Clovis Caches: Recent Discoveries and New Research

7: Determining a Cultural Affiliation for the CW Cache from Northeastern Colorado

79 Chapter 6 The Carlisle Clovis Cache from Central Iowa Matthew G. Hill, Thomas J. Loebel, and David W. May • introduction The peopling of the Americas marks the terminus of an epic dispersal of the genus Homo, commencing about 50,000 years ago as fully modern humans (H. sapiens) left Africa and culminating about 12,000 years ago with their appearance in South America. Documenting how these colonizers responded to various social and ecological circumstances is essential not only for understanding other prehistoric hominin radiations (Foley 2002) but also for contextualizing research on contemporary globalization processes such as immigration, resettlement, and smuggling as well as the introduction, spread, and impact of exotic plants and animals on endemic taxa. Exactly how these processes played out in North America is the source of recurrent contention. Questions persist about when people arrived here, where they came from, the routes they used to get here, the lifeways they practiced, and their role in the disappearance of multiple animal taxa (Meltzer 2009). Notwithstanding these unresolved matters , the first robust archaeological imprint on the landscape was generated by Clovis foragers (Kelly 2003a), and it is this “demographic and cultural baseline” (Fiedel 1999:110) that contributes most directly to the research presented here. At first blush, the Clovis archaeological record appears profuse, diverse, and reasonably well understood. In reality , however, sites with contextually associated materials are scarce (as compared to finds of isolated points), excavated components are rarer still, chronological control is poor, and direct evidence of plant and animal exploitation is sparse. As outlined in Chapter 1of