The role of the Rocky Mountains in the peopling of North America

Pitblado, Bonnie L.

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2017.07.009

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…The broken terrain of the foothills and its sheltering opportunities may also have buffered the effects of the Mazama ash fall Beaudoin, 2005, 2016) and/or favored a faster reoccupation of the region. Meanwhile, probable Pleistocene materials, while still uncharacterized, are a reminder of the affinities of Early-Middle Paleoindian populations for montane environments (e.g., Fedje et al, 1995;Pitblado, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Lanoë

Zedeño

Jansson³

et al. 2021

Quat. res.

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The Northern Rocky Mountain Front (hereafter Northern Front) is a prominent geographic feature in archaeological models of human dispersal in the terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene of North America. Testing those models has been arduous because of local geomorphological factors that tend to obliterate or otherwise limit access to archaeological finds of relevant age. In this paper, we present well-stratified archaeological and environmental records dating back to 14,000–13,000 cal yr BP from the site of Billy Big Spring (Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Montana), located on a glacial kettle, a type of landform that has been largely ignored by regional archaeological research to date. Findings from Billy Big Spring show the continuous use of the Northern Front foothills throughout the major climatic and environmental disturbances of the Early Holocene, and possibly the terminal Pleistocene as well. As such, Billy Big Spring contributes to refining several archaeological models of early settlement of the Northern Front, particularly those that posit differential use of foothills versus plains settings during the midst of the Holocene Thermal Maximum. The record at Billy Big Spring also suggests that kettles, regardless of physiographic setting, provide a yet unsuspected and unsampled potential for preserving high-quality and easily accessible early archaeological and paleoenvironmental records.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Lanoë

Zedeño

Jansson³

et al. 2021

Quat. res.

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“…I have discussed elsewhere our archaeological forebears’ tendency to overlook landscapes that struck them—as recent European American immigrants—as hostile or unfit for human life. I made this point in relation to the Rocky Mountains, which I think played a more important role in the peopling process than we have yet recognized (Pitblado 2017). Kurt Rademaker and others (e.g., 2014) have made the same basic case for the South American Andes.…”

Section: The Dehumanization Of Pleistocene People Of the Western Hemi...mentioning

confidence: 94%

On Rehumanizing Pleistocene People of the Western Hemisphere

Pitblado¹

2021

Am. Antiq.

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Since the emergence of the niche in Folsom, New Mexico, in the late 1920s, peopling archaeology has sought to understand the earliest human occupants of the Western Hemisphere. Three generations of practitioners have made great strides in the techno-environmental arena. However, we have largely failed to tap into PaleoIndigenous intellectual, emotional, and social lives—the very domains that made Ice Age people as fully human as we are. As a result, our interpretations of those pioneering populations could often apply as readily to a colony of ants or a herd of wildebeest as they do to living, breathing, thinking, dreaming, loving, striving human ancestors. This article first explores the reasons for our failure to fully actualize First Peoples, identifying and implicating a feedback loop that includes practitioner homogeneity (we have always been and continue to be disproportionately white men of European descent); our predominantly positivist worldview; our language, training, and practice; and even the limited nature of the material record we study. This article also, however, highlights the ways that an important minority of peopling scholars have sought to access the humanity of PaleoIndigenous people. By more consistently mobilizing our own human capacity to creatively interrogate the deep past, we will produce scholarship that more consistently recognizes the capacity of the people who lived it and, just as importantly, respects those living today.

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“…The distribution of toolstone in Clovis caches has been a cornerstone of discussions about the movement of Clovis groups across the landscape (Beck and Jones 2010;Kilby 2008Pitblado 2017). Most of these discussions are based on an analogy to foragers who moved in a cyclical annual round returning to the same locations year after year (Steward 1938).…”

Section: Function Of Clovis Biface Cachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kilby (2008) provided the first major discussion of toolstone identified in Clovis biface and blade caches. Kilby notes that his identifications are based on visual inspection however, his identifications continue to be repeated in the literature (Bradley et al 2010) and are used as a basis for elaborate migration models (Beck and Jones 2010;Pitblado 2017). Some of Kilby's toolstone identifications are challenged below.…”

Section: Toolstone In Clovis Biface Cachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Ice-Free Corridor hypothesis (Fiedel 2002:421;Pitblado 2017) has been a common explanation for the initial colonization of the Americas south of the Late Wisconsin ice sheets from Beringia since the 1930s (Bryan 1968:163). Potter and others (2018) assert that the corridor was open beginning about 15,000 years ago.…”

Section: Geographic Origin Of Clovis Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The geographic origin of Clovis technology: Insights from Clovis biface caches

Schroedl

2021

Plains Anthropologist

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Multiple hypotheses have been advanced for the geographic origin of the Clovis technocomplex. Several competing hypotheses are considered in relation to the distribution of Clovis caches. Clovis caching behavior is interpreted as a strategy for maximizing exploration and migration rather than an embedded strategy associated with an annual foraging round. Based on this analysis, it is hypothesized that the Clovis technocomplex may have originated along the North Pacific coast or south of the Cordilleran ice sheet in the Puget Lowland before rapidly spreading across the continent.keywords Paleoindian, fluting technology, Clovis cache, migration, Western North America, Clovis origins Clovis is the label used for the earliest widespread, identifiable prehistoric technocomplex south of the Late Pleistocene Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets in North America. The Clovis tradition is short-lived and currently dated from 13,250-12,700 cal BP (Goebel and Keene 2014; Stafford 2007, 2013). A variety of site types are associated with the Clovis tradition, including encampments, quarry sites, megafauna kill or butchering sites, and cache sites.The Clovis complex includes a well-developed bifacial lithic technology including projectile points, knives, gravers, and bifaces of various stages of manufacture

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The role of the Rocky Mountains in the peopling of North America

Cited by 17 publications

References 63 publications

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

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

On Rehumanizing Pleistocene People of the Western Hemisphere

The geographic origin of Clovis technology: Insights from Clovis biface caches

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