TY - JOUR
T1 - Geoarchaeology of the Water Canyon Paleoindian site, west-central New Mexico
AU - Holliday, Vance T.
AU - Dello-Russo, Robert D.
AU - Mentzer, Susan M.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was conducted through several field permits issued to RDR since 2008 by the New Mexico State Historic Preservation Division and the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Geoarchaeological field assistance was provided by William T. Reitze and Andrew J. Richard. The authors jointly thank the following people for their helpful advice or collaboration, without which our current understanding of the Water Canyon site would not have been possible: Patrice Walker Dello‐Russo, Ron Goble, Paul Goldberg, C. Vance Haynes, and Jill Onken. V. T. H thanks Bruce Huckell and Greg Hodgins, and R. D. R. thanks Mike Collins, Russell Greaves, Stephen Hall, David Love, Les McFadden, Keith Prufer, David Rachal, and Christian Solfisburg. Figures , and were created by Jim Abbott; Figures a,b and a,b were jointly created by R. D. R. and V. T. H.; Figures , and S1 were created by R. D. R.; Figure was jointly created by R. D. R. and Scott Gunn; and Figure was jointly created by R. D. R., Alex Kurota and Scott Gunn. The manuscript was improved by a review from Lee Nordt and two anonymous reviewers. Funding for this study was provided by the Argonaut Archaeological Research Fund (V. T. H. Executive Director; University of Arizona Foundation), the UNM Office of Contract Archeology, the NM Office of Archaeological Studies, the Curtiss T. and Mary G. Brennan Foundation, the UNM College of Arts and Sciences, the NM Historic Preservation Division, and numerous private donors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - Water Canyon is a rare buried, multicomponent, stratified Paleoindian site in west-central New Mexico. This paper presents a geoarchaeological assessment of the site as part of a broader interdisciplinary investigation of its paleoenvironmental history and archaeology. The archaeology is associated with ancient wetland deposits (Stratum 6) within an alluvial fan. The fan formed initially through the late Pleistocene. Formation of the fan stopped and wetland deposition began ~11,310 14C yr BP (~13,170 cal yr BP). Stratum 6 evolved via wetland deposition and cut-and-fill cycles. The bulk of Stratum 6 dates <10,300 14C yr BP (<12,200 cal yr BP). One, or possibly two, beds of bison bone, likely processing-stations, were found on the margin of the paleowetland and date to ~9,200 14C yr BP (~10,400 cal yr BP) (lower bone bed) and ~8,200 14C yr BP (~9,150 cal yr BP) (upper bone bed). Farther out in the paleo-wetland a probable kill site was discovered with an in situ Eden projectile point dated to at least ~8,955 14C yr BP (~10,070 cal yr BP). The wetland landscape returned to an alluvial fan system <8,000 14C yr BP (<8,900 cal yr BP) with two more cycles of fan deposition by ~6,500 cal yr.
AB - Water Canyon is a rare buried, multicomponent, stratified Paleoindian site in west-central New Mexico. This paper presents a geoarchaeological assessment of the site as part of a broader interdisciplinary investigation of its paleoenvironmental history and archaeology. The archaeology is associated with ancient wetland deposits (Stratum 6) within an alluvial fan. The fan formed initially through the late Pleistocene. Formation of the fan stopped and wetland deposition began ~11,310 14C yr BP (~13,170 cal yr BP). Stratum 6 evolved via wetland deposition and cut-and-fill cycles. The bulk of Stratum 6 dates <10,300 14C yr BP (<12,200 cal yr BP). One, or possibly two, beds of bison bone, likely processing-stations, were found on the margin of the paleowetland and date to ~9,200 14C yr BP (~10,400 cal yr BP) (lower bone bed) and ~8,200 14C yr BP (~9,150 cal yr BP) (upper bone bed). Farther out in the paleo-wetland a probable kill site was discovered with an in situ Eden projectile point dated to at least ~8,955 14C yr BP (~10,070 cal yr BP). The wetland landscape returned to an alluvial fan system <8,000 14C yr BP (<8,900 cal yr BP) with two more cycles of fan deposition by ~6,500 cal yr.
KW - Eden point
KW - Paleoindian
KW - alluvial fan
KW - bison kill
KW - bison processing
KW - paleo-wetland
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U2 - 10.1002/gea.21765
DO - 10.1002/gea.21765
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85073922884
SN - 0883-6353
VL - 35
SP - 112
EP - 140
JO - Geoarchaeology - An International Journal
JF - Geoarchaeology - An International Journal
IS - 1
ER -