Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T20:13:46.968Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Component age estimates for the Hell Gap Paleoindian site and methods for chronological modeling of stratified open sites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2017

Spencer R. Pelton ,
Marcel Kornfeld ,
Mary Lou Larson  and
Thomas Minckley
Spencer R. Pelton*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, 12th and Lewis St., Department 3431, 1000 E. University Ave., Laramie, Wyoming 82071, USA
Marcel Kornfeld
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Paleoindian Research Lab, University of Wyoming, 12th and Lewis St., Department 3431, 1000 E. University Ave., Laramie, Wyoming 82071, USA
Mary Lou Larson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Paleoindian Research Lab, University of Wyoming, 12th and Lewis St., Department 3431, 1000 E. University Ave., Laramie, Wyoming 82071, USA
Thomas Minckley
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Wyoming, 207 Arts and Sciences Building, Department 3371, 1000 E University Ave. Laramie, Wyoming 82071, USA
*
*Corresponding author at: Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, 12th and Lewis St., Department 3431, 1000 E. University Ave., Laramie, Wyoming 82071, USA. E-mail address: spelton@uwyo.edu (S.R. Pelton).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Hell Gap National Historic Landmark, located on the northwestern plains of Wyoming, is one of the most important Paleoindian archaeological sites in North America because it contains a stratified sequence of occupations spanning nearly the entirety of the Paleoindian period. Although Hell Gap is central to archaeological knowledge concerning North American Paleoindian chronology, consistently assigning component ages has been problematic due to conflicting radiocarbon determinations from individual strata, stratigraphic age reversals in age-depth relationships, and other issues related to the stratified open campsite. Toward resolving the Hell Gap chronology, we devised a procedure for correcting age-depth relationships for incorporation in chronostratigraphic models and then used the Bayesian age-depth modeling qprocedures in Bchron to estimate the ages of 11 stratified components present at Hell Gap Locality 1. We present these age estimates and discuss their significance to Paleoindian chronology. Notable aspects of our chronology include a revised age estimate for the Goshen complex, the identification of three Folsom components spanning the entirety of the Folsom temporal range, and relatively young age estimates for the Late Paleoindian Frederick/Lusk component(s) at Locality 1. More broadly, our study demonstrates a procedure for creating chronometric models of stratigraphically complicated open stratified sites of any type.

