Paleoindian Lifeways of Paleoarchaic Peoples: A Faunal Analysis of Early Occupations at North Creek Shelter, Utah
Recent archaeological research within the American west, especially the Great Basin (e.g., Graf and Schmitt 2007), has perpetuated the notion of decreased residential mobility accompanied by increased diet breadth of hunter-gatherer groups during the Early Holocene. The earliest occupations at North...
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| Format: | Others |
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BYU ScholarsArchive
2009
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| Online Access: | https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1789 https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2788&context=etd |
| Summary: | Recent archaeological research within the American west, especially the Great Basin (e.g., Graf and Schmitt 2007), has perpetuated the notion of decreased residential mobility accompanied by increased diet breadth of hunter-gatherer groups during the Early Holocene. The earliest occupations at North Creek Shelter (NCS), a multicomponent site in south-central Utah, date to this time, specifically the Paleoarchaic (~10,000-9000 BP) and Early Archaic (~9000-7500 BP) periods. The zooarchaeological data from these levels were analyzed to determine whether Paleoarchaic occupations on the Colorado Plateau possessed greater residential mobility and narrower diet breadth than those of the Early Archaic, as they do in the Great Basin. However, upon examination of the NCS data, neither seems to be the case, or at least not to the dramatic degree observed to the west, as settlement and subsistence strategies remain fairly constant throughout the Early Holocene. |
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