The Nye Canyon Paleo Site: an Upper Montane Mixed Fluted Point, Clovis Blade, and Western Stemmed Tradition Assemblage in Western Nevada

ABSTRACT

The place of the Clovis techno-complex in Great Basin culture history remains enigmatic, both in relation to the Western Stemmed Tradition – the dominant Paleoindian artifact complex in the Intermountain West – and to the range of late Pleistocene/early Holocene habitats that people employing Clovis toolkits utilized. Here we describe the Nye Canyon Paleo Site (26Ly930), located in the Pine Grove Hills in western Nevada. The Nye Canyon Paleo Site stands alone in the Great Basin because it contains both fluted points and Clovis-style blades alongside Western Stemmed Tradition points and other tools, sits at a relatively high elevation, and potentially contains buried cultural deposits. Recent test excavations failed to locate an intact buried Paleoindian component, but the Nye Canyon Paleo Site nevertheless demonstrates the use of Clovis and Western Stemmed technology at a single upper montane locality in the western Great Basin and highlights regional Paleoindian upper montane land use.

KEYWORDS:

• Fluted points
• Clovis blades
• Western Stemmed Tradition
• Great Basin
• high elevation

Acknowledgements

This work was conducted under ARPA Permit BR1591 from the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest and supported by the Desert Research Institute, GBPRU, and USFS. Fred Frampton (USFS), Bryan Hockett (Bureau of Land Management), and Teresa Wriston (Desert Research Institute) aided in the survey. Adam Riegle, Vernon Painter, Seth Humiston, and Ethan Lehen (Bridgeport Indian Colony), and Sophia Jamaldin, Derek Reaux, Kristina Wiggins, and Gavin Smith (GBPRU) participated in the 2016 excavations. Allise Rhode and Alvin McLane assisted in earlier fieldwork at the site. We thank Kirk Halford and two anonymous reviewers for suggesting additional regional information and valuable suggestions to improve previous drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 These figures are rough estimates based on fluted point counts for Nevada, Oregon, and California reported by Rondeau (2015), and WST point counts for major late Pleistocene/early Holocene archaeological locales in Nevada, Utah, and Oregon (Beck and Jones 2009; Duke 2011; Madsen, Schmitt, and Page 2015; Reaux et al. 2018; Smith et al. 2015). We did not include counts for fluted or WST points from Idaho or Washington in these estimates.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Rhode

David Rhode is a Research Professor with the Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences at the Desert Research Institute. He has conducted research in Great Basin prehistory for more than four decades. Nye Canyon is one of his favorite day trips.

Geoffrey M. Smith

Geoffrey M. Smith is a Regents’ Professor of Anthropology and Executive Director of the Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has 20 years of experience conducting archaeological research in the American West.

Eric Dillingham

Eric Dillingham worked for the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service his entire career, retiring in 2021 from the Bridgeport Ranger District. He is mainly a prehistoric archaeologist with interests in communal hunting and rock art.

Haden U. Kingrey

Haden Kingrey is a Master’s student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research focuses on residue analysis and what it can tell us about human subsistence during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition in the Great Basin.

Nicole D. George

Nicole George is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research focuses on fluted point technology in the American West and what it can tell us about how and when people first settled the region.