Jack L. Hofman

Shifting Sands: a Folsom-Midland Assemblage from a Campsite in Western Texas

The Shifting Sands Site is located in a series of 5-8 m deep blowouts in the Monahans Dune System of Western Texas. The blowouts reveal a geomorphic sequence of Pleistocene lacustrine deposits over...

Seasonality of the Scottsbluff and Lipscomb Bison Bonebeds: Implications for Modeling Paleoindian Subsistence

Central Andes of Peru. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Simms, S. R. 1988 The Archaeological Structure of A Bedouin Camp. Journal of Archaeological Science 15:197-211. 1989 The Structure of the Bustos Wickiup Site, Eastern Nevada. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 11:2-34. 1990 Fremont Transitions. Utah Archaeology 3, in press. Yellen, J. E. 1977 Archaeological Approaches to the Present: Models For Reconstructing the Past. Academic Press, New York. Zeier, C. D. 1986 Site Structure. In The Archaeology of the Vista Site 26 WA3017, edited by C. D. Zeier and R. G. Elston, pp. 341-356. Intermountain Research. Submitted to Nevada Department of Transportation, Contract No. P51-84-013. Copies available from Nevada Department of Transportation, Carson City.

Identification of Central Texas Edwards Chert at the Folsom and Lindenmeier Sites

AbstractStudy of artifacts from the Folsom and Lindenmeier sites in the Denver Museum collection has documented the occurrence of Edwards chert from central Texas in both assemblages. The specimens...

