The Water Canyon Paleoindian Site: A Significant Archive of Paleoclimatic Data for the Early Holocene in West-Central New Mexico (original) (raw)
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AbstrAct—The Water Canyon Paleoindian site near Socorro, New Mexico, is directly associated with an extensive buried wetland deposit, or black mat. This landscape-scale feature, which was extant across the late Pleistocene–early Holocene transition, represents the remains of a wetland resource that, during the early Holocene, may have served as an ecological refugium for flora, fauna and Paleoindian groups as other regional water sources disappeared. Today the organic-rich deposit has proved to be an important proxy data archive for environmental , climatic and archaeological reconstructions. Our recent paleoenvironmental reconstruction efforts at the site have focused largely on the period from ~8300 to 11,100 radiocarbon years ago, and have generated a range of proxy data, including dated pollen profiles, stable carbon isotope values, charcoal species identifications, and both faunal and macrobotanical remains. The pollen data currently provide the most robust basis for our paleoenvironmental reconstruction and, together with our chronometric data, affirm that the black-mat forming wetland served as a persistent place of ecological diversity. These findings provide us with provocative glimpses of past environments in a heretofore largely understudied region of the American Southwest, and add to a growing body of Southwest reconstructions that will ultimately enable researchers to compare paleoenvironments and paleoclimates at both local and regional scales.
A Paleoindian Sense of Place: Snapshots of the Early Holocene Environment of West-Central New Mexico
The Water Canyon Paleoindian site near Socorro, New Mexico is directly associated with an extensive buried wet meadow deposit. While extant across the Pleistocene – Holocene transition and into the middle Holocene, this landscape-scale deposit arguably represented a persistent, regional wetland resource, not only for plants and animals, but Paleoindian groups as well. Today it represents an important proxy data archive for environmental, climatic and archaeological reconstruction. Our recent research efforts at the site have focused largely on the period from 8300 to 9600 radiocarbon years ago, and have generated dated pollen profiles, stable carbon isotope data sets, charcoal species identifications and both faunal and macrobotanical remains. These findings provide us with provocative glimpses into the environment, climate, bison ecology, and human diet during Late Paleoindian times.
The Water Canyon site now comprises a minimum of two Late Paleoindian components at two tem-porally distinct bison kill/butchering locales and a potential Clovis component. The former, in Locus 1, primarily on the south bank of No Name Arroyo, and in Locus 5 along a deeply buried possible ancient drainage meander, are represented by butchered bison bone beds with associated flaked stone artifacts. An additional Late Paleoindian component—perhaps associated with Locus 5 materials—is thought to exist at Locus 4. A Clovis component may exist in Locus 3, based on the recovery of a Clovis point base from the surface and the results of OSL dating in Backhoe Trench 4. The robust late Pleistocene—early Holocene paleoenvironmental archive in the “Black Mat,” from which we have recovered additional macrobotanical, pollen and phytolith samples, is allowing us to more thoroughly reconstruct the paleoecology of the site and its environs. While many chronometric samples have been processed and their dates reported in this volume, additional environmental and analytical data will be presented in future reports after all labora-tory analyses have been completed.
The Water Canyon Paleoindian Site - A New Window into New Mexico's Distant Past
El Palacio, Volume 54 2012 - from a scientific point of view, New Mexico has been pivotal in the history of archaeological thought. Noteworthy finds such as the 1908 discovery of the Folsom type site (near Folsom) and the 1929 discovery of the Clovis type site at Blackwater Draw (near Portales) are the basis for our understanding of the early human presence in the New World. Information from those sites provided us a first glimpse of a world that was very different from today’s, one in which stone tools enabled hunter-gatherers to kill large animals that are now extinct. Over the intervening decades since those discoveries, archaeologists have, in fits and starts, found new windows into that ancient past and broadened our understanding of human life at the end of the late Pleistocene geological epoch and the beginning of the Holocene epoch (ca. 13,000 to 8,000 years ago).
In, 2013 From the Pueblos to the Southern Plains: Papers in Honor of Regge N. Wiseman, pp. 51-63, edited by Emily J. Brown, Carol J. Condie, and Helen K. Crotty. Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico 39, Albuquerque. PALEOINDIAN REMAINS IN NEW MEXICO are relatively rare with just over 1,200 Paleoindian sites and isolated projectile points documented in the New Mexico Archaeological Records Management System (ARMS) database. While the majority of Paleoindian manifestations may be points only, they constitute less than 1 percent of all documented “sites” in the state. More signifi cantly, fewer than 20 Paleoindian sites have been professionally excavated to any degree in New Mexico and, of those, good bone preservation at open, excavated Paleoindian sites is rarer still. Such sites include the type site for the Clovis culture—Black Water Draw; the type site for the Folsom culture—the Folsom site; and Milnesand, Ted Williams, Elida, and San Jon along the western edge of the high plains. Other open sites in other parts of the state, such as Ake, Boca Negra, and Mockingbird Gap, have produced some desiccated bone fragments and pieces of tooth enamel. Within that context, the discovery of the Water Canyon site (LA 134764) in Socorro County is signifi cant in that it represents the fi rst opportunity in west-central New Mexico to investigate an intact Paleoindian site with well-preserved faunal remains. It is also one of few such sites across the state directly associated with a robust record of paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental change.
Paleoindians, paleolakes and paleoplayas: Landscape geoarchaeology of the Tularosa Basin, New Mexico
Geomorphology, 2019
Karl Butzer was one of the first prehistorians to think about and write about people, 28 ancient and modern, on the landscape. Moreover, as a geomorphologist he knew that past 29 landscapes were as dynamic and varied as they are today-not static entities that formed the 30 backdrop for human activity. That viewpoint is critical in understanding the physical 31 environment faced by humans during the early peopling of the Americas (~13,500 to ~10,000 cal 32 YBP). North America was undergoing rapid environmental changes as the continent was coming 33 out of the last Ice Age. In the southwestern part of the continent large paleolake levels were 34 falling and smaller playa basins were aggrading as the area was occupied by Paleoindian groups 35 such as Clovis, Folsom, and later groups of First Americans. The paleolakes would have provided some resources, but modern gypsum deposits indicate that lake waters were unpotable. Numerous small depressions (playas) scattered around the floor of the Tularosa Basin contain muddy fills that span the Holocene and terminal Pleistocene, indicative of fresher water at least seasonally. Paleoindian sites tend to be clustered around these small basins and along drainages off of the mountains that flank the basin, as well as settings with good viewsheds rather than the main paleolake margins. Paleolakes were dramatic components of the late Pleistocene landscape in the Southwest, but likely were not the primary attractions to the First Americans.