Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:47:04.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Earliest Cultures in the Western United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Alex D. Krieger
Alex D. Krieger*
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Seattle 5, Washington
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Nearly all writers on the antiquity of man in America assume that the oldest archaeological sites contain chipped-stone projectile points and therefore cannot exceed an age of some 12,000 to 15,000 years, the estimates usually given to such projectile-point types as Sandia and Clovis. Suggestions of older sites, with radiocarbon dates ranging from some 21,000 years to as much as “greater than 37,000 years,” with simpler artifacts and an absence of stone projectile points, are generally viewed with suspicion if not abhorrence.

A recent paper by E. H. Sellards considers seven localities in the western United States and Baja California which, because of geological position and radiocarbon dates, are probably too old to contain stone projectile points. The writer agrees with Sellards that these localities are archaeological (except for that at Texas Street in San Diego, California), but disagrees that those in coastal locations are different from those in inland locations for “ecological” reasons such as food supply and availability of stone. The differences may be explained in that those sites on the shores of extinct lakes were never covered by overburden, whereas those which were covered by alluvium or sand are known to us now only by varying amounts of exposure by erosion or excavation (or both).

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , October 1962 , pp. 138 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1962

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

Arnold, Brigham A. 1957 Late Pleistocene and Recent Changes in Land Forms, Climate, and Archaeology in Central Baja California. University of California Publications in Geography, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 201–318. Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Katherine 1943 A Primitive Stone Industry of the Little Colorado Valley, Arizona. American Antiquity, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 266–8. Menasha.Google Scholar
Carter, George F. 1957 Pleistocene Man at San Diego. The Johns Hopkins Press. Baltimore.Google Scholar
Crook, Wilson W. Jr. and Harris, R. K. 1957 Hearths and Artifacts of Early Man near Lewisville, Texas, and Associated Faunal Material. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society, Vol. 28, pp. 7–97. Austin.Google Scholar
Greenman, E. F. 1957 An American Eolithic? American Antiquity, Vol. 22, No. 3, p. 298. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Harrington, Mark Raymond and Deette Simpson, Ruth 1961 Tule Springs, Nevada, with other Evidences of Pleistocene Man in North America. Southwest Museum Papers, No. 18. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Johnson, Frederick and Miller, John P. 1958 Review of Carter's Pleistocene Man at San Diego. American Antiquity, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 206–10. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Krieger, Alex D. 1958 Review of Carter's Pleistocene Man at San Diego. American Anthropologist, Vol. 60, No. 5, pp. 974–8. Menasha.Google Scholar
Krieger, Alex D. 1959 Comments on George F. Carter's “Man, Time, and Change in the Far Southwest.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 49, No. 3, Pt. 2, pp. 31–3. Lawrence, Kansas.Google Scholar
Mason, Ronald J. 1962 The Paleo-Indian Tradition in Eastern North America. Current Anthropology, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 227–46. Chicago.Google Scholar
Orr, Phil C. 1952 Report on Santa Rosa Island 1952, Sixth Santa Rosa Island Expedition. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Santa Barbara.Google Scholar
Orr, Phil C. 1956 Radiocarbon Dates from Santa Rosa Island: I. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Department of Anthropology, Bulletin 2. Santa Barbara.Google Scholar
Renaud, E. B. 1938 The Blacks Fork Culture of Southwest Wyoming. The Archaeological Survey of the Western High Plains, 10th Report. University of Denver. Denver.Google Scholar
Renaud, E. B. 1940 Further Research in the Blacks Fork Basin, Southwest Wyoming, 1938–1939. The Archaeological Survey of the Western High Plains, 12th Report. University of Denver. Denver.Google Scholar
Roosa, William B. and Peckham, Stewart L. 1954 Notes on the Third Interglacial Artifacts. American Antiquity, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 280–1. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Sellards, E. H. 1960 Some Early Stone Artifact Developments in North America. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 160–73. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Simpson, Ruth D. 1958 The Lake Manix Archeological Survey. The Masterkey, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 4–10. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Simpson, Ruth D. 1960 Archeological Survey of the Eastern Calico Mountains. The Masterkey, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 25–35. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Simpson, Ruth D. 1961 Coyote Gulch: Archeological Investigations of an Early Lithic Locality in the Mohave Desert of San Bernardino County. Archaeological Survey Association of Southern California, Paper No. 5. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Treganza, A. E. 1952 Archaeological Investigations in the Farmington Reservoir Area, Stanislaus County, California. Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey, No. 14. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Treganza, A. E. and Robert F., Heizer 1953 Additional Data on the Farmington Complex: A Stone Implement Assemblage of Probable Early Postglacial Date from Central California. Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey, No. 22. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Willey, Gordon R. and Phillips, Philip 1958 Method and Theory in American Archaeology. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.Google Scholar