Research in the Pleistocene 24:​150–152. Woods, James C., and Gene L. Titmus 1985 A Review of the Simon Site Collection. Idaho Archaeologist 8:​3–8.

Jennings, Jesse D. 1957 Danger Cave. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 27. Salt Lake City. 1964 The Desert West. In Prehistoric Man in the New World, edited by Jesse D. Jennings and Edward Norbeck, pp. 149–174. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Mandryk, Carole A. S., Heiner Josenhans, Daryl W. Fedje, and Rolf W. Mathewes 2001 Late Quaternary Paleoenvironments of Northwestern North America: Implications for Inland Versus Coastal Migration Routes. Quaternary Science Reviews 20:​301–314. Mehringer, Peter J., Jr. 1988 Weapons Cache of Ancient Americans. National Geographic 174(4):500–503. Mehringer, Peter J., Jr., and F. F. Foit 1990 Volcanic Ash Dating of the Clovis Cache at East Wenatchee, Washington. National Geographic Research 6:​495–503. Morrow, J. 1995 Clovis Projectile Point Manufacture: A Perspective from the Ready/Lincoln Hills Site, 11JY46, Jersey County, Illinois. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 20:​167–191. Muto, Guy R. 1976 The Cascade Technique: An Examination of a Levallois-Like Reduction System in Early Snake River Prehistory. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman. Rogers, Malcolm J. 1966 Ancient Hunters of the Far West. UnionTribune­Publishing Co., San Diego. Sanders, P. 1982 A Lithic Analysis of the Windust Phase Component, Hatwai Site (10NP143), Nez Perce County, Idaho. Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Wyoming, Laramie. Schuknecht, Sarah F. ­ rchaeological 2000 Wewukiyepuh (10-NP-336): A Investigations of a Windust Phase Site on the Lower Snake River. Unpublished Master’s ­thesis, University of Idaho, Moscow. Warren, Claude N. 1967 The San Dieguito Complex: A Review and Hypothesis. American Antiquity 32:​168–185. Warren, Claude N., and Carl Phagan 1988 Fluted Points in the Mojave Desert: Their Technology and Cultural Context. In Early Human Occupation in Far Western North America: The Clovis–Archaic Interface, edited

64

chapter 4

Great Basin–California/Plateau Interactions Along the Western Front Michael G. Delacorte and Mark E. Basgall

Numerous data point to a long, diverse history of interaction between the western Great Basin and adjacent peoples of California and the southern Plateau (Figure 4.1). These include the movement of toolstone and finished artifacts, stylistic and technological similarities in material culture, and more inferential evidence derived from house forms, burial practices, and adaptive strategies. Although interactions waxed and waned at various times, many of these shifts appear to have coincided with major population m ­ ovements. These include, nominally, an early migration from the Plateau south and the appreciably later expansion of Numic speakers from a southern homeland north and east across the Great Basin. In addition to population adjustments there were also changes in interaction that relate to ­settlement-​ subsistence practices, group mobility, and social boundaries. Whether driven by population movement or adaptive circumstance, shifting interactions between Great Basin and surrounding populations suggest a need to reassess the cultural dimensions of the Great Basin, as they relate to such interactions. It is, of course, difficult to archaeologically link particular elements of material culture with specific ethnolinguistic units in the absence of direct observation or to identify discrete cultural boundaries on the basis of artifact variability. The ethnographic peoples of northwestern Cali­ fornia underscore just how similar cultural features can remain even in the face of dramatic linguistic and developmental complexity (Kroeber 65

1925). Attempts to link the early “Millingstone” cultures of coastal and cismontane California into a unified cultural tradition based on similarities in technology (Fitzgerald and Jones 1999; Jones 2008; Warren 1968) must ultimately confront the specter of adaptive convergence. What elements we choose to highlight or de-emphasize obviously has a great influence on how we reconstruct prehistoric cultural mosaics or configure ideas about archaeological interactions.

Early Holocene Period (>7800 cal bp) Early Holocene interactions between the western Great Basin and surrounding areas mirror those reported for other parts of the ­Intermountain West (Basgall 1993, 2000; Delacorte 1999; Jones et al. 2003). This reflects a pattern of wide-ranging­ settlement along a north–south axis that traversed hundreds of kilometers (Delacorte 1997a). Thus, people living in southern Oregon during part of the year may have traveled south to the Honey Lake Basin or beyond at other times, with obsidian use defining the extent of these systems. X-ray fluorescence studies of fluted and stemmed projectile points from the northwestern and southwestern Great Basin show little overlap in source use (Figure 4.2), the dividing line between these systems falling somewhere in the vicinity of Pyramid Lake. Notably absent in both cases is appreciable evidence for east–west movement of either people or raw materials that clearly followed the mountainous north–south grain of the Great Basin landscape. A comparable situation has

Delacorte and Basgall

Figure 4.1. Study area in relation to Great Basin/Intermountain cultural area.

