Western Stemmed Tradition lithic procurement strategies at the Catnip Creek Delta Locality, Guano Valley, Oregon: A gravity model approach

Abstract

Source provenance analyses have long featured prominently in Great Basin Paleoindian archaeology. Such research has primarily focused on reconstructing Paleoindian settlement/subsistence strategies, territoriality, and socioeconomic interactions by sourcing obsidian artifacts from sites and mapping their geographic distributions. While these studies have identified the toolstone sources that early groups used and how they may have conveyed them, few have explicitly addressed why particular materials may have been selected. I present a gravity model that examines the influence of geologic and geographic factors (e.g., toolstone quality and abundance) on Western Stemmed Tradition lithic procurement strategies at the Catnip Creek Delta Locality, Guano Valley, Oregon. My results suggest that groups primarily procured toolstone based on its proximity to wetlands and travel corridors and not sources’ overall quality. Western Stemmed Tradition groups may have done this to maximize foraging efficiency within a wetland focused and residentially mobile settlement-subsistence system.