The Cody Complex revisited: Landscape use and technological organization on the northwestern plains (Wyoming, Colorado).

摘要

Prior research on the Cody Complex (10,000 to 8000 B.P.) has focused mainly on questions of projectile point typology and manufacture, and studies of bison butchery and taphonomy at kill sites. The goal of this dissertation is to reinvestigate the Cody Complex in terms of large-scale patterns of landscape use and the organization of lithic technology for six sites in Colorado and Wyoming. The methods used for this comprehensive analysis are varied. Landscape use is evaluated in terms of the movement of tool stone combined with seasonality data and set within a regional paleoenvironmental reconstruction. The results of this analysis suggest that after 9000 B.P. Cody groups reduced their overall mobility and possibly some aspects of communal hunting in response to a changing environment. These results are then integrated into a risk management analytical framework that provides a structured approach to investigating how Cody peoples organized their lithic technology in response to varying factors of risk. A sample of 515 shaped and flake tools from six Cody sites were examined with high-magnification microwear analysis in order to determine the range of functional variability for different tool designs and to establish functionally consistent tool kits within the overall assemblages from each occupation. The microwear data indicate that projectile points were used for hunting and end scrapers were used for hide working almost exclusively. Cody butchery tools exhibited a wide range of morphological variability, including an ultrathin biface that provides a diagnostic link to the early Paleoindian Folsom culture. The results of the microwear analysis are then used to evaluate the risk management model predictions for what Cody lithic technology should look like given certain conditions of food and tool stone availability and site context. While the risk management model predictions were supported by the Jurgens site data, the assemblage from Locality V at Hell Gap diverged from the predictions. Exploring reasons for the divergence highlighted unique aspects of the Locality V occupation and the limitations of the model. This research expands our current understanding of the Cody Complex and furthers the development of the risk management analytical framework.