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Antiquity of Communal Pronghorn Hunting in the North-Central Great Basin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Bryan Hockett  and
Timothy W. Murphy
Bryan Hockett
Affiliation:
Bureau of Land Management, Elko District Office, 3900 East Idaho Street, Elko, Nevada 89801 ([email protected])
Timothy W. Murphy
Affiliation:
Bureau of Land Management, Elko District Office, 3900 East Idaho Street, Elko, Nevada 89801 ([email protected])
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Abstract

Communal hunting of small game such as hares has probably occurred for 10,000 years in the Great Basin. Ethnohistoric accounts of the nineteenth century indicate that indigenous peoples communally hunted large game (e.g., pronghorn, mountain sheep, deer, bison) across much of western North America including the Plains, desert Southwest, California, and Great Basin subregions, during and immediately preceding the contact era. Research in the Plains subregion suggests that communal large game hunting occurred there prior to the adoption of the bow-and-arrow between ca. 1,500 and 2,000 years ago, and in fact may have occurred as early as 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ethnohistoric accounts suggest that communal pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) hunts involving the construction of a corral with associated wings were utilized by many Great Basin peoples at the time of historic contact. This paper asks: (1) did communal pronghorn hunts occur prior to the Protohistoric Period (before ca. 600 ¹⁴C B.P.) in the north-central Great Basin? (2) if so, how ancient is this practice? and (3) did the methods or behaviors of the participants of these communal hunts vary through time? Detailed analysis of sites containing dozens, and in many cases, hundreds of projectile points that predate ca. 600 ¹⁴C B.P. found in or near existing juniper branch corrals and wings suggest that communal pronghorn hunting has occurred for at least 4,000 to 5,000 years in the north-central Great Basin. Further, behavioral variability is seen through time in the material remains of these communal hunts, with earlier (Middle Archaic) communal kills characterized by greater use of local toolstone sources, gearing-up just prior to the kill, and perhaps a greater reliance on shooting the trapped pronghorn rather than clubbing compared to Protohistoric communal kills.

Résumé

Résumé

Comunales de caza de caza mayor, como el berrendo (Antilocapra americana) que supongan la construcción de un corral junto con las alas se utilizaron por muchos pueblos Gran Cuenca, en el momento histórico de contacto. Este documento busca responder a la antigüedad de este comportamiento en la Gran Cuenca. Los datos sugieren que la caza comunal berrendo se ha producido por lo menos 4.000 a 5.000 años en la parte norte-central de Gran Cuenca.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 708 - 734
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2009

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