The Development of Paleoindian Communal Bison Kills: A Comparison of Northern to Southern Plains Arroyo Traps

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the questions: Is there a link between environmental change, bison mobility behavior, and large-scale hunting? What were the mobility patterns of bison hunted in large kills during the Folsom and Goshen periods? What was the environment like? To investigate these questions I employ stable isotopes of bison bone from Paleoindian kill sites to reconstruct the grasslands. In addition I combine the isotopic analysis with trace element analysis of bison teeth to reconstruct the mobility patterns of these animals. These techniques are first applied to the robust and temporally continuous sample on the southern Plains providing a reference to create models to fill gaps in data on the northern Plains.

This project develops a framework to understand hunting through the analysis of prey behavior and the environment during the Paleoindian period on the Great Plains. The focus of this research is temporal fluctuation of bison mobility and grassland structure. Success in hunting is directly linked to an in depth understanding of prey behavior (Frison 2004). Concerning archaeological investigation, in order to understand the hunting systems of Paleoindians, we must first be intimately familiar with the species and environment in which they hunted.

The results of this research on the southern Plains demonstrate a change in hunting adaptation from the end of the Clovis period through the Folsom period that coincides with changes in grassland structure indicating environmental fluctuation. The northern Plains results provide data that define an environmentally stable period where little change is observed in bison behavior and hunting adaptation.