 Map of the Great Plains region | |
| Geographical range | Great Plains |
|---|---|
| Period | Archaic |
| Dates | 9000 – 6000 BCE |
| Preceded by | Paleo-Indians |
| Followed by | Old Copper Complex |
The Plano cultures is a name given by archaeologists to a group of disparate hunter-gatherer communities that occupied the Great Plains area of North America during the Paleo-Indian or Archaic period.
The Plano cultures are characterised by a range of unfluted projectile point tools collectively called Plano points and like the Folsom people generally hunted Bison antiquus , but made even greater use of techniques to force stampedes off of a cliff or into a constructed corral. Their diets also included pronghorn, elk, deer, raccoon, and coyote. To better manage their food supply, they preserved meat in berries and animal fat and stored it in containers made of hides. [1] [2] [3]
The Plano cultures existed in the North American Arctic during the Paleo-Indian or Archaic period between 9000 BCE and 6000 BCE. The Plano cultures originated in the plains, but extended far beyond, from the Atlantic coast to modern-day British Columbia and as far north as the Northwest Territories. [4] [5] "Early Plano culture occurs south of the North Saskatchewan River in Saskatchewan and in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains north to the Peace River Valley of Alberta and adjacent British Columbia. At this time, most of Manitoba was still covered by Glacial Lake Agassiz and associated glacial ice." [4]
Bison herds were attracted to the grasslands and parklands in the western region. Around 9,000 B.P. as retreating glaciers created newly released lake regions, the expansion of plant and animal communities expanded north and east, and the barren ground caribou in the tundra, boreal woodland caribou in the boreal forests and plains, and mountain caribou replaced bison as the major prey animal. [4]
In the Great Plains, the following are Plano cultures from 10,000 to 7,000 years ago, distinguished by long, lanceolate projectile points: [6]
Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who entered and subsequently inhabited the Americas during the final glacial episodes of the late Pleistocene period. The prefix paleo- comes from the Ancient Greek adjective: παλαιός, romanized: palaiós, lit. 'old; ancient'. The term Paleo-Indians applies specifically to the lithic period in the Western Hemisphere and is distinct from the term Paleolithic.
Folsom points are projectile points associated with the Folsom tradition of North America. The style of tool-making was named after the Folsom site located in Folsom, New Mexico, where the first sample was found in 1908 by George McJunkin within the bone structure of an extinct bison, Bison antiquus, an animal hunted by the Folsom people. The Folsom point was identified as a unique style of projectile point in 1926. The Folsom point found in association with the extinct bison bones proved to the scientific community that humans had lived in the Americas thousands of years longer than many had previously believed.
The Folsom tradition is a Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America from c. 10800 BCE to c. 10200 BCE. The term was first used in 1927 by Jesse Dade Figgins, director of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The discovery by archaeologists of projectile points in association with the bones of extinct Bison antiquus, especially at the Folsom site near Folsom, New Mexico, established much greater antiquity for human residence in the Americas than the previous scholarly opinion that humans in the Americas dated back only 3,000 years. The findings at the Folsom site have been called the "discovery that changed American archaeology."
In the sequence of cultural stages first proposed for the archaeology of the Americas by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, as post-glacial hunter gatherers spread through the Americas. The stage derived its name from the first appearance of Lithic flaked stone tools. The term Paleo-Indian is an alternative, generally indicating much the same period.
The Lindenmeier site is a stratified multi-component archaeological site most famous for its Folsom component. The former Lindenmeier Ranch is in the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, in northeastern Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The site contains the most extensive Folsom culture campsite yet found with calibrated radiocarbon dates of c. 12,300 B.P.. Artifacts were also found from subsequent Archaic and Late pre-historic periods.
The Cooper Bison Kill Site is an archaeological site near Fort Supply in Harper County, Oklahoma, United States. Located along the Beaver River, it was explored in 1993 and 1994 and found to contain artifacts of the Folsom tradition, dated at c.10800 BCE to c. 10,200 BCE in calibrated radiocarbon years. Findings include projectile points, the bow and arrow not yet being in use at this date. The projectile points are the results of hunters killing bison in an arroyo. Known artifacts at the site from this culture are believed to be the results of three different hunts.
Prehistory of Colorado provides an overview of the activities that occurred prior to Colorado's recorded history. Colorado experienced cataclysmic geological events over billions of years, which shaped the land and resulted in diverse ecosystems. The ecosystems included several ice ages, tropical oceans, and a massive volcanic eruption. Then, ancient layers of earth rose to become the Rocky Mountains.
