Archaeology -- North America: Background

ARCTIC - Region lies near and above the Arctic Circle and includes the northernmost parts of present-day Alaska and Canada.

SUBARCTIC - Region lies south of the Arctic and encompasses most of present-day Alaska and most of Canada, excluding the Maritime Provinces (N.B., N.S., and P.E.I.), which are part of the Northeast culture area.

NORTHEAST - Culture area reaches from the present-day Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritimes (N.B., N.S., and P.E.I.) south to the Ohio River valley (inland) and to North Carolina (on the Atlantic Coast).

SOUTHEAST - Region reaches from the southern edge of the Northeast culture area to the Gulf of Mexico; from east to west it stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to somewhat west of the Mississippi valley.

PLAINS - Lie in the centre of the continent, spanning the area between the western mountains and the Mississippi River valley and from the southern edge of the Subarctic to the Rio Grande in present-day Texas.

SOUTHWEST - Culture area lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Mexican Sierra Madre, mostly in present-day Arizona and New Mexico.

GREAT BASIN - Culture area is centred in the intermontane deserts of present-day Nevada and includes adjacent areas in California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona.

CALIFORNIA - This culture area approximates the present states of California (U.S.) and northern Baja (Mexico).

NORTHWEST COAST - Culture area is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the Coast Range, the Sierra Nevada, and the Rocky Mountains; it reaches from the area around Yakutat Bay in the north to the Klamath River area in the south. It includes the coasts of present-day Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, much of southern Alaska, and a small area of northern California.

PLATEAU - Lying at the crossroads of five culture areas (the Subarctic, Plains, Great Basin, California, and Northwest Coast), the Plateau is surrounded by mountains and drained by two great river systems, the Fraser and the Columbia. It is located in present-day Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.

SOURCE: "Native American culture areas." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 4 Oct. 2016. 

Mastodon by Charles Robert Knight [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Megafauna Extinctions, ‘Megafauna’ are defined as animals with body weights of over 45 kg. One of the greatest puzzles of the end of the last ice age is the large number of extinctions of megafauna species which occurred, particularly in the Americas but also in Europe and Australia (Roberts et al. 2001). Debate has centred around climatic and other environmental changes versus hunting by humans. The most recent explanation has been a comet striking the atmosphere over N America C.13000BP causing the extinction of both the megafauna and their Clovis hunters. This theory does not explain extinctions elsewhere though. In Australia they occurred between 50 and 40 kya, after the arrival of humans. In N America there was a rapid extinction of many species of large mammals c.12 kya. Computer models have suggested that quite small populations of hunters could have caused these extinctions but why did some species die out while bison, elk and moose survived? More...

SOURCE: "megafauna extinctions." Environmental History and Global Change: A Dictionary of Environmental History, Ian Whyte, I.B. Tauris, 2013. Credo Reference

The specific number of culture areas delineated for Native America has been somewhat variable because regions are sometimes subdivided or conjoined. The 10 culture areas discussed below are among the most commonly used—the Arctic, the Subarctic, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Plains, the Southwest, the Great Basin, California, the Northwest Coast, and the Plateau. Notably, some scholars prefer to combine the Northeast and Southeast into one Eastern Woodlands culture area or the Plateau and Great Basin into a single Intermontane culture area.  More...

SOURCE: "Native American." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 4 Oct. 2016. 

SOURCE: Cobb, Charles R., and Randall H. McGuire. "North America." Oxford Handbooks Online. 20 Jan. 2017.

Archaeology of North American hunters and gatherers, The archaeological history of hunter-gatherers in North America begins with the first migrants from northeast Asia. Although the timing of the initial crossing remains a topic of research and vigorous debate, the scholarly consensus is that precursors of the earliest widespread cultures, termed Palaeoindian, entered Alaska sometime not long before 14,000 years ago (Fiedel 1999). More...

SOURCE: Cannon, A., & CANNON, A. (2006). I.I.2 Archaeology of North American hunters and gatherers. In R. B. Lee, & R. H. Daly (Eds.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Native American,  also called American Indian, Amerindian, Amerind, Indian, aboriginal American, or First Nation person,  member of any of the aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere, although the term often connotes only those groups whose original territories were in present-day Canada and the United States. More...

SOURCE: "Native American." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 4 Oct. 2016. 

Clovis Culture, Clovis is the oldest clearly defined culture known in North America, with radiocarbon dates concentrating in the range of 11,200–10,900 years BP (before the present) (though a few sites have yielded dates three to four centuries older). Its most characteristic artifact, the Clovis projectile point is lanceolate (axially elongate with roughly parallel sides curving to a point), with a concave base, and one or more elongate axial flakes removed from each side of the base, presumably to facilitate hafting to a shaft. More...

SOURCE: Laub, Richard S. "Clovis Culture." In Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by H. J. Birx, 521-527. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2006. doi: 10.4135/9781412952453.n178.

Folsom Culture, The discovery in 1927 near Folsom, New Mexico, of distinctive stone projectile points in unambiguous association with bones of extinct Late Pleistocene bison provided the first widely accepted evidence for a human presence in North America greater than a few thousand years and initiated the field of Paleo-Indian studies in American archaeology. The discovery also inspired the notion that Paleo-Indians were specialized big game hunters. The points were named “Folsom points,” and the Folsom point makers were named the “Folsom culture.” Folsom points are one of the most widely recognized point types, possibly in the world, but certainly in North America. More...

SOURCE: LeTourneau, Philippe D. "Folsom Culture." In Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by H. J. Birx, 976-978. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2006. doi: 10.4135/9781412952453.n348.