Vertical Movement of Artifacts in Alluvial and Stratified Deposits

by JACK L. HOFMAN Oklahoma Archaeological Survey, 1808 Newton Drive, Rm. 116, Norman, Okla. 73019, U.S.A. 15 Ix 85 Definition of buried occupation surfaces and contextual interpretation of materials in alluvial and other stratified eposits are recurrent archaeological problems. Because of the central importance of these problems, we must employ as many methodological and technical aids as practical in the evaluation and definition of the assemblages we use in behavioral studies of the past. Historically, concern for evaluating the integrity of artifact samples in alluvium has focused on the problem of horizontal displacement (Butzer 1971:230-31; Cornwall 1958:23-24; Hanson 1980; Isaac 1967; Shackley 1974, 1978; Wymer 1976), and in stratified eposits there has been a general lack of concern for the evaluation of vertical postdepositional movement. There is, however, increasing evidence that vertical movement of buried particles, including artifacts, within and between stratigraphic units not only is common but in some sites may be pervasive. This report documents the results of one small study with implications for the interpretation of stratified alluvial sites in many regions and further demonstrates the utility of refitting as an aid in the resolution of contextual problems in archaeological analyses (Cahen 1976; Cahen and Moeyersons 1977; Bunn et al. 1980; Myers 1958; Van Noten 1978; Villa 1982, 1983). The background and analytical approach to the study of the Cave Spring site have been presented previously (Brakenridge and Hofman 1983; Hofman 1981a, b, 1983, 1984a; Hofman and Brakenridge 1982a, b; Turner, Hofman, and Brakenridge 1982). The results of these investigations are not, however, widely available and have not been placed in the context of alluvial site studies in general or stratified site investigations in particular. The results summarized here are pertinent o most sites in alluvial settings and to interpretations of open-air stratified eposits. The Cave Spring site was recognized as a concentration of lithic tools and debris on the Holocene Ti and Pleistocene T2 terraces of the Duck River in the Nashville Basin of middle Tennessee. Cultural deposits on the T2 terrace were restricted to the plowzone, but backhoe trenches revealed buried cultural material in the stratified Holocene Ti terrace. Chipped-stone artifacts, river gravel, and charred botanical remains were found scattered throughout a buried paleosol dated to between 6,500 and 7,300 radiocarbon years before present (Hofman 1982). Details of this stratigraphy have been presented elsewhere, and the analysis of the assemblage, river gravel, and botanical remains are not the primary concern of this report (see Amick 1984; Brakenridge 1982, 1984; Hofman 1984a, b). The key concern here is to disseminate conclusions about the postdepositional vertical movement of chipped-stone items throughout he buried paleosol and into adjacent sediments. The importance of these findings is in their implications for the definition of buried living floors or occupational surfaces and for assemblage definition and analysis. The vertical scatter of artifacts and other material in the backhoe trench profile is shown in figure 1. Mapping and study of this profile did not facilitate a direct interpretation of the number of depositional surfaces present or of the integrity of the materials. Therefore, a closely controlled manual excavation, consisting of two 2 x 3-m areas, was made in an attempt to evaluate the integrity of the deposit and its potential for use in behavioral studies of past activities. We needed to determine if the materials were in primary context or redeposited and how many depositional surfaces were present before designing and proceeding with further analysis. The basic approach was three-dimensionally plotting all items larger than 1 cm as encountered in the excavation and attempting to refit he materials recovered. Maps of refitted sets were then compared with histograms howing the vertical distributions of all gravel and chipped-stone items. All graphs showing the vertical density distribution of gravel and chipped stone, as recovered by levels extending through the buried paleosol, form highly peaked unimodal curves. Such leptokurtic distributions suggest that there was one primary depositional surface either (1) with materials subsequently vertically dispersed from it or (2) with lesser occupations or depositions above and below it. For purposes of this discussion I have limited the examples and illustrations to one of the 2 x 3-m test excavation areas, Area B. The same patterning is present in Area A, but the quantity of material recovered is considerably less. The vertical distribution of river gravel recovered from three 1-m units in Area B is shown in figure 2a; the histograms how the peaked unimodality noted. Also, the northern slope of the paleosol, which contained the majority of gravel and chipped stone, is evidenced by the increasing depth from south to north of the peak densities. The vertical distribution of chippedstone items less than 1 cm in greatest dimension, predominantly bifacial thinning flakes and flake fragments, is shown in figure 2b. Some evidence of vertical size sorting may be indicated. The very small flakes (less than 1 cm in size) tend to have peak densities or high densities slightly lower than the larger gravel and chipped-stone items (1-5 cm in size) for the same units. The vertical distribution of larger chipped-stone items is summarized in figure 3. The gravel and chipped-stone material have closely comparable vertical distributions, and this information is taken as an indication that at least the majority of these materials were originally deposited on a single surface. The gravel was apparently culturally introduced to the terrace surface for use in heating or stone boiling. One gravel concentration, perhaps reflecting a dispersed hearth or disposal of boiling stones, was encountered. The paleosol gravels were fire-fractured and thermally altered significantly more than a control collection from a nearby modern gravel bar (most of the available local gravel turns from tan to red with intense heating). Over 30% of the gravel from Areas A and B had been thermally altered as compared with less than 2% from the modern gravel-bar collection. This apparently reflects use of the gravel in stone boiling or as heat retainers in hearths or roasting pits. The presence of gravel in the paleosol originally cast some doubt on the integrity of the deposit. It was initially interpreted to have resulted from high-energy overbank deposition, and if it had been deposited by flood action at the same time as, or after, the artifacts rather than before, then the context of the artifacts would have been suspect. In addition to the gravel concentration and the high incidence of thermal alteration, several other lines of evidence indicated that the materials were in primary horizontal context. These included pristine edges on chipped-stone items, unabraded fragile paleobotanical remains, juxtaposition of large and minute, variously shaped stone items which would have been size sorted under conditions of high-energy fluvial transport, and the fine-grained matrix of the Ti terrace, which is composed of fine silty clay (Brakenridge 1984). The terrace sediments on I ? 1986 by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, all rights reserved 0011-3204/86/2702-0006

Dating Folsom Occupations on the Southern Plains: The Lipscomb and Waugh Sites

1.00. Research at the Cave Spring site and with the collection has been supported by Tennessee Valley Authority contract TV-49244A, with Walter E. Klippel the principal investigator. Steven R. Johnston and Lee G. Ferguson assisted with the refitting. Special thanks are due to Terry Faulkner for preparing the figures and Walter E. Klippel for continued support and encouragement. Patricia Hofman and Gary D. Crites provided critical reading of the manuscript, and the thoughtful comments of an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged.