The LoDaisKa site is a prominent archaeological site in the U.S. state of Colorado, located within a rockshelter near Morrison. The rockshelter was first inhabited by people of the Archaic through the Middle Ceramic period, generally spanning 3000 BC to 1000 AD.
The Olsen–Chubbuck Bison kill site is a Paleo-Indian site that dates to an estimated 8000–6500 B.C. and provides evidence for bison hunting and using a game drive system, long before the use of the bow and arrow or horses. The site holds a bone bed of nearly 200 bison that were killed, butchered, and consumed by Paleo-Indian hunters. The site is located 16 miles southeast of Kit Carson, Colorado. The site was named after archaeologists, Sigurd Olsen and Gerald Chubbuck, who discovered the bone bed in 1957. In 1958, the excavation of the Olsen-Chubbuck site was then turned over to the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, a team led by Joe Ben Wheat, an anthropologist employed by the museum.
Franktown Cave is located 25 miles (40 km) south of Denver, Colorado on the north edge of the Palmer Divide. It is the largest rock shelter documented on the Palmer Divide, which contains artifacts from many prehistoric cultures. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers occupied Franktown Cave intermittently for 8,000 years beginning about 6400 BC The site held remarkable lithic and ceramic artifacts, but it is better known for its perishable artifacts, including animal hides, wood, fiber and corn. Material goods were produced for their comfort, task-simplification and religious celebration. There is evidence of the site being a campsite or dwelling as recently as AD 1725.
The Jones-Miller Bison Kill Site, located in northeast Colorado, was a Paleo-Indian site where Bison antiquus were killed using a game drive system and butchered. Hell Gap complex bones and tools artifacts at the site are carbon dated from about ca. 8000-8050 BC.
The Jurgens Site is a Paleo-Indian site located near Greeley in Weld County, Colorado. While the site was used primarily to hunt and butcher bison antiquus, there is evidence that the Paleo-Indians also gathered plants and seeds for food about 7,000 to 7,500 BC.
The Cody complex is a Paleo-Indian culture group first identified at a bison antiquus kill site near Cody, Wyoming, in 1951. Points possessing characteristics of Cody Complex flaking have been found all across North America from Canada to as far south as Oklahoma and Texas.
The Archaic–Early Basketmaker Era was an Archaic cultural period of ancestors to the Ancient Pueblo People. They were distinguished from other Archaic people of the Southwest by their basketry which was used to gather and store food. They became reliant on wild seeds, grasses, nuts, and fruit for food and changed their movement patterns and lifestyle by maximizing the edible wild food and small game within a geographical region. Manos and metates began to be used to process seeds and nuts. With the extinction of megafauna, hunters adapted their tools, using spears with smaller projectile points and then atlatl and darts. Simple dwellings made of wood, brush and earth provided shelter.
The Goshen point is a medium-sized, lanceolate-shaped, Paleo-Indian projectile point with a straight or concave base. It exhibits characteristic fine flaking.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the prehistoric people of Colorado, which covers the period of when Native Americans lived in Colorado prior to contact with the Domínguez–Escalante expedition in 1776. People's lifestyles included nomadic hunter-gathering, semi-permanent village dwelling, and residing in pueblos.
The Hell Gap complex is a Plano culture from 10,060 to 9,600 before present. It is named after the Hell Gap archaeological site, in Goshen County, Wyoming.
Hell Gap is a deeply stratified archaeological site located in the Great Plains of eastern Wyoming, approximately thirteen miles north of Guernsey, where an abundant amount of Paleoindian and Archaic artifacts have been found and excavated since 1959. This site has had an important impact on North American archaeology because of the large quantity and breadth of prehistoric Paleoindian and Archaic period artifacts and cultures it encompasses. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016.
Humans have inhabited Quebec for 11,000 years beginning with the de-glaciated areas of the St. Lawrence River valley and expanding into parts of the Canadian Shield after glaciers retreated 5,000 years ago. Quebec has almost universally acidic soils that destroy bone and many other traces of human activity, complicating archaeological research together with development in parts of southern Quebec. Archaeological research only began in earnest in the 1960s and large parts of the province remain poorly researched.
The Groswater culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture that existed in Newfoundland and Labrador from 800 BC to 200 BC. The culture was of Arctic origin, and migrated south after the decline of the Maritime Archaic people following the 900 BC Iron Age Cold Epoch. It is believed to have been replaced by or developed into the Dorset culture around 2000 BP. It is named after Groswater Bay, a bay in central Labrador.
