Prehistory of Nevada's northern tier : archaeological investigations along the Ruby Pipeline

Abstract

P erhaps the largest-scale archaeological study ever undertaken in the Great Basin, the Ruby Pipeline Project included the investigation of 566 prehistoric sites across northern Nevada. A 13,000 year record of human occupation was documented spanning the first pluvial lake settlements at the close of the last Ice Age to the rise of the Western Shoshone and Northern Paiute. This archaeological record is replete with vast obsidian quarries, upland root-gathering sites, major residential bases, specialized hunting camps, and large-scale antelope traps. We are introduced to a prehistoric world of continual change, one marked by transformed environments, shifts in settlement and subsistence structure, and even wholesale population movements. The result is a work that allows us to chronicle the initial colonization of northern Nevada, monitor the subsequent process of population growth and dispersal, document the evolution of exchange systems, and propose a compelling new version of Numic prehistory.

Obsidian projectile point conveyance patterns in the lower Humboldt Valley, Nevada

“…43 At a more general level, obsidian provenance (and obsidian hydration dating) studies have allowed us to track broad changes in source use through long periods of time in Nevada prehistory. Beck and Jones's (1990a, 1990b, 2009 and Jones et al 's (2003Jones et al 's ( , 2012 pioneering work in eastern Nevada, Delacorte's (1997), Milliken and Hildebrandt's (1997), Smith's (2007Smith et al, 2012;Smith and Harvey, 2018), and Hockett's (1995) in northwestern Nevada, and the recent Ruby Pipeline results (Hildebrandt, et al, 2016; reveal a high diversity in obsidian source use during Paleoindian/Paleoarchaic times, remarkably low diversity in source use during Early and Middle Archaic times, and a return to high source use diversity during Late Archaic/Terminal Prehistoric times. Delacorte and Basgall (2012) and Delacorte (2020) presented cogent summaries of complementary data for the western area.…”

The Ideal Distribution of Farmers: Explaining the Euro-American Settlement of Utah

“…Explaining prehistoric colonization and migration events is a central research theme in American archaeology (e.g., Bell et al 2015; Schwindt et al 2016; Smallwood 2012). Recent advances framed by behavioral ecology have drawn on the Ideal Free Distribution model (IFD; Fretwell and Lucas 1969) to explain population movements across continents (Codding and Jones 2013; Hildebrandt et al 2016; O'Connell and Allen 2012; Prufer et al 2017) and islands (Giovas and Fitzpatrick 2014; Jazwa et al 2013; Jazwa et al 2016; Kennett 2005; Winterhalder et al 2010; see Codding and Bird 2015 for review). The IFD model makes the simple prediction that if individuals are free to choose where to make a living, they should distribute themselves across a varying landscape proportional to the suitability of the local environment.…”