been reported for the central Great Basin, where early Holocene foragers had similarly expansive, north–south territories, with little material conveyed from east to west (Jones et al. 2003). These data suggest little early Holocene interaction among Great Basin people, let alone outside folk. While this might be true if regional populations and environments were sufficiently stable and self-sustaining, it seems unlikely on other grounds. Similarities in projectile points and other artifacts (e.g., crescents, domed s­ crapers, etc.) indicate regular contact within and beyond the Great Basin. Indeed, Great Basin researchers have little difficulty recognizing early Holocene remains wherever they are found. Virtually identical assemblages occur in the California San Joaquin and Butte valleys, Borax Lake, Mojave Desert, and adjacent portions of northern Mexico and the Baja peninsula (Fredrickson 1973; Harrington 1948; Jensen and Farber 1982; Meighan and Haynes 1968, 1970; Riddell and Olsen 1969). Two sites on the western slope of the Sierra Ne-

vada, Clarks Flat (CA-CAL-S342) and Skyrocket (CA-CAL-629/630), exemplify these ­similarities (Bieling et al. 1996; Moratto 1999; Peak and Crew 1990). Early Holocene components at both locations are dominated by large stemmed projectile points with affinities to the Lake Mohave and Silver Lake types of the Great Basin. Ground stone occurs in each deposit but becomes more prevalent in later contexts postdating ca. 7800  bp, where it is associated with Pinto-like point forms ascribed to the Stanislaus Stemmed series. Toolstone profiles are dominated by local raw materials, with a limited occurrence of western Great Basin obsidian. Similar finds are common throughout the southern Plateau (e.g., Ames et al. 1998; C ­ onnolly 1995; Leonhardy and Rice 1970) and east to the western Plains (Frison 1978, 2001), where they have been given various names. Differences in the proportions of specific tool categories hint at some variation in subsistence and technological organization, but on the whole, the similarity be66

Great Basin–California/Plateau Interactions Along the Western Front

Figure 4.2. Early Holocene obsidian sources (BS/PP/FM = Bordwell Spring/Pinto Peak/Fox Mountain).

tween assemblages is striking, and any variability is closely correlated to the distance separating localities. This is to be expected were adjacent groups in regular contact, such that information, mates, and occasional artifacts moved between systems. Direct evidence for early Holocene contact between western Great Basin and surrounding populations is more limited. Interactions to the east are indicated by traces of northwestern Great Basin obsidian at the Mule Canyon and ­Knudsen sites (Dugas et  al. 1994) but are not especially striking when compared with the conveyance of glass from areas to the north and south (Jones et al. 2003). The same is true for interactions between the western Great Basin and California. These include a substantial quantity of Medicine Lake Highlands obsidian at CA-SIS-342 in Butte Valley, California (Jensen and Farber 1982), and a single piece of Borax Lake obsidian from the

Honey Lake Basin (Milliken and Hildebrandt 1997). Looking south, Garfinkel et al. (2008) report X-ray fluorescence results on both fluted and stemmed points from Tulare Lake in the southern San Joaquin Valley. Most (91 percent) of the fluted specimens derive from sources in the Inyo-Mono region (Coso, Casa Diablo, ­Truman/​ Queen, Mono Glass Mountain, Mt. Hicks), and just one is attributed to the North Coast Ranges (Napa Valley). This distribution highlights regular interaction between the western Great Basin and California but implies limited north–south articulation within the latter area. Shell beads from the southwestern Great Basin and Mojave Desert show comparable temporal and geographic trends. Early Olivella spire-lopped beads from the southern California coast date consistently between 11,700 and 8000 cal bp (Basgall and Hall 1994; Basgall and Pierce 2005; F ­ itzgerald 67

Delacorte and Basgall

et  al. 2005; Schroth 1994). This corresponds to King’s (1990) first pulse in bead production along the Santa Barbara coast during the Ex period (ca. 8900–7400 cal bp). Interior bead occurrences become rare after this interval before showing a strong resurgence in the late prehistoric period (see below). While comparable patterns are inferred for the northern Great Basin, most spirelopped beads date later, and only Fort Rock Basin has yielded direct radiometric dates in excess of 8600 cal bp (Jenkins et al. 2004); these are thought to derive from more northern coastal areas. To the north and south, then, evidence suggests that early Holocene systems were reasonably well bounded, with few materials from the southwestern Great Basin conveyed north of Pyramid Lake and little material from sources north of Massacre Lake/Guano Valley penetrating south (Delacorte 1997b; Hildebrandt and King 2002). Caution is, however, necessary when interpreting these data, as the distribution of obsidian sources, organic remains, and archaeological sites is uneven. This may produce an impression of “boundaries” or lack of interaction between areas that is an artifact of sampling rather than behavioral reality. The wide-ranging movement, similarity in artifacts and technological organization, and conveyance of at least some toolstone and ­marine shell beads suggest occasional contact between early Holocene groups, including those on either side of the Sierra Nevada/Cascade c­ ordillera. That the scale of interaction appears of compa­rable magnitude between adjacent areas within and beyond the Great Basin suggests little distinction between the two. Thus, groups making use of the Honey Lake Basin may have interacted as much with people in the northern Sacramento Valley as those residing in central Nevada. Under these conditions, the distinction between the Great Basin and other parts of the arid west has probably little meaning, insofar as all supported fundamentally similar early Holocene cultural patterns.

