High-Altitude Hunter-Gatherer Residential Occupations in Wyoming's Wind River Range

Abstract

High Rise Village is a hunter-gatherer residential site containing at least 52 house features at a mean elevation of 3200 m in Wyoming's Wind River Range. Fifteen radiocarbon dates place site occupation(s) between 4500 and 150 cal BP. Though the 4500 cal BP dates likely result from an old wood problem, dates between 2800 and 150 BP appear more sound, particularly those between 1500 and 500 cal BP. Comparison with other high-altitude residential site radiocarbon dates shows a trend of earlier high-altitude residential occupations to the east of the Great Basin. This has important implications regarding Great Basin-Rocky Mountain culture histories, in particular by calling into question both the Numic Spread hypothesis and the relationship of the site to Rocky Mountain-High Plains hunter-gatherer residential patterns. More importantly, these data emphasize the roles medieval climate and regional population densities may have played in conditioning late Holocene high-altitude hunter-gatherer lifeways across western North America.

The End of Archaeological Discovery

“…In other words, there are still geographic frontiers of archaeological exploration. In fact, it is our impression that one research priority of archaeology has always been the exploration of archaeologically untouched or lightly sampled regions, the increasing interest in high-altitude regions of the world being one obvious example (e.g., Aldenderfer 2011; LaBelle and Pelton 2013; Morgan et al 2014; Rademaker et al 2014) and deep water exploration being another (e.g., Søreide 2011).…”

The cultural context of biological adaptation to high elevation Tibet

“…Archaeologists who study human use of high elevation environments (even those below the 2500 masl limit) typically suggest that intensive occupation is a relatively late phenomenon (Bettinger, 1991;Morgan et al, 2012;Neme, in press). The argument is that life at high elevation is difficult for a variety of reasons, and unlikely to happen unless competition for lower elevation settings and resources becomes exceedingly high (or at least equivalent to those of higher elevations).…”

Spangle Lakes: An Investigation of Late Archaic Human Land-Use within the Sawtooth Mountains

“…The first is a transhumant strategy that demonstrates limited site occupation with specific resource allocation (primarily prey such as bighorn sheep) while the second, later strategy demonstrates a more intensive usage of the environment with more permanent residential bases (Thomas 1983;Bettinger 1991;Adams 2010;Morgan et al 2012b;Trout 2015). These sites also include dense lithic scatters, an abundance of lithic tools, and remnants of formal structures Bettinger 1991;Morgan et al 2012b. Outside of these, many other sites being are recorded that demonstrate similar increased land-use patterns within the Sierra Nevada in California (Stevens 2005), Utah's Pahvant Range (Morgan et al 2012a), and Wyoming's Absaroka Mountains (Kornfeld 2001). Morgan et al (2012b) describe these sites as having broad similarities in growth of land use.…”

“…These sites also include dense lithic scatters, an abundance of lithic tools, and remnants of formal structures Bettinger 1991;Morgan et al 2012b. Outside of these, many other sites being are recorded that demonstrate similar increased land-use patterns within the Sierra Nevada in California (Stevens 2005), Utah's Pahvant Range (Morgan et al 2012a), and Wyoming's Absaroka Mountains (Kornfeld 2001). Morgan et al (2012b) describe these sites as having broad similarities in growth of land use. More sedentary structures are being constructed with increased variety of lithic tools, including groundstone (mortar, pestles, etc.).…”

“…In addition, they all fall within the same broad category of time during the Late Archaic. Black (1991) However, Morgan et al (2012b) argue that this conclusion is questionable due to the ethnic variability that is seen across the Great Basin. In addition, Thomas (2014b) cautions that it is important to recognize that despite similarities, there is an equifinality problem with high altitude sites in the west.…”