Joshua L. Keene

The Buttermilk Creek Complex and the Origins of Clovis at the Debra L. Friedkin Site, Texas

A large artifact assemblage dating to 15,000 years ago lies beneath a Clovis assemblage in central Texas. Compelling archaeological evidence of an occupation older than Clovis (~12.8 to 13.1 thousand years ago) in North America is present at only a few sites, and the stone tool assemblages from these sites are small and varied. The Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas, contains an assemblage of 15,528 artifacts that define the Buttermilk Creek Complex, which stratigraphically underlies a Clovis assemblage and dates between ~13.2 and 15.5 thousand years ago. The Buttermilk Creek Complex confirms the emerging view that people occupied the Americas before Clovis and provides a large artifact assemblage to explore Clovis origins.

Technological Change from the Terminal Pleistocene Through Early Holocene in the Eastern Great Basin, USA: The Record from Bonneville Estates Rockshelter

In the Great Basin of western North America, studies of prehistoric human technology have long been conducted in an ecological, evolutionary context. Here we review evidence of long-term environmental and technological change at Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, western Bonneville basin, Nevada. In this region 15,000–8000 calendar years ago, climate became increasingly warm and arid, leading to the drying of an extensive pluvial lake system and radical changes in vegetation and mammal communities. Paleoindians, of course, responded to these changes, and their adjustments are recorded in the lithic technological record. For the occupants of Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, adaptation included (1) more use of poor-quality, local tool stones at the expense of high-quality, nonlocal obsidians, (2) an increase in primary-reduction activities (including early-stage biface reduction), (3) a decrease in the versatility of hafted bifacial tools, and (4) an expansion of technology to include the use of ground-stone tools. These adjustments in technological organization reflect related modifications in settlement and subsistence behavior, for example, lengthier occupations of the rockshelter and reduced mobility, as well as more intensive artiodactyl hunting and a concomitant broadening of the diet to include hard-to-process seeds from a variety of plants.

Pre-Clovis projectile points at the Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas—Implications for the Late Pleistocene peopling of the Americas

Stemmed projectile points are ~13,500 to ~15,500 years old and lie stratigraphically below ~13,000-year-old Clovis artifacts. Lanceolate projectile points of the Clovis complex and stemmed projectile points of the Western Stemmed Tradition first appeared in North America by ~13 thousand years (ka) ago. The origin, age, and chronological superposition of these stemmed and lanceolate traditions are unclear. At the Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas, below Folsom and Clovis horizons, we find stemmed projectile points dating from ~13.5 to ~15.5 ka ago, with a triangular lanceolate point form appearing ~14 ka ago. The sequential relationship of stemmed projectile points followed by lanceolate forms suggests that lanceolate points are derived from stemmed forms or that they originated from two separate migrations into the Americas.