others (Delacorte 1997b; Hildebrandt and King 2002; McGuire 2007) indicates that populations were logistically or seasonally mobile, with the ­presence of substantial, semisubterranean house structures connoting prolonged occupations during part of the year (O’Connell 1975; O’Connell and Hayward 1972). Of greater significance is the tightly bounded distribution of Northern Sidenotched points. These are rarely recovered south of the Humboldt River or west of a line extending from the Klamath Lake Basin to the Humboldt drainage (Figure 4.3; Table 4.1). Areas to the south do occasionally produce large, sidenotched dart points, but these are stylistically different forms and have a markedly sporadic occurrence (Basgall et al. 1995; Delacorte 1999). This presents a marked contrast to early Holocene and later projectile points that are of wider distribution across the Great Basin. Much the same is indicated by the obsidian used to fashion Northern Side-notched points, which derives from exclusively local quarries (Figure 4.4). Although various factors might produce such bounded artifact distributions, their existence is in this instance most easily explained by a linguistic or similarly pronounced cultural b ­ oundary. Archaeological samples on either side of the distribution line are of comparable size and composition, and lacking prominent physiographic barriers it is hard to imagine that anything but a cultural boundary could produce this pattern. Whether language or other cultural phenomena were responsible cannot be determined, though projectile point styles break more frequently along linguistic than other cultural or physiographic divisions. This can be seen in the Terminal Prehistoric/ethnographic distribution of various projectile points. Desert Side-notched forms, for example, were restricted to Numic-speaking areas of the Great Basin (see below) and adjacent portions of California inhabited by either Numic speakers (Monache) or language families with members on either side of the Sierra Nevada (i.e., Washoe and Maidu). Cottonwood points were likewise employed by both Great Basin and Yuman-speaking peoples of southern California, while Gunther series points were restricted primarily to Penutian-speaking areas east of the Sierra/Cascade cordillera in northern California and southern Oregon. Language had, no

Post-Mazama Period (7800–5700 cal bp) A markedly different pattern emerges ­during the post-Mazama period in the northwestern Great Basin with the appearance of N ­ orthern Side-notched points between 7800 and 5700 cal bp. Obsidian sourcing by Hughes (1986) and 68

Figure 4.3. Relative abundance (index value) of Northern Side-notched projectile points. (See Table 4.1.)

Figure 4.4. Obsidian sources for Northern Side-notched projectile points (BS/PP/FM = Bordwell Spring/Pinto Peak/Fox Mountain).

Delacorte and Basgall Table 4.1. Northern Great Basin

Site/Locality

Sites/Localities with and without Northern/Large Side-Notched Points.

Northern/Large Side-Notched Points

Other Dart-Sized Points

Index

Reference(s)

Areas with Side-notched points Danger Cave

62

297

17.3

Aikens 1970; Jennings 1957

Hogup Cave

43

128

25.2

Aikens 1970

180

161

52.8

Dalley 1976

Modoc Plateau sites

22

178

11.0

Hildebrandt and Mikkelsen 1997

Madeline Plains

25

175

12.5

Delacorte 1997a

Nightfire Island

76

652

10.4

Sampson 1985

Surprise Valley Survey

33

56

37.1

O’Connell 1971

Salts Cave Locality

11

71

13.4

Mack 1983

7

5

58.3

Aikens et al. 1977; Hanes 1977

Roaring Springs Cave

30

140

17.6

Cressman et al. 1940

Coyote Flat Survey

61

545

10.1

Butler 1970

9

64

12.3

Elston and Raven 1992

Black Rock Desert Survey

43

135

24.2

Clewlow 1968

Deer Creek Cave

23

94

19.7

Shutler and Shutler 1963

Freightor’s Defeat

39

66

37.1

Thomas, unpublished data

Hanging Rock Shelter

11

66

14.3

Layton 1970

Malheur Lake Survey

37

166

18.2

Oetting 1992

Massacre Lake Survey

11

40

21.6

Leach 1988

South Fork Valley

4

53

7.0

Delacorte 1997a

Secret Valley

9

217

4.0

McGuire 1997a

Honey Lake Basin

6

113

5.0

Milliken and Hildebrandt 1997

Lake Britton

0

189

0.0

Cleland 1995

James Creek Shelter

0

25

0.0

Elston and Budy 1990

Butte Valley

1

58

1.7

Beck and Jones 1990

Falcon Hill Cave

0

38

0.0

Hattori 1982

Cortez Survey

1

73

1.4

Delacorte et al. 1992

Hidden Cave

0

59

0.0

Thomas 1985

Sacramento River Canyon

0

914

0.0

Basgall and Hildebrandt 1989

South Fork Shelter

2

59

3.3

Heizer et al. 1968

Humboldt Lakebed

4

323

1.5

Heizer and Clewlow 1968

Lovelock Cave

0

43

0.0

Clewlow 1968

Swallow Shelter

Dirty Shame Rockshelter

Tosawihi

Areas “without” Side-notched points

Source: After Delacorte 1997a. Index = % Northern/Large Side-notched Points of Total Dart-sized Points.

doubt, broader significance with respect to marriage networks, resource access, and other interactions, but these are beyond our reach and the present scope of discussion, the delineation of boundaries being sufficient to our purpose here. These data suggest that post-Mazama occu­ pation of the northwestern Great Basin reflects a southern expansion of Plateau or similarly adapted people (Layton 1985; O’Connell 1975).

