Technology, Serial Specialists, and Younger Dryas Cold Adaptation in the Northern Great Basin of North America

In this dissertation, I evaluate the ways in which hunter-gatherer peoples of the northern Great Basin (NGB) mitigated cold stress and environmental change during the Younger Dryas (12,900 – 11,700 calibrated years before present [cal BP]) through analyses of perishable and lithic technological organization, seasonality, and settlement strategies. Researchers have debated to the degree to which Younger Dryas cold stress affected the daily lives of North American peoples, acknowledging regional variation. The Great Basin has rarely been part of these debates and most research has been primarily limited to stone tools. I leverage well-preserved rockshelter records containing perishable tools, subsistence residues, and preserved site structure alongside the regional surface lithic record to explore cold adaptation in the NGB at multiple scales. My results suggest that NGB peoples had a sophisticated suite of complex cold adaptive technologies including eyed bone needles for tight-fitted clothing production, traps for small game capture, Haskett projectile points designed for dispatching large game and long, multifunctional use-lives, and diverse flake tools for hide processing and more. Social and settlement strategies likely included seasonal scheduling for group aggregations to facilitate time-intensive winter gear production and social connections necessary for low population densities. I propose that NGB peoples practiced a serial specialist settlement pattern similar to Arctic and Subarctic groups of during the ethnographic period. This research highlights the NGB as a key region to understand cold adaptation at the end of the Pleistocene and the peopling of the Western Hemisphere.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctorate Degree

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Rosencrance, Richard L

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Smith, Geoffrey M.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Jazwa, Christopher S.
• Morgan, Christopher T.
• Wriston, Teresa A.
• Stewart, Kelley M.

• Great Basin
• Lithic Technology
• Peopling of the Americas
• Perishable Technology
• Serial Specialists
• Younger Dryas

Language dc:language.iso

en_US, English

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://scholarwolf.unr.edu/handle/11714/11957

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarwolf.unr.edu:11714/11957