High-Tech Foragers? Folsom and Later Paleoindian Technology on the Great Plains

Archaeologists generally argue that early (ca. 11,000–8000 B.P. populations on the North American Great Plains moved over very large areas, relying on sophisticated, biface-based flaked stone technology and on extensive resharpening and recycling of tools to cope with unpredictable access to raw material sources. This paper reviews the development of this reconstruction and considers the degree to which data from assemblages of Paleoindian flaked stone tools support it. Published information implies that patterns of raw material use vary greatly over the Plains, that bifaces were not the centerpiece of Paleoindian technology, that there are no published efforts to document an unusual degree of resharpening or recycling, and that the data that are available on these topics do not suggest that either was important. Detailed analysis of one assemblage, from the Allen site in southwestern Nebraska, carried out with these issues in mind, shows similar patterns. The great difference between what the literature says about Paleoindian technology and the documented character of that technology suggests that Paleoindian lifeways were far more variable than current discussions suggest.

[1]  B. Bradley.  Flaked Stone Technology And Typology , 1982 .

[2]  P. LeTourneau,et al.  Folsom toolstone procurement in the Southwest and Southern Plains , 2001 .

[3]  Charles A. Reher,et al.  The Vore Site, 48CK302, A Stratified Buffalo Jump in the Wyoming Black Hills , 1980 .

[4]  Matthew G. Hill.  Paleoindian diet and subsistence behavior on the northwestern Great Plains of North America , 2001 .

[5]  W. Hartwell.  The Ryan’S Site Cache: Comparisons to Plainview , 1995 .

[6]  K. Tankersley.  Variation in the Early Paleoindian Economies of Late Pleistocene Eastern North America , 1998, American Antiquity.

[7]  Douglas B. Bamforth,et al.  Technological Organization and Hunter-Gatherer Land Use: A California Example , 1991, American Antiquity.

[8]  D. J. Meltzer,et al.  Late pleistocene human adaptations in eastern North America , 1988 .

[9]  E. Johnson,et al.  Fluted Projectile Point Production As Revealed By Lithic Specimens from the Adair-Steadman Site in Northwest Texas , 1977 .

[10]  C. Haynes,et al.  Hell Gap: Paleoindian Occupation On the High Plains , 1973 .

[11]  H. Dibble.  Rebuttal to Close , 1991 .

[12]  C. Schultz,et al.  Seasonality of the Scottsbluff and Lipscomb Bison Bonebeds: Implications for Modeling Paleoindian Subsistence , 1990, American Antiquity.

[13]  Harold L. Dibble,et al.  Handbook of Paleolithic Typology: Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Europe , 1993 .

[14]  Richard Michael Gramly,et al.  Raw Materials Source Areas and “Curated” Tool Assemblages , 1980, American Antiquity.

[15]  F. Bordes.  Typologie du paléolithique : ancien et moyen , 1988 .

[16]  V. Holliday.  The Evolution of Paleoindian Geochronology and Typology on the Great Plains , 2000 .

[17]  A. Close,et al.  On the Validity of Middle Paleolithic Tool Types: A Test Case from the Eastern , 1991 .

[18]  George C. Frison,et al.  Projectile points and Specialized Bifaces from the Horner Site , 1987 .

[19]  Vance T. Holliday,et al.  Lithic Tool Resources of the Eastern Llano Estacado , 1981 .

[20]  E. Wilmsen,et al.  Lindenmeier, 1934-1974: Concluding Report On Investigations (Smithsonian Contributions To Anthropology, No.24) , 1978 .

[21]  Edwin N. Wilmsen,et al.  Lindenmeier, 1934-1974: Concluding report on investigations , 1984 .

[22]  E. Callahan.  The basics of biface knapping in the eastern fluted point tradition: a manual for flintworkers and lithic analysts [Reprinted 1990, 1996, 2000] , 1979 .

[23]  J. J. Hester.  Folsom Lithic Complex from the Elida Site, Roosevelt County, New Mexico , 1962 .

[24]  R. Dewar,et al.  Tools Underfoot: Human Trampling as an Agent of Lithic Artifact Edge Modification , 1998, American Antiquity.

[25]  Robert L. Kelly,et al.  Coming into the Country: Early Paleoindian Hunting and Mobility , 1988, American Antiquity.

[26]  P. Wiessner.  Risk, reciprocity and social influences on Kung San economics. , 1982 .

[27]  Douglas B. Bamforth,et al.  Core/Biface Ratios, Mobility, Refitting, and Artifact Use-Lives: A Paleoindian Example , 2000 .

[28]  P. Holder,et al.  The Frontier Culture Complex, a Preliminary Report on a Prehistoric Hunters' Camp in Southwestern Nebraska , 1949, American Antiquity.

[29]  Douglas B. Bamforth,et al.  Technological Organization of Paleoindian Small-Group Bison Hunting On the Llano Estacado , 1985 .

[30]  H. Dibble.  The Interpretation of Middle Paleolithic Scraper Morphology , 1987, American Antiquity.

[31]  J. Wheat.  1 Bison Kill–A Reconstruction of the Olsen-Chubbuck Site , 1972 .

[32]  J. Cotter,et al.  Clovis Revisited: New Perspectives on Paleoindian Adaptations from Blackwater Draw, New Mexico , 1999 .

[33]  Frédéric Sellet,et al.  A dynamic view of Paleoindian assemblages at the Hell Gap site, Wyoming : reconstructing lithic technological systems , 1999 .

[34]  D. Macdonald.  Modeling Folsom mobility, mating strategies, and technological organization in the Northern Plains , 1999 .

[35]  L. Binford.  Forty Seven Trips , 1974 .

[36]  D. Hyland,et al.  Lithic Technology at the Mitchell Locality of Blackwater Draw:: A Stratified Folsom Site in Eatena New Mexico , 1990 .

[37]  H. Dibble.  Middle paleolithic scraper reduction: Background, clarification, and review of the evidence to date , 1995 .

[38]  Daniel S. Amick,et al.  Shifting Sands: a Folsom-Midland Assemblage from a Campsite in Western Texas , 1990 .

[39]  Michael B. Collins,et al.  Identification of Central Texas Edwards Chert at the Folsom and Lindenmeier Sites , 1991 .

[40]  Brian Hayden.  Interaction Parameters and the Demise of Paleo-Indian Craftsmanship , 1982 .

[41]  G. Frison.  The Mill Iron site , 1999 .

[42]  R. Gould.  Beyond analogy in ethnoarchaeology , 1978 .

[43]  D. Amick.  Patterns of technological variation among Folsom and Midland projectile points in the American Southwest , 1995 .

[44]  G. Frison.  The Carter/Kerr-McGee Paleoindian Site: Cultural Resource Management and Archaeological Research , 1984, American Antiquity.

[45]  M. Collins,et al.  Clovis Blade Technology , 2000 .

[46]  André Debénath,et al.  Handbook of paleolithic typology , 1993 .

[47]  Ed Wilmsen,et al.  Lindenmeier: a Pleistocene hunting society , 1974 .

[48]  D. Bamforth.  Ecology and Human Organization on the Great Plains , 1988 .

[49]  J. Jeffrey Flenniken,et al.  Reevaluation of the Lindenmeier Folsom: A Replication Experiment in Lithic Technology , 1978, American Antiquity.

[50]  Steven L. Kuhn,et al.  Blank Form and Reduction as Determinants of Mousterian Scraper Morphology , 1992, American Antiquity.

[51]  Jeannette M. Blackmar.  Regional Variability in Clovis, Folsom, and Cody Land Use , 2001 .