Paleoindian Settlement of the Central Great Basin: Testing Environmental, Radiocarbon, and Lithic Proxies with Data from Grass Valley, Nevada

Abstract:

Explaining Paleoindian settlement decisions in the Central Great Basin remains an important though controversial topic. Unfortunately, the limited archaeological and paleoenvironmental records from the region make progress on this issue challenging. To help address some of the problems of limited data in order to better understand Paleoindian settlement, we apply recently collected, high-resolution data from Grass Valley, Nevada, to a multi-level model that couples site locations with paleo-environmental proxies. Our strategy is to model three overlapping populations: (i) Grass Valley’s direct radiocarbon-dated Paleoindian sites, (ii) Grass Valley’s indirect lithic-dated Paleoindian sites, and (iii) the Central Great Basin’s direct radiocarbon-dated Paleoindian sites. We then compare these results to the broader settlement pattern across the Great Basin to determine if settlement decisions are structured by similar environmental factors.