This may include terminal Cascade (7800–7300 cal  bp) and later Plateau materials, Early Archaic (8000–5700 cal bp) remains of the western Plains, and so-called Middle period (8900–4500 cal bp) occupations of the Canadian grasslands (Ames et al. 1998; Frison 1978, 2001). All share characteristically large, side-notched points with distinctively broad bases; deeply intrusive, often comma-shaped notches; and diamond-shaped 70

Great Basin–California/Plateau Interactions Along the Western Front

ears. Frequently occurring with these are a­ ntler wedges, semisubterranean house structures with interior supports, and bison, elk, and antelope bone. The presence of bison and elk is particularly interesting as their occurrence in certain Great Basin localities appears unique to this interval. Evidence suggests that this was a period of pronounced climatic/environmental change over much of the Great Basin and adjacent Plateau. This includes the 7630 cal bp eruption of Mt. Mazama, which may have temporarily impacted vegetation to the south and east (Blinman et al. 1979; Thorarinsson 1979), and a more prolonged period of climatically varied but generally drier conditions (Mehringer 1985; West 1997; Wigand 1987). Either or both of these may have contributed to shifts in the distribution of wide-ranging vertebrates such as bison and elk (Grayson 1979) and people adapted to hunting them. In fact, occupations of this age are notoriously scarce to the south over most of the western and central Great Basin, where marker artifacts have yet to be definitively identified. This has contributed to the still widely accepted notion of an A ­ ltithermal hiatus or reduced occupation of many areas (­Antevs 1948; Baumhoff and Heizer 1965; Cressman 1986; Grayson 1993), albeit a gap that is partially filled in some areas by appropriately ancient obsidian hydration readings (Basgall 2008; Delacorte 1997a; McGuire 2000; Waechter 1997). In short, post-Mazama occupations of the northwestern Great Basin bear a greater affinity to archaeological remains from the broad band of sagebrush/grassland stretching from the eastern Cascade Range across the Snake River Plain to Yellowstone and beyond than to the Basin and Range province south of the Humboldt River, where bison hunting and Northern Side-notched points are virtually unknown. In this respect, the cultural Great Basin may have been appreciably smaller in post-Mazama times (Figure 4.5), with its northern limit closer to the modern distribution of pinyon than the Oregon border. Evidence for extraregional interactions in the Great Basin at this time is extremely ­limited and often suspect. It includes a few spire-lopped Olivella beads from Leonard Rockshelter and a handful of abalone ornaments from the Karlo site. These may indicate sporadic contact with people

to the west (Bennyhoff and Hughes 1987) but most probably postdate this interval. In fact, evidence from Nightfire Island indicates that postMazama inhabitants of the site made little use of marine shell ornaments (Sampson 1985). Obsidian acquisition and use indicate similarly limited outside contact, with 60 to 80 percent of the glass in post-Mazama samples deriving from one or a few local quarries, and the balance, from other nearby sources (Figure 4.4). This differs from the more equitable, often far-flung source profiles characterizing earlier and later a­ ssemblages produced by more mobile populations with greater opportunity for outside contact. Indeed, similarly restricted toolstone use does not appear again until the very end of the prehistoric sequence, when residentially tethered populations established seemingly regular contact with outside groups. In sum, there is little to indicate significant movement of people or raw materials during the post-Mazama era, when populations of what would become the northwestern Great Basin were more closely aligned with areas to the north and east (Plateau) than the south and west (Great Basin).

Early/Middle Archaic Period (5700–1200 cal bp) Early and Middle Archaic occupations, distinguished by Gatecliff, Humboldt, and Elko series projectile points, show greater interaction between western Great Basin and adjacent areas than preceding periods. Both raw materials and finished artifacts are now conveyed across physiographic and social boundaries, the latter of which were either lacking or less permeable in the past. This coincides with the appearance of essentially pan–Great Basin projectile point styles that differ from those in surrounding regions. For example, Early Archaic split-stem points of the Gatecliff series (Thomas 1981; cf. Bare Creek, Silent Snake Springs, Little Lake types) are rarely encountered west of the Sierra Nevada crest, where they are replaced by various stemmed, leaf-shaped, and corner-notched forms (Hull 2007; Kowta 1988; Moratto 1984, 1999; Ragir 1972; Rosenthal 2002). In fact, the frequency of Gatecliff Split-stem compared with other dart-size points at Early/Middle Archaic sites along the edge of our area provides compelling evidence for the existence of a 71

Delacorte and Basgall

Figure 4.5. Post-Mazama cultural boundary in the Great Basin/intermountain region.

