North American Archaeology

Archaic on the Great Plains and in the West

Perhaps the Archaic is easiest to follow on the Great Plains (western woodlands and the Plains proper)

• Site after site reveals a transition from the Plano Paleoindian tradition of the 9,000 - 7,000 BP span to the Archaic tools already evident in the eastern woodlands

Graham Cave (Missouri)

Basal layer of the cave is 9,700 - 8,000 BP, with fill above it an accumulation of earth, ash lenses, and living debris more than 7 feet deep

Basal level has Plano looking tools, with one Dalton point, with the dominant type a lanceolate form

Second level had lanceolate mixed with Archaic forms (but site was dug in one foot levels!)

• There were large lanceolate and triangular blades

Next levels had a typical Archaic assemblage

• Stemmed and deeply corner-notched points or blades
• Drills
• Ovoid and thumbnail scrapers, flake scrapers
• Grooved axes, milling stones, nut stones
• Shell pendant, perforated wolf canine pendant
• Bone awl, needles, spatulas, antler flakers, wrenches

The Grove Tradition in eastern Oklahoma can be correlated with Missouri sites with both Middle and Late Archaic

• Some sites had over 12 feet of accumulation.
• No site large in horizontal extent, but depth shows continuity and reuse

Artifact inventory is again a range of materials:

• large corner and side notched points with contracting, parallel, or expanding  stem blades, some with serrated or beveled edges.
• side and end scrapers
• drills, choppers
• grooved axes
• slab milling stones, manos, mortars/pestles indicate plant use
• by Late Archaic levels, many bone tools added to the inventory including awls, flaking tools, shell objects

McKean

Most fully reported Plains complex

• General area is around the Belle Fourche River in Wyoming and South Dakota --  the Black Hills
• Obvious connections to other  western Plains sites: Pictograph Cave,  Signal Butte, Ash Hollow Cave, and Birdhead Cave in Nebraska and Montana, and several sites in Utah. Now recognized in Canadian prairie provinces, but younger than the type site

McKean points are relatively sort - 2-3 inches long with base and stem incurving gracefully from a wider midsection. Carefully pressure flaked, usually with a deep concave base

• Other similar types, Duncan and Hanna points also occur, with Duncan having indented bases and side notches
• Most points are generally better made than eastern Archaic --a carryover from skillful Plano points?

Other artifacts:

• Snubnosed end scrapers, spokeshave scrapers, range of irregular blade scrapers
• Manos/milling stones present
• Evidence of yucca fiber use in scrapers and in processing pits
• No bone tools, but bone beads found
• Food bones indicate bison and deer the favored food.

The depth of the type site on the Keyhole Reservoir in Wyoming is variable, 1-3 feet below the surface

34 hearths were present in the lower levels

• most irregular lense of discolored sand and charcoal
• others were small shallow basins, sand lined with small slabs of stone, reddened from continual use

Two cache pits and one human skull in lower level

Mummy Cave, Northwestern Wyoming

Sequence proceeds from Paleoindian through Archaic

Site on Blackwater Creek, a Shoshone River tributary, just east of Yellowstone

A dry cave with cultural and natural fill more than 25 feet deep

C14 dates range from 9,250 BP to 1580 AD

Points are similar other Plains Archaic

Unique  element is the preservation of coiled basketry, cordage and netting, leather scrap at the 4,420 BP level

Also of interest is the similarity of assemblage to both the Plains and the Great Basin

Western Archaic

The environmental setting in the west is substantially different from the East or Plains, both of them game-rich

Archaeologically for the Archaic it is better understood, in part due to good preservation and in part due to the fact there is not much else to study except for the cultures of the southwest

Climatic fluctuations were notorious

• from 7,000 to 4,500 BP the region was hotter and drier than today
• populations were reduced but area remained occupied
• by 4,500, climate again like modern climate, with minor fluctuations, with tendency toward drier
• climate, of course, controls availability of food

But generalities are still difficult, so best way to understand it is at the local or site level

Three cultural "provinces" : Great Basin, Columbia Plateau, California

Great Basin

Best understood and most studied

Environment

• Elevation variation is marked with many valleys, small mountain ranges
  Climate is characterized by low moisture and wide temperature extremes
  Valley vegetation is mostly sagebrush and grasses
• Abundance of plants varies in response to local moisture
• Faunal populations vary with the vegetation
• Small mammals dominant -- rodents, rabbits
• Antelopes and mountain sheep with some predators

Steep flanks of the hills are covered with piņon and and juniper with mixed grasses

Higher elevations have deer and bighorn sheep

Seasonal cycle of exploitation the key

Resources were sparse and scattered, but subsistence not quite a day-to-day, hand-to-mouth existence

Basic cultural adaptation:

• intensive exploitation of selected species
• small seed harvesting and special cooking of mushes and cakes
• fur cloth woven sandals (sometimes hide moccasins)
• atlatl and darts
• wide variety of small projectile points-a fair uniformity of point types
• large and small knives
• flat or basined millstones and cobble manos
• crude tools called pulpers
• choppers/scrapers
• wooden clubs
• tubular pipes or sucking tubes
• twined basketry technique with coiling added
• shells traded from California
• a range of wooden tools including fire drills, digging sticks

Show Harney Valley Paiute Seasonal Round Diagram

Lots of interesting sites

Series of Utah caves

Danger Cave

A wide mouthed grotto on the western edge of the Great Salt Desert
--overlooked spring fed bogs

Intermittent use from 10,300 BP until recent times with historic Paiute

Cultural accumulations reached 13 feet in depth, representing six major usage periods

Yielded many artifacts and food bones and there was an increase in artifact types and number from earliest to latest levels -- also changes in artifact types or approaches

Basketry-shift in technique from 100% twining at 9,700 BP to 15% twining/85% coiling by 4,000 BP

Hemp used for cordage shifted to to greasewood bark

Early preference for small to medium, triangular, stemmed and notched points gives way to larger lanceolate or pear shaped points in later layers

Danger cave produced more than 1000 milling stones and fragments, 200 chipped stone pieces, hundreds of manos, over 100 pieces of basketry, a piece of coarse cloth resembling canvas, leather, netting, horn, bone  wood and shell artifacts.

Obviously, the cave was an actual living surface --many worn-out tools, weapons, utensils
Hundreds of worn out "quids"  of chewed fibrous vegetal material, mostly stems of desert bullrush, probably chewed for juice, food or flavor or to separate fiber.

Hogup Cave

Near Danger Cave, artifact assemblage was similar, but there were surprises

Bootlike moccasins, tiny horned feather and fiber fetishes, several engraved stones, twenty perforated highly  polished elk teeth as part of necklace

Humboldt Cave

Again, similar general structure, but interesting features included a shaman's kit in the site many cache pits, plus many reed duck decoys, sickles or grass cutters for harvesting seed plants

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larry-zimmerman@uiowa.edu
University of Iowa Anthropology
08.20.98