Climate, environment, and humans in North America’s Great Basin during the Younger Dryas, 12,900–11,600 calendar years ago

• Published in: Quaternary international Vol. 242; no. 2; pp. 479 - 501
• Main Authors: Goebel, Ted, Hockett, Bryan, Adams, Kenneth D., Rhode, David, Graf, Kelly
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 15.10.2011
• Subjects: American Indians; antelopes; Antilocapra americana; Artemisia; basins; Centrocercus urophasianus; cladodes; climate; climate change; diet; grasses; grasshoppers; hares; humans; lakes; Leporidae; marshes; meadows; mitochondrial DNA; Odocoileus hemionus; Ovis canadensis; plant communities; population; seeds; skull; temperature; waterfowl; North America
• ISSN: 1040-6182; 1873-4553
• DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2011.03.043

Global climate change associated with the onset of the Younger Dryas chronozone affected different regions of the northern hemisphere in different ways. In the Great Basin of western North America, the effect was positive for human populations. Relatively cool temperatures causing effectively wetter conditions filled some pluvial basins with shallow but permanent lakes and other basins with well-watered marshes or meadows. Vegetation communities dominated by sagebrush and grasses promoted healthy and diverse animal populations. Ten archaeological sites from the region have been dated to the Younger Dryas chronozone. Evidence from these sites indicates that Paleoindians with skull shapes and mitochondrial DNA similar to modern western North American Indians occupied the region. These early humans produced a material culture characterized predominantly by large stemmed bifacial points, although one site contained a small fluted point. Curated tool forms and technological activities represented in analyzed lithic assemblages suggest a highly mobile settlement strategy, and redundant short-term occupations of sites indicate frequent and long-distance residential moves across territories spanning distances of up to 400 km. Paleoindian subsistence pursuits focused on artiodactyls (primarily mule deer, bighorn sheep, and pronghorn antelope), leporids (chiefly jackrabbits), birds (sage grouse and waterfowl), insects (grasshoppers), and possibly fish. Easy-to-process plants like cactus pads were also eaten, but small seeds do not seem to have been an important part of Great Basin human diets until long after the Younger Dryas, closer to 9500 cal BP. The Great Basin record contains no evidence for natural catastrophe at the onset of the chronozone. Instead, the Younger Dryas appears to have been among the best of times for human foragers in this region of North America.