s­ tylistic-​cum-social boundary that approximates the physiographic and ethnohistoric Great Basin as typically defined (Figure 4.6; Table 4.2). This includes most of the area south and east of the Pit River but not the Modoc Plateau and externally draining basins to the northwest. Much of the arid area lying immediately east of the Sierra Nevada/Cascade front was apparently outside the cultural Great Basin by Early Archaic times. Although the social significance of this boundary cannot be determined, the projectile points are sufficiently distinct to assume that separate populations were involved. Early/Middle Archaic groundstone milling equipment, textiles, and wickiup-style shelters are of similarly uniform Great Basin distribution

and appreciably different from those in areas just to the north and west. Hopper and other types of mortars, though present along the western edge of the Great Basin, are of substantially greater abundance and obvious importance as one approaches the Sierra Nevada/Cascade cordillera and beyond. The same is true for semisubterranean pithouses built with log frames and/or interior supports, distribution of which is now confined to areas north and west of the Great Basin. Although more complex, textiles point to the presence of some uniquely Great Basin forms (e.g., Lovelock Wickerware and possibly certain coiled baskets), along with other more widely distributed techniques (e.g., twining) that extend into California (Adovasio 1970, 1986a, 1986b; 72

Figure 4.6. Relative abundance (index value) of Gatecliff series projectile points. (See Table 4.2.) Table 4.2. Northern Great Basin

Site/Locality

Sites/Localities with and without Gatecliff Points.

Gatecliff Points

Other Dart-Sized Points

Index a

Paulina Marsh

8

71

10.1

Nightfire Island

5

209

2.3

Modoc Plateau

Reference(s)

Jenkins and Aikens 1994 Hughes 1986

3

116

2.5

Silent Snake Spring

27

23

54.0

Layton and Thomas 1979

Delacorte 1997b

Surprise Valley

88

594

12.9

O’Connell and Inoway 1994

Black Rock Desert

75

168

30.8

Clewlow 1968

Pit River Uplands

3

59

4.8

Rosenthal 2000a

South Fork Valley

2

36

5.3

Delacorte 1997b

Madeline Plains

17

293

5.5

Rosenthal 2000b

Secret Valley

22

219

9.1

McGuire 2000

Honey Lake

McGuire 2000

14

171

7.6

Ft. Sage Uplands

3

8

27.3

Pendleton and Thomas 1983

Spanish Springs Valley

8

41

16.3

Delacorte 1997b

a

Index = % Gatecliff points of total dart-sized points.

Delacorte and Basgall

Baumhoff 1957a; Hattori 1982; Payen 1970). This suggests the presence of not only some cultural differentiation but also some contact or exchange of ideas across this social divide. Much the same is implied by the small but intriguing sample of spear-throwers from dry caves of especially the Lahontan Basin and areas to the north. All of these weapons are of either “male” or “mixed” types (sensu Krause 1902), with several of the Lahontan Basin specimens having a unique contoured handle design (Mildner 1974). This unusual feature reappears on an atlatl from Potter Creek Cave, Shasta County, California, that is in other respects substantially different from any of the Great Basin pieces (Mildner 1974; Payen 1970). Indeed, most of the Early/Middle Archaic period spear-throwers in California are either elk bone throwing boards or composite atlatl spurs (Riddell and McGeein 1969) that are lacking (bone throwing boards) or of limited Great Basin occurrence (spurs) in areas immediately bordering California (Mildner 1974). Here again, the material culture points to a pronounced distinction between Great Basin and California populations, though certain technological traits were shared between the two. In short, there seems little doubt that the Early/Middle Archaic period saw the establishment of social boundaries between the western Great Basin and adjacent cultural provinces to the north and west — ​boundaries that changed little after this time but were readily crossed as material and other interactions required (Davis 1961; Davis 1965; Steward 1933). Despite some variability in Early and Middle Archaic land use across the Lahontan Basin, archaeological samples are of woefully uneven distribution and quality, which probably masks much of anthropological interest. Generalizing for the region as a whole, Early/Middle Archaic land-use patterns seem to have mirrored those from more extensively studied areas to the south. This included seasonally wide-ranging, logistically well-organized populations that traveled sometimes hundreds of kilometers, over a presumably annual cycle, between a series of widely separated settlements arrayed along north- to south-trending valley or drainage systems (Basgall 1989; Bettinger 1999; Delacorte 1990, 1997c, 1999). Evidence for this can be seen in the use and

embedded resupply of obsidian from numerous far-flung sources (Figure 4.7). As long observed (Basgall 1989), obsidian and other toolstone were conveyed farthest from their sources in the form of projectile points and thence less and less extensively curated tools, i.e., bifaces, flake-based implements, and finally, debitage. Indeed, the patterned replacement of first expedient and later curated implements with increasing distance from quarries demonstrates that most lithic material was obtained in an embedded fashion, not via exchange or logistical procurement (Basgall 1989; Delacorte 1999; Delacorte and McGuire 1993; Delacorte et  al. 1995). That minimally two systems of ­comparable scale and organization existed north and south of roughly the Walker River is indicated by the distribution of specific obsidian and other toolstone sources that lack appreciable overlap. Thus, most Bodie Hills and Mt. Hicks obsidian and ­Sierra Nevada basalt was carried north, while ­Truman/​Queen, Casa Diablo, and Mono glass was c­ arried south (Figure 4.8). At the ­opposite end of these systems were additional ­obsidian sources that furnished glass to, respectively, south-bound (Buck Mountain, South ­Warners, Bordwell Spring) and northbound (Coso) parties. Geochemical sourcing of regional obsidian samples indicates that material from either end of these systems reached roughly the midpoint of the circuit, where northern tool kits could be resupplied with chert and ­Sierran basalt in the vicinity of the Truckee Meadows and southern tool inventories restocked with Fish Springs obsidian from the central Owens Valley (Figure 4.8). As before, material from all of these sources traveled f­arthest as extensively curated projectile points and less distantly as bifaces, flake-based implements, and last, debitage, unless one includes pressure-​retouch­flakes removed during the refurbishment of transported points and bifaces (Eerkens et al. 2007; Eerkens et al. 2008). These toolstone production patterns have been interpreted by some as evidence for extensive extraregional exchange (Gilreath and Hildebrandt 1997; Singer and Ericson 1977), but their organization is more in keeping with local technological needs and only specialized inter­ actions with outside people (Basgall 1989; Basgall and Delacorte 2003; Bettinger 1999; Delacorte 74

