Great Basin Survivance (USA): Challenges and Windfalls of the Neoglaciation / Late Holocene Dry Period (3100-1800 cal BP)

David Hurst Thomas, David Rhode, Constance I. Millar, Douglas J. Kennett, Thomas K. Harper, Scott Mensing

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Late Holocene Dry Period (LHDP) was a one-plus millennial megadrought (3100-1800 cal BP) that delivered challenges and windfalls to Indigenous communities of the central Great Basin (United States). New pollen and sedimentation rate studies, combined with existing tree-ring data, submerged stump ages, and lake-level evidence, demonstrate that the LHDP was the driest Great Basin climate within the last 6,000 years - more extreme than the well-known Medieval Climatic Anomaly. New evidence reported here documents that most Great Basin archaeological sites south of 40° N latitude were abandoned during the long dry phase of the LHDP (3100-2200 cal BP), sometimes reoccupied during a wet interval (2200-2000 cal BP), and abandoned again during the most extreme drought (2000-1800 cal BP). Even in the face of epic drought, this is a story of remarkable survivance by some people who adjusted to their drought-stricken landscape where they had lived for millennia. Some moved on, but other resilient foragers refused to abandon their homeland, taking advantage of glacier-fed mountain springs with cooler alpine temperatures and greater moisture retention at high altitude, a result of early Neoglaciation conditions across many Great Basin ranges, despite epic drought conditions in the lowlands.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)402-418
Number of pages17
JournalAmerican Antiquity
Volume88
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 24 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for American Archaeology.

Keywords

  • climate change
  • cultural resilience
  • drought
  • Great Basin archaeology
  • Neoglaciation
  • paleoecology
  • survivance

Continental Scientific Drilling Facility tags

  • GOTHOT

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