Explores how some of North America's earliest people used the Rocky Mountain landscape 10,000 to 7,500 years ago. Bonnie L Pitblado is particularly concerned with the extent to which early people incorporated the southern Rocky Mountains into their settlement systems and how late Paleoindian people moved across the southern Rocky Mountain landscape. Based on extensive research comparing more than 600 painstakingly documented late Paleoindian projectile points from Colorado and Utah, this book reveals profound regional differences along three axes of projectile point variability, which suggests equally profound regional differences in late Paleoindian settlement strategies. Pitblado highlights unique characteristics of early human use of the southern Rocky Mountains, but the comparative nature of the research also yields new inferences about late Paleoindian use of the Colorado Plains, the Utah Great Basin, and the Colorado Plateau.

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction; Environment: Modern and Early Holocene; Hunter-Gatherer Land Use, Lithic Technology, and Late Paleoindian Occupation of the Project Area; Projectile Point Analysis Procedure; Late Paleoindian Projectile Point Typology in the Western United States; Late Paleoindian Projectile Points: Typological Variability; Late Paleoindian Projectile Points: Raw Material Variability; Late Paleoindian Projectile Points: Qualitative Technological Variability; Late Paleoindian Projectile Points: Quantitative Technological Variability; Late Paleoindian Projectile Points: Condition and Reworking; Discussion and Conclusions.