Great Basin–California/Plateau Interactions Along the Western Front

Figure 4.7. Obsidian sources of Early and Middle Archaic projectile points (BS/PP/FM = Bordwell Spring/Pinto Peak/Fox Mountain).

1999; Delacorte and McGuire 1993; Delacorte et al. 1995). It is well documented that obsidian production peaked at major western Great Basin ­quarries between 2200 and 1100 cal bp (Bouey and Basgall 1984; Gilreath and Hildebrandt 1997; Hall 1983), with glass from Bodie Hills, Casa Diablo, and Coso regularly moving across the Sierra Nevada into the Central Valley at this time. We have argued in other contexts that obsidian in cismontane California may have been obtained via direct access by California populations (Bouey and Basgall 1984), reaching its zenith during the Middle period cultural florescence of central California (Moratto 1984; Moratto et al. 1978). ­Linguistic evidence suggests that this interval may correspond with the spread of Miwokan and Yokutsan speakers into higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada, marked by more intensive and prolonged occupation of upland areas. In certain respects, then, Early/Middle Ar-

chaic land-use patterns resemble those of the early Holocene, though they were more regular­ ized and less expansive (Delacorte 1999). But while intergroup contact in the early Holocene appears of sporadic and certainly limited nature, the wide-ranging Early/Middle Archaic pattern was accompanied by previously unprecedented levels of interaction with groups west of the Sierran Crest. This can be seen in the markedly greater occurrence of marine shell beads and ornaments (Bennyhoff and Hughes 1987; Hughes and Bennyhoff 1986), as well as other California imports. The latter include artifacts such as charmstones, turtle shell pendants, incised bone tubes and whistles, perforated bear claws, slate rods, and perhaps other, less distinctive items (Hattori 1982; Loud and Harrington 1929; McGuire 1997a; Riddell 1960; Thomas 1985). That these artifacts have been recovered at numerous sites throughout the Lahontan Basin and must, in some cases, have originated in the foothills 75

Delacorte and Basgall

Figure 4.8. Early and Middle Archaic settlement systems (BS/PP/FM = Bordwell Spring/Pinto Peak/Fox Mountain).

or Central Valley of California (e.g., pond turtle pendants) speaks to regular interactions between peoples who possessed otherwise disparate material cultures. Material of Great Basin origin that found its way across the Sierra Nevada is restricted primarily to obsidian from the Bodie Hills, Casa Diablo, and Coso quarries, with little evidence for the trans-Sierran movement of more northern glass. This suggests that most material was conveyed along major river drainages and corresponding passes (e.g., Stanislaus, Mokelumne, Cosumnes, and American rivers and Sonora, Ebbetts, and Carson passes) that afforded the ­easiest route across the Sierran massif. Sierran basalt from various quarries between the Truckee and Feather River drainages (e.g., Watson Creek,

Steamboat Hills, Alder Hill, Gold Lake, Siegfried Canyon) may have provided another commodity conveyed by Great Basin inhabitants into California proper (Waechter 2002), but compelling evidence for this has yet to emerge. Toolstone from these Sierran quarries has been identified at various Central Valley and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta sites of Early/Middle Archaic age, but how it was obtained is open to debate. Recent work along the Lower Feather River of the northern Sacramento Valley indicates that Gold Lake basalt was locally worked as both river cobbles and imported quarry blanks (Delacorte and Basgall 2009). While the latter might have been obtained through exchange with Great Basin people, the former are of certainly local origin. Thus, either fluvial transport or direct acquisition by Califor76