The Waugh site : A Folsom-age bison bonebed in northwestern Oklahoma

Abstract Dating the Folsom-age Lipscomb and Waugh sites in the southern Plains of the United States has been approached through use of bone, sediments, and charcoal. Available radiocarbon dates provide infor1nation on the specific ages of the Folsom activities at these sites and on the post-occupation geological events and processes as well. The former apparently took place between 10,200 and 10,900 years ago. Bison bone from the sites has not proven suitable for reliable radiocarbon dating, a problem that is recurrent at southern Plains sites of this age. At both sites there seemingly was a period of relatively rapid valley and gully-infilling soon after the Folsom occupations occurred. At the Lipscomb site, the present surface apparently stablized and soil formation began about 7000 years ago. At the Waugh site, a deeply buried hearth some 100 m from the primary bone bed provided the only radiometric dates. The spatial relationship of Folsom kill-butchery and camp activities at Waugh holds important imp...

Folsom Hunting Overlook in Eastern Wyoming

The Waugh site (34HP42) was discovered in January, 1991 in Harper County, Oklahoma as a concentration of bison bones eroding from a stream margin. A Folsom projectile point was found with the bones. Professional excavation began in 1991 and continued in 1992 and 1993. In 1992, testing 100 m to the south of the bonebed revealed a hearth feature which provided two radiocarbon dates of ca. 10,390 years BP. This paper summarizes the data collected from the faunal remains pertaining to minimum number of individuals, skeletal element frequency, sex composition, and site formation processes.

Reinvestigation of the Perry Ranch Plainview bison bonebed, southwestern Oklahoma

A small collection of lithic artifacts, including a Folsom point base, is reported from a prominent topographic location in eastern Wyoming The Adobe site is interpreted as a limited activity station from which hunters could monitor the movement of bison or other game over an area many km in extent. Such locations should represent a relatively common site type during Paleoindian times, but they have rarely been reported for the Folsom period occupation of the Northwestern Plains. Documentation of such sites is important to development of a more complete perspective on the Folsom archaeological record and Folsom land use patterns.

A CODY COMPLEX SITE ON THE SOUTHERN PRAIRIE PLAINS

Reinvestigation of the Perry Ranch site (34JK81) in Jackson County, Oklahoma was conducted during the summers of 1989 and 1990. The goals were to relocate the site, place a permanent datum, evaluate the possibility of additional deposits, and to collect bone samples for chemical analysis and possible dating. In addition, the bone assemblage from the 1974 excavation was restudied to facilitate taphonomic analysis, a season of death estimate, and detailed comparison with other bison bonebed assemblages. Bone chemistry indicates that the original radiocarbon date on bone is not a reliable measure of the age of the Perry Ranch deposit. The problem of whether Plainview or Golandrina points are represented is reconsidered and the original assessment-that the points compare most favorably with those from the Plainview type site-is supported. The MNI and season of death have also been reassessed. The animals died in winter, perhaps mid-january, based on tooth eruption and wear comparison with modern bison. A minimum of two animals was identified. The formational history of the deposit based on bone condition and element representation is reviewed. The possibility remains that there are additional significant deposits at the Perry Ranch site.

Salt Creek, Recent Evidence from the Eastern Folsom Margin in Central Oklahoma

Abstract Two diagnostic Cody complex artifacts were found in an upland setting in Washita County, west central Oklahoma. These artifacts, a Firstview point made of Edwards chert and a Scottsbluff point made of obsidian, provide clues to activities and land use of Cody complex people in this region where such evidence is limited and only minimally reported. The typological significance of some Cody complex projectile point attributes including basal form and flaking patterns are discussed with reference to the Flaming site artifacts. Models for long-distance transport of lithic materials and land use patterns are also presented with reference to the lithic sources represented at the Flaming site. This surface assemblage also includes a few flakes and tools and the site may represent a bison kill location, but no faunal evidence is preserved.