Paleoindian Adaptations on the Great Plains

Abstract

This study emphasizes the relationship between the availability of animals on the Plains under different environmental conditions and the adaptations of the human beings preying on those animals. Such an emphasis presupposes a diet dominated by meat, and the specific hypothesis linking animal ecology and human adaptations proposed here presupposes a seasonal pattern of communal hunting. Considering the implications of this hypothesis for prehistoric societies requires evidence that these suppositions hold for the societies at issue. This chapter summarizes the chronological sequence of occupations on the Southern High Plains to provide a basic framework for a general discussion of Paleoindian adaptations on the Great Plains in this chapter and for the specific discussion of Paleoindian adaptations on the Southern High Plains in the chapter that follows. It then summarizes the evidence for Paleoindian subsistence, hunting, and aggregation patterns on the Great Plains.