Great Basin–California/Plateau Interactions Along the Western Front

Late Archaic/Terminal Prehistoric (1200 cal bp–Contact) Late Archaic/Terminal Prehistoric occupations, marked by the introduction of small ­corner-​ notched, contracting-stem, and later (post–600 cal bp) Desert series arrow points, provide evidence for numerous changes in both the intensity and types of interactions between Great Basin and adjacent populations. Cultural boundaries, however, seem to have remained largely unchanged. Projectile points indicate a reasonably sharp distinction between Great Basin and adjacent cultural provinces. Small contracting-stem points of northern California/southern Plateau affinity (cf. Gunther) are increasingly abundant and rapidly eclipse corner-notched arrow points of the Great Basin (cf. Rosegate) north and west of the Pit River, though they are exceedingly scarce south and east of this line. This provides a reasonable approximation for the Late Archaic cultural boundary of the northwestern Great Basin, which included all of the Lahontan watershed up to the eastern foothills of the southern Cascade Range. Groups occupying some or all of this area may have changed on one or more occasions during the late prehistoric interval, but on b ­ alance, the distinction between northwestern Great Basin and adjacent California/Plateau cultures ­persists throughout the remainder of the sequence. ­California-​like features identified at Late A ­ rchaic sites along the northwestern edge of our area include lowland house structures with substantial wood supports (McGuire 1997b, 2002), greater use of bowl and other mortar technology, cairn burials with often abundant grave goods (McGuire 1997b; Riddell 1960), twined basketry with two-face overlay (Polanich 1997), and significant use/occurrence of domestic dogs (Livingston 1997). Although some of these traits may be attributed to local environmental conditions (house structures) and/or borrowing from adjacent California groups (mortar technology, basketry), the difference in burial practices and abundance of dogs connote markedly different i­ deological and economic circumstances than seen in much of the Great Basin. Dog remains, including some interred with humans and/or by themselves, have been identified at several sites in the northern Lahontan Basin (see Dansie 1990; Dansie and

nia groups who made seasonal use of the Sierran highlands might as easily account for the presence of this material in California as exchange relations with Great Basin people. Early/Middle Archaic interactions between western Great Basin and California populations may have included periodic exchange between logistical parties from either side of the Sierran Crest or more specialized expeditions to acquire culturally charged or highly esteemed objects. Elsewhere, we have referred to this as “socially directed acquisition,” or the procurement of extralocal materials for primarily social, not economic, purposes. This arose in tandem with expanding population, economic intensification, and the establishment of social boundaries that contributed to growing differences in achieved status. Whether changes of this ilk were of comparable magnitude on either side of the Sierran divide is unclear, but probably similar processes were at work in both areas to create and sustain such interactions. It is likewise significant that many of the largest and most elaborate examples of Early/Middle Archaic material conveyance consist of burial or cache associations connoting seemingly exceptional individuals or conveyance events, as socially directed acquisition would predict. Great Basin examples of this would include several of the Karlo site (CA-LAS-7) interments (Riddell 1960), three of the Lovelock Cave (Ch-18) burials (Loud and Harrington 1929), and Burial 4 from the Rose Spring site (CA-INY-372), which contained 1,000 “thick disk” Haliotis beads (Lanning 1963). In fact, Hughes and Benny­ hoff (1986) note that burials from these sites account for 63 percent of all shell ornaments in their western Great Basin sample. In California, Early/Middle period remains of contemporaneous age that fall into this category include several of the Blossom Mound (CA-SJO-68) and other graves from the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta, where marine shell ornaments can number in the thousands along with points/blades made of imported obsidian (Heizer 1978; Moratto 1984; Ragir 1972). The significance of these interactions was of probably limited consequence to the broader evolution of northern California and western Great Basin cultures, trajectories likely driven more by population growth and changes in social organization. 77

Delacorte and Basgall

Figure 4.9. Obsidian sources for Late Archaic and Terminal Prehistoric projectile points (BS/PP/FM = Bordwell Spring/Pinto Peak/Fox Mountain).

Schmitt 1986) and much of northern California (Heizer and Hewes 1940; Moratto 1984) but rarely in other parts of the Great Basin (Lupo and Janetski 1994). The same appears to be true of Late Archaic cairn burials, which are widely reported in northern Sierra Nevada and California foothill contexts (Baumhoff 1957b; Baumhoff and Olmstead 1963; Kowta 1988; Moratto 1984; Olsen and Riddell 1963; Ritter 1968), with few locations appreciably east of the mountains. Differences of these sorts belie, however, the overwhelming similarity of material culture within the L ­ ahontan region and wider Great Basin when compared with California and the southern Plateau. Obsidian sources for late prehistoric arrow points indicate that most (80–90 percent) were manufactured of the nearest raw materials, the relative proportions of which reflect the proximity/accessibility of various source locations (Figure 4.9). This applies to areas both within and be-

yond the Great Basin, as evidenced by the shifting proportions of such regionally important sources as South Warners, Bordwell Spring, Buck Mountain, and Medicine Lake Highlands, the last of which was primarily exploited by people outside the Great Basin. Reliance on predominantly local toolstone implies that group mobility was sharply curtailed from that in Early/Middle Archaic times and that little local exchange was conducted between neighboring groups. All of this is in keeping with other evidence for late prehistoric population growth and resource intensification. This includes a significant expansion in the number and location of Late Archaic sites, greater use of small game (Carpenter 2002), expanded exploitation of seed and nut crops (Milliken and Hildebrandt 1997; Wohlgemuth 1997), and the inception of significant food storage, leading to a major reorganization of settlement patterns (Delacorte 2002). All of these 78

