Matthew G. Hill

Late Paleoindian (Allen/Frederick Complex) Subsistence Activities at the Clary Ranch Site, Ash Hollow, Garden County, Nebraska

Abstract Comprehensive analysis of the previously unreported bison remains from the Clary Ranch site in western Nebraska, combined with information from recent field investigations, provides a robust source of new insight on Late Paleoindian (Allen/Frederick Complex) diet and subsistence practices on the central Great Plains. The assemblage provides a rare opportunity to examine the settlement/subsistence system from the perspective of a secondary processing area, where complete bison limbs and articulated sublimb segments, initially removed from carcasses at a nearby mass kill site, were transported to Clary Ranch for defleshing and marrow extraction. These kill/butchery activities suggest an increased reliance on subsistence strategies intended to alleviate impending winter food shortages.

Season of bison mortality at three plains archaic kill sites in Wyoming

Reanalysis of bison lower dentary assemblages from the Scoggin site (ca. 4540 BP), Cordero Mine site (ca. 3520BP), and Rourke site (ca. 2500-1700 BP), offers new information concerning the seasonality of Plains Archaic bison utilization. Discrepancies in eruption and wear of the Scoggin mandibular molars suggest at least two kill-butchery events: (1) summer-early fall (y+0.2 - 0.4 yrs); and (2) late fall-early winter (y+0.6 - 0.7 yrs). The Rourke kill occurred in the late spring-early summer (y+ 0.1 - 0.2 yrs), and bison at Cordero Mine were procured during the fall-early winter (y+0.5 - 0.7yrs). These data provide several lines of information on seasonal variability and long-term changes in human socioeconomic behavior during the Archaic on the Northwestern Plains. Procurement tactics at Scoggin and Rourke, especially the repeated use of the jump-corral at Scoggin, suggest long-term investment at a fixed location on the landscape, which may indicate unpredictable bison populations, social restrictions, lack of topographic features to facilitate mass hunting, or a combination of these factors. Early evidence of intensive carcass processing at Cordero Mine, and possibly at Scoggin, may have been a consequence of these factors and/or a strategy designed to lessen the effects of winter-spring food shortages.

Site structure and activity organization at a late paleoindian base camp in western nebraska

Paleoindian archaeology on the Great Plains is often characterized by the investigation of large mammal kill/butchery bonebeds with relatively high archaeological visibility. Extensively documented aspects of Paleoindian behavioral variability include the form and composition of weaponry systems, hunting strategies, carcass exploitation, and hunter mobility. Non-hunting oriented aspects of settlement and subsistence behavior are less documented. Information from Component 2 at the O.V. Clary site, in Ash Hollow, western Nebraska, lessens this imbalance of knowledge. It provides a fine-grained, spatially extensive record of Late Paleoindian (Allen Complex) activities at a winter base camp occupied for 5-7 months. This paper highlights elements of site structure and activity organization, emphasizing domestic behaviors including hearth use, site maintenance, and hide working. ArcGIS 9.3.1 (ESRI) and GeoDa 0.9.5-1 (Anselin 2003; Anselin et al. 2006) are employed in conjunction with middle-range observations and expectations to document and interpret spatial patterning in the distribution of over 57,000 artifacts, ecofacts, and red ochre nodules. More broadly, results are related to two models of Paleoindian residential mobility: the place-oriented model and the high-tech forager model. Rather than mutually exclusive scenarios, Component 2 indicates that these models reflect complementary structural poses within the overall behavioral system.

THE JIM PITTS SITE: A STRATIFIED PALEOINDIAN SITE IN THE BLACK HILLS OF SOUTH DAKOTA

The Jim Pitts site is a multicomponent Paleoindian locality in the Black Hills of South Dakota, with a rare Goshen residential occupation. All Paleoindian components were comprised in the Leonard paleosol. The deepest component at the site is a Goshen level dated to 10,185 ± 25 B.P. It correlates with a late fall-early winter camp site. Over the course of its use parts of at least five bison were procured and introduced to the site. Above this level an array of point styles, including Goshen, Folsom, Agate Basin, several Fishtail points, James Allen, Cody, and Alberta, have also been found. The following study provides a typological and technological description of the point assemblage and weighs the implications of the chrono-cultural stratigraphy for reconstructing the Paleoindian cultural landscape. It questions the validity of some types, particularly Goshen, as cultural and chronological markers. Ultimately, the evidence presented here reinforces a model in which multiple Paleoindian point types occur simultaneously on the central and northern Great Plains. This in turn challenges a unilineal view of Paleoindian culture history.