The Mountaineer Site: A Folsom Winter Camp in the Rockies

The Mountaineer Site presents over a decade's worth of archaeological research conducted at Mountaineer, a Paleoindian campsite in Colorado's Upper Gunnison Basin. Mountaineer is one of the very few extensively excavated, long-term Folsom occupations with evidence of built structures. The site provides a rich record of stone tool manufacture and use, as well as architectural features, and offers insight into Folsom period adaptive strategies from a time when the region was still in the grip of a waning Ice Age.

Contributors examine data concerning the structures, the duration and repetition of occupations, and the nature of the site's artifact assemblages to offer a valuable new perspective on human activity in the Rocky Mountains in the Late Pleistocene. Chapters survey the history of fieldwork at the site and compare and explain the various excavation procedures used; discuss the geology, taphonomic history, and geochronology of the site; analyze artifacts and other recovered materials; examine architectural elements; and compare the present and past environments of the Upper Gunnison Basin to gain insight into the setting in which Folsom groups were operating and the resources that were available to them.

The Folsom archaeological record indicates far greater variability in adaptive behavior than previously recognized in traditional models. The Mountaineer Site shows how accounting for reduced mobility, more generalized subsistence patterns, and variability in tool manufacture and use allows for a richer and more accurate understanding of Folsom lifeways. It will be of great interest to graduate students and archaeologists focusing on Paleoindian archaeology, hunter-gatherer mobility, lithic technological organization, and prehistoric households, as well as prehistorians, anthropologists, and social scientists.

Contributors: Richard J. Anderson, Andrew R. Boehm, Christy E. Briles, Katherine A. Cross, Steven D. Emslie, Metin I. Eren, Richard Gunst, Kalanka Jayalath, Brooke M. Morgan, Cathy Whitlock


Author: Brian N. Andrews
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Published: 05/16/2022
Pages: 508
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 2.10lbs
Size: 8.98h x 5.91w x 1.02d
ISBN13: 9781646423095
ISBN10: 1646423097
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Archaeology
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Native American Studies
- History | United States | State & Local | General

About the Author
Brian N. Andrews is an associate professor of social science in the Department of Psychology and Sociology at Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma. He began working in archaeology as an undergraduate in Oklahoma and has since conducted research throughout the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Eastern Woodlands, focusing on hunter-gatherer lifeways.

David J. Meltzer is the Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and holds an extramural appointment as affiliate professor at the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has conducted archaeological research throughout North America, collaborated across multiple disciplinary lines, and published 10 books and nearly 200 scientific articles.

Mark Stiger is the Moncrief Chair of Anthropology at Western Colorado University in Gunnison, Colorado. He is the author of Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology of the Colorado High Country and recipient of the Hart Award for Historic Preservation from History Colorado.