A Circum-Pacific Perspective on the Origin of Stemmed Points in North America

ABSTRACT

The Western Stemmed and Paleocoastal technocomplexes are prevalent in western North America. A working hypothesis states they are associated with the late-Pleistocene human migration into the Americas and derive from an antecedent located along the North Pacific Rim. Here, we review their records to create a techno-typological baseline, which we then compare to early archaeological records from the North Pacific Rim, Beringia, Siberia, and Russian Far East. Our results indicate stemmed points and related socket hafting were an important component of Upper Paleolithic technology across northeast Asia since at least the last glacial maximum. An associated diagnostic bifacial reduction strategy is present by the early part of the late glacial, and continues in younger technocomplexes. Future research should continue to focus on analyses of the chronological and technological relationships between different technocomplexes to uncover their evolutionary origins.

KEYWORDS:

• Western Stemmed
• Paleocoastal
• Beringia
• Upper Paleolithic
• northeast Asia

Acknowledgements

We wish to gratefully acknowledge Robert and Sharon Wilson’s gift to the Center for the Study of the First Americans, which made the first Wilson Workshop in British Columbia in April 2018 possible. We would like to also thank the two anonymous reviewers, whose comments provided helpful feedback on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jordan Pratt is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University. Her research interests include the study of Paleoindian lithic technology and the geoarchaeology of early archaeological sites, especially in the Great Basin of western North America. Currently, she is leading excavations at Weed Lake Ditch, a Western Stemmed Paleoindian site located in the Harney basin, eastern Oregon.

Ted Goebel is a professor of anthropology at Texas A&M University and currently serves as the associate director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans. His research has focused on the archaeology of the peopling of the Americas, investigating early sites in Siberia, Alaska, and the Great Basin. He also serves as editor of the journal PaleoAmerica.

Kelly Graf is an associate professor of anthropology at Texas A&M University and a research faculty member of the Center for the Study of the First Americans. Her research has focused on the Upper Paleolithic of Siberia and Beringia, and most recently she has led field projects investigating site formation at Owl Ridge, Dry Creek, and McDonald Creek, Alaska.

Masami Izuho is an associate professor of archaeology in the Department of History and Archaeology, Tokyo Metropolitan University. His research has focused on geoarchaeological problems related to the Paleolithic of Japan, Mongolia, and Siberia. He has published numerous articles on the development of microblade technologies in Hokkaido, the exchange of obsidian during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene in Japan, and the origins of the Upper Paleolithic in central Mongolia.

ORCID

Jordan Pratt http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4989-0393

Notes

1 Layton (1972) noted that Parman points from Cougar Mountain Cave were similar in shape and size to Lind Coulee points, although somewhat thicker in cross-section (see also Amick 2004). Detailed morphological and technological comparisons between these geographically defined point types may indicate more distinct typological differences in the future, but here we consider Lind Coulee points to be part of our overall short-stemmed Parman category.

2 The base of an elongate lanceolate point with contracting lateral margins was found in one of the first test pits at the Moose Creek site (Hoffecker 1996, figure 7–16a), but more recent excavations recognized two stratigraphically successive cultural occupations at the site, an early one assigned to the Nenana complex and a later one assigned to the Denali complex (Pearson 1999), so we cannot know which component the lanceolate point originated from. Radiocarbon dates from the early Moose Creek excavation further indicate the insecure association: Hoffecker (1996, 364) reported a pair of dates of about 13,500 and 12,500 cal yr BP, and these overlap with additional dates that Pearson (1999) obtained for the two successive components.

3 Ust-Kova is located on the Angara River and has a handful of asymmetrical bifacial knives and leaf-shaped bifaces that are generally thought to date to ∼29,000–25,000 cal yr BP and associated with the Siberian middle Upper Paleolithic (Goebel 2004). Derbina-5 is located along the Enisei River near Krasnoiarsk and has ∼20 leaf-shaped bifaces collected from the beach in front of the site. Radiocarbon dates from the cultural layer indicate an age of ∼33,000–25,000 cal yr BP (Akimova et al. 2010). Typologically, the entire assemblage appears to be early Upper Paleolithic or middle Upper Paleolithic. Kurtak-5 is located on the Enisei River about 60 km from Derbina-5 and has at least four middle-to-late-stage bifaces, one triangular-shaped and three rectangular-shaped. Based on techno-typological comparisons and chrono-stratigraphic correlation with Kurtak-4, the assemblage appears to be middle Upper Paleolithic and may date to ∼29,000 cal yr BP (Graf 2008; Lisitsyn 2000). Afontova Gora-3, located along the Enisei River in the southern outskirts of Krasnoiarsk, has at least one reworked lanceolate biface mid-section. The site assemblage has not been radiocarbon dated, but based on techno-typological and chrono-stratigraphic correlation dates to about 17,000–16,000 cal yr BP (Graf 2008).

4 The mtDNA record, however, suggests the existence of a common ancestor for both Jomon and Native Americans, which likely existed somewhere in mainland eastern Asia (Adachi et al. 2011; Adachi, Shinoda, and Izuho 2015).