Reassessing Hypsithermal human-environment interaction on the Northern Plains

Abstract

Palaeoenvironmental records from the Northern Plains of North America attest to an extended period of Middle Holocene warming and drying, making this a useful region and period for research on long-term human response to marked climate change. However, archaeological perspectives on human–environment interaction during this episode have remained preoccupied with a refugial model that incorporates limited latitude for dynamic human adaptation. In part, this situation reflects the challenging geomorphological and typological obstacles faced by those studying this period. However, this paper argues that our failure to develop new perspectives also reflects a longstanding and continued conservatism that casts Northern Plains lifeways as inflexible and unchanging, rather than dynamic and adaptable.

Glacial kettles as archives of early human settlement along the Northern Rocky Mountain Front

“…Preservation, identification, and accessibility of the archaeological record at Billy Big Spring is largely due to the geomorphic characteristics of the kettle landform on which it is located, and those characteristics should hold true regardless of physiographic setting. As such, archaeological work in kettle landforms may in the future contribute to testing alternative archaeological models about the settlement of the Northwestern Plains; for instance, those that posit that the dearth of Early Archaic sites in the plains is largely due to geologic factors without providing evidence of abandonment (Reeves, 1973;Oetelaar, 2004;Robertson, 2011).…”