Great Basin–California/Plateau Interactions Along the Western Front

shifts have been documented on various levels throughout the Lahontan Basin and areas to the south (Basgall and Delacorte 2003; Bettinger 1999; Delacorte 1997c, 1999), providing an intuitively obvious context for the emergence of greater exchange between Great Basin and outside populations. Just the opposite, however, was long believed true, with the number of Late Archaic/Terminal Prehistoric marine shell beads and ornaments (n = 1,745) documented prior to 1987 ­appreciably lower than that reported for Early/Middle Archaic period sites (n = 3,675). Much the same was perceived to be true for the flow of western Great Basin obsidian into California, where its occurrence in sites declines significantly after 1275 cal bp. This coincides with a near-cessation of activity at western Great Basin obsidian quarries (Gilreath and Hildebrandt 1997; Hall 1983; Martinez 2009; Ramos 2000, 2008; Singer and Ericson 1977), although most of their production was for local use rather than long-distance exchange (Basgall 1989; Bettinger 1999; Bouey and Basgall 1984; Delacorte 1999; Delacorte and McGuire 1993; Gilreath and Hildebrandt 1997). Relying primarily on the bead data, Hughes and Bennyhoff (1986; see also Bennyhoff and Hughes 1987) proposed a decline in late prehistoric trade for the western Great Basin, with perhaps a minor resurgence between 1200 and 5o0 cal bp. Dependent as they were, however, on earlier excavations of primarily rockshelters, their sample is less than representative given the temporally narrow (Early/Middle Archaic) and functionally specialized (cache) nature of such sites. Recent excavations in the Inyo-Mono region disclose a previously undocumented surge in late prehistoric beads arriving from southern California. Most of these beads were recovered from house-floor and midden deposits and are a better reflection of past events than the information available to Bennyhoff and Hughes (1987). For the greater Owens Valley, composite shell bead counts increase only slightly from the Newberry (3000–1275 cal bp, n = 84, 3.33/100 years) to the Haiwee (1275–600 cal bp, n = 77, 11.4/100 years) period but explode during the Marana (600–150 cal bp, n = 558, 111.6/100 years) period interval, when there is a 10-fold increase in the movement of shell beads into the eastern Sierra.

That a similar trend occurred in the ­Lahontan Basin seems likely given the many parallels in the development of these areas. Support for this is provided by an unbiased sample of 138 beads from 41 sites along a linear transect through the Lahontan Basin (see Delacorte 1997b). It furnished 73 Late and only three Early/Middle Archaic beads, along with 62 temporally undiagnostic specimens from mostly Late Archaic deposits. Although many of the beads (n = 115) were recovered with a single Late Archaic burial, exclusion of these specimens leaves still four times the number of Late as Early/Middle Archaic beads. More than this, when Bennyhoff and Hughes’s (1987) previously compiled bead data are adjusted for the length of various temporal periods, the relative number of late prehistoric beads actually increases over that in the Early/Middle Archaic interval. This leaves little doubt that bead conveyance and probably other forms of Great Basin–California interaction increased substantially during the final millennium of the prehistoric sequence. This is clearly evident on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada along the Feather River drainage, where Great Basin obsidian and ­projectile point styles increase steadily after 1000 bp. Early/ Middle Archaic occupations show little connection to the Lahontan Basin, with obsidian acquired mostly from California North Coast Range sources (Figure 4.10) and projectile points looking nothing like their contemporaneous Great Basin counterparts. With the appearance of contracting-stem arrow points around 1275 cal bp is evidence, however, for a brief pulse of obsidian arriving from the Medicine Lake Highlands. This was followed by a short-lived influx of material from the Bodie Hills quarries around 900 cal bp, when Feather River projectile points retained their distinctly California, contractingstem configuration. But all of this changed in the closing centuries of the prehistoric era, when projectile point styles and raw materials from the Lahontan Basin entered northern California around the time of the Numic expansion. Both the regional abundance (Figure 4.11) and the radiocarbon dates for Desert Side-notched points in the western Great Basin (Table 4.3) provide compelling evidence that this point style was carried north and east from the vicinity of Owens 79

Figure 4.10. Temporal distribution of obsidian sources along the Feather River drainage.

Figure 4.11. Scattergram relating distance from Numic homeland to projectile point index in the western and central Great Basin.

Great Basin–California/Plateau Interactions Along the Western Front Table 4.3. Oldest Radiocarbon Dates for Western Great Basin Features Containing Two or More Desert Side-Notched Points.

Location/Site

Feature

Desert Cottonwood Side-Notched Triangular Rose Spring

Dart

Radiocarbon Date (bp)

Owens Valley Shooting Star

Structure 2

4

17

6

1

870 ± 50

CA-INY-30

Structure 13

4

4

—

—

710 ± 70

Midway

Structure 5

45

14

33

5

510 ± 50

Crooked Forks

Structure 2

304

178

133

15

490 ± 70

Crooked Forks

Structure 3

31

16

115

11

490 ± 100

12640

Structure 1

9

1

23

1

460 ± 50

Pinyon House

Structure 3

2

6

1

1

440 ± 80

CA-INY-3769

Locus 13

2

—

—

—

430 ± 40

Crater Middens

Structure 16

15

8

3

1

425 ± 100

Corral Camp South

Structure 5

14

10

12

—

361 ± 100

12640

Structure 2

4

1

2

—

361 ± 60

Rancho Deluxe

Structure 3

15

30

18

4

350 ± 60

Pressure Drop

Structure 2

2

1

—

—

290 ± 50

Midway

Structure 8

12

6

5

4

260 ± 50

Enfield

Structure 1

18

10

38

—