High-Altitude Hunter-Gatherer Residential Occupations in Wyoming's Wind River Range

Abstract

High Rise Village is a hunter-gatherer residential site containing at least 52 house features at a mean elevation of 3200 m in Wyoming's Wind River Range. Fifteen radiocarbon dates place site occupation(s) between 4500 and 150 cal BP. Though the 4500 cal BP dates likely result from an old wood problem, dates between 2800 and 150 BP appear more sound, particularly those between 1500 and 500 cal BP. Comparison with other high-altitude residential site radiocarbon dates shows a trend of earlier high-altitude residential occupations to the east of the Great Basin. This has important implications regarding Great Basin-Rocky Mountain culture histories, in particular by calling into question both the Numic Spread hypothesis and the relationship of the site to Rocky Mountain-High Plains hunter-gatherer residential patterns. More importantly, these data emphasize the roles medieval climate and regional population densities may have played in conditioning late Holocene high-altitude hunter-gatherer lifeways across western North America.