Book contents
- The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains
- Cambridge World Archaeology
- The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Where and What Are the Great Plains?
- Chapter 3 Peopling the Continent, Peopling the Plains:
- Chapter 4 Paleoindian Hunters (and Gatherers):
- Chapter 5 Diversity, Environmental Change, and External Connection:
- Chapter 6 Mounds, Pots, Pipes, and Bison:
- Chapter 7 The Context of Maize Farming on the Great Plains
- Chapter 8 Settled Farmers and Their Neighbors, Part 1:
- Chapter 9 Settled Farmers and Their Neighbors Continued:
- Chapter 10 The Plains Village Period, Part 3:
- Chapter 11 One Promise Kept:
- Chapter 12 Afterword
- References
- Index
Chapter 4 - Paleoindian Hunters (and Gatherers):
10,800 to 6900 BC
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 November 2021
- The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains
- Cambridge World Archaeology
- The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Where and What Are the Great Plains?
- Chapter 3 Peopling the Continent, Peopling the Plains:
- Chapter 4 Paleoindian Hunters (and Gatherers):
- Chapter 5 Diversity, Environmental Change, and External Connection:
- Chapter 6 Mounds, Pots, Pipes, and Bison:
- Chapter 7 The Context of Maize Farming on the Great Plains
- Chapter 8 Settled Farmers and Their Neighbors, Part 1:
- Chapter 9 Settled Farmers and Their Neighbors Continued:
- Chapter 10 The Plains Village Period, Part 3:
- Chapter 11 One Promise Kept:
- Chapter 12 Afterword
- References
- Index
Summary
The earliest evidence for people on the Great Plains leaves many questions unanswered, but we know enough to set the stage for the changes that occurred at the end of the Pleistocene. We have seen that it is effectively impossible for the small sample of dated early sites to tell us about the continent’s very first occupants, whether Clovis was first or not. This means that people must have been on the Plains not for a few centuries prior to 10,800 BC (12,800 cal BP), but, rather, probably for thousands of years prior to that date. This has surpassingly important implications for the human context of change on the Great Plains at the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the modern geologic period, the Holocene.
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- The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains , pp. 69 - 101Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021