Lithic Source Use and Paleoarchaic Foraging Territories in the Great Basin

Paleoarchaic (11.5–8.0 ka) occupants of the Great Basin encountered numerous lithic sources as they moved across foraging territories. Source provenance and lithic technologic analyses applied to the tools manufactured from these source materials elucidate several aspects of mobility, including the geographic scale of material conveyance and extent and possible routes of population movement. This research indicates that central Great Basin groups traversed large subsistence territories, extending more than 400 km from north to south, with mobility tactics probably keyed to the distribution of resource-rich wetlands. Changes in source representation parallel warming and drying trends, suggesting that Paleoarchaic foraging ranges shifted as wetlands diminished after about 9.5–8.5 ka.

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