Keywords

North American Great PlainsPaleoindianHell Gap siteGeochronologyAge-depth modelingRadiocarbon dating
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 88 , Issue 2 , September 2017 , pp. 234 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agogino, G.A., Galloway, E., 1965. The Sister’s Hill site: A Hell Gap Site in north-central Wyoming. Plains Anthropologist 10, 190–195.Google Scholar
Beck, C., Jones, G.T., 2010. Clovis and Western Stemmed: population migration and the meeting of two technologies in the Intermountain West. American Antiquity 75, 81–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonnichsen, R., Stanford, D., Fastook, J.L., 1987. Environmental Change and Developmental History of Human Adaptive Patterns: The Paleoindian Case. In: Ruddiman, W.F., Wright, H.E. (Eds.), North America and Adjacent Oceans During the Last Deglaciation (Geology of North America, Vol. K-3. Geologic Society of America, Boulder, pp. 403–424.Google Scholar
Bradley, B.A., 2009. Bifacial technology and Paleoindian projectile points. In: Larson, M.L., Kornfield, M., Frison, G.C. (Eds.), Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 259–273.Google Scholar
Brantingham, P.J., Surovell, T.A., Waguespack, N.M., 2007. Modeling post-depositional mixing of archaeological deposits. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26, 517–540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrnes, A., 2003. Spatial Reconstruction and Flaked Stone Analysis of the Frederick Component, Hell Gap, Locality 1. Master’s thesis, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming.Google Scholar
Collard, M., Buchanan, B., Hamilton, M.J., O’Brien, M.J., 2010. Spatiotemporal dynamics of the Clovis-Folsom transition. Journal of Archaeological Science 37, 2513–2519.Google Scholar
Frison, G.C., 1974. Casper Site: a Hell Gap Bison Kill on the High Plains. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Frison, G.C., 1984. The Carter/Kerr-Mcgee Paleoindian site: cultural resource management and archaeological research. American Antiquity 49, 288–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frison, G.C, Grey, D.C., 1980. Pryor-Stemmed: a specialized late Paleo-Indian ecological adaptation. Plains Anthropologist 25, 27:46.Google Scholar
Frison, G.C., Stanford, D., 1982. The Agate Basin Site: A Record of the Paleoindian Occupation of the Northwestern High Plains. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Goebel, T., Hockett, B., Adams, K.D., Rhode, D., Graf, K., 2013. Climate, environment, and humans in North America’s Great Basin during the Younger Dryas, 12,900–11,600 calendar years ago. Quaternary International 242, 479–501.Google Scholar
Haslett, J., Parnell, A., 2008. A simple monotone process with application to radiocarbon-dated depth chronologies. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series C (Applied Statistics) 57, 399–418.Google Scholar
Haynes, C.V. Jr., 2009a. Backhoe trench stratigraphic profiles (Appendix G). In: Larson, M.L., Kornfeld, M., Frison, G.C. (Eds.), Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 341–354.Google Scholar
Haynes, C.V. Jr., 2009b. Geochronology. In: Larson, M.L., Kornfeld, M., Frison, G.C. (Eds.), Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 39–52.Google Scholar
Haynes, C.V. Jr., 2009c. Radiocarbon assays (Appendix F). In: Larson, M.L., Kornfeld, M., Frison, G.C. (Eds.), Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 336–340.Google Scholar
Haynes, C.V. Jr., 2009d. Geologic profiles (Appendix H). In: Larson, M.L., Kornfeld, M., Frison, G.C. (Eds.), Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 355–364.Google Scholar
Hill, M.G., 2005. Late Paleoindian (Allen/Frederick Complex) subsistence activities at the Clary Ranch site, Ash Hollow, Garden County, Nebraska. Plains Anthropologist 50, 249–263.Google Scholar
Hofman, J.L., Amick, D.S., Rose, R.O., 1990. Shifting sands: a Folsom-Midland assemblage from a campsite in western Texas. Plains Anthropologist 35, 221–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holliday, V.T., 2000. The evolution of Paleoindian geochronology and typology on the Great Plains. Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 15, 227–290.Google Scholar
Holliday, V.T., Hoffecker, J.F., Goldberg, P., Macphail, R.I., Forman, S.L., Anikovich, M., Sinitsyn, A., 2007. Geoarchaeology of the Kostenki-Borshchevo sites, Don River Valley, Russia. Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 22, 181–228.Google Scholar
Holliday, V.T., Johnson, E., Stafford, T.W. Jr., 1999. AMS radiocarbon dating of the type Plainview and Firstview (Paleoindian) assemblages: the agony and the ecstasy. American Antiquity 64, 444–454.Google Scholar
Holliday, V.T., Meltzer, D., 2010. The 12.9-Ka ET impact hypothesis and North American Paleoindians. Current Anthropology 51, 575–607.Google Scholar
Irwin-Williams, C., Irwin, H., Agogino, G., Haynes, C.V. Jr., 1973. Hell Gap: Paleo-Indian occupation on the High Plains. Plains Anthropologist 18, 40–53.Google Scholar
Jennings, T.A., 2016. The impact of stone supply stress on the innovation of a cultural variant: The relationship of Folsom and Midland. PaleoAmerica 2, 116–123.Google Scholar
Knell, E.J., Muñiz, M.P., 2013. Paleoindian Lifeways of the Cody Complex. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Kornfeld, M., Frison, G.C., Larson, M.L., 2010. Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of the High Plains and Rockies. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California.Google Scholar
Kornfeld, M., Larson, M.L., 2009. Introduction to Hell Gap and History of Research. In: Larson, M.L., Kornfeld, K., Grison, G.C. (Eds.), Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 3–13.Google Scholar
LaBelle, J.M., 2005. Hunter-gatherer Foraging Variability During the Early Holocene of the Central Plains of North America. PhD dissertation, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.Google Scholar
Lee, C.M., Lee, J.B., Turnbull, J.C., 2011. Refining the chronology of the Agate Basin complex: radiocarbon dating the Frazier Site, northeastern Colorado. Plains Anthropologist 56, 243–258.Google Scholar
Mandel, R.D., Murphy, L.R., Mitchell, M.D., 2014. Geoarchaeology and paleoenvironmental context of the Beacon Island site, an Agate Basin (Paleoindian) bison kill in northwestern North Dakota, USA. Quaternary International 342, 91–113.Google Scholar
Meltzer, D.J., Seebach, J.D., Byerly, R.M., 2006. The Hot-Tubb Folsom-Midland site (41CR10), Texas. Plains Anthropologist 51, 157–184.Google Scholar
Newby, P., Bradley, J., Spiess, A., Schuman, B., Leduc, P., 2005. A Paleoindian response to Younger Dryas climate change. Quaternary Science Reviews 24, 141–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nigst, P.R., Haesaerts, P., Damblon, F., Frank-Fellner, C., Mallol, C., Viola, B., Gotzinger, M., Niven, L., Gerhard, T, Hublin, J.-J., 2014. Early modern human settlement of Europe north of the Alps occurred 43,500 years ago in a cold steppe-type environment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111, 14394–14399.Google Scholar
Parnell, A.C., Haslett, J., Allen, J.R.M., Buck, C.E., Huntley, B., 2008. A flexible approach to assessing synchroneity of past events using Bayesian reconstructions of sedimentation history. Quaternary Science Reviews 27, 1872–1885.Google Scholar
Pelton, S.R., Boyd, J.R., Rockwell, H., Newton, C., 2016. Younger Dryas-aged fluting, cold, and time budgeting the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. PaleoAmerica 2, 169–178.Google Scholar
Core Team, R, 2013). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org/ Google Scholar
Reimer, P.J., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J.W., Blackwell, P.G., Bronk Ramsey, C., Buck, C.E., et al. 2013. IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0-50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55, 1869–1887.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surovell, T.A., Boyd, J.R., Haynes, C.V. Jr., Hodgins, G.W.L., 2016. On the dating of the Folsom complex and its correlation with the Younger Dryas, the end of Clovis, and megafaunal extinction. PaleoAmerica 2, 81–89.Google Scholar
Surovell, T.A., Waguespack, N.M., Mayer, J.H., Kornfeld, M., Frison, G.C., 2005. Shallow site archaeology: artifact dispersal, stratigraphy, and radiocarbon dating at the Barger Gulch locality B Folsom Site, Middle Park, Colorado. Geoarchaeology 20, 627–649.Google Scholar
Waters, M.R., Stafford, T.W. Jr., 2007. Redefining the age of Clovis: Implications for the peopling of the Americas. Science, New Series 315, 1122–1126.Google Scholar
Waters, M.R., Stafford, T.W. Jr., 2014. Redating the Mill Iron Site, Montana: a reexamination of Goshen complex chronology. American Antiquity 79, 541–548.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Pelton supplementary material

Supplementary Table

Download Pelton supplementary material(File)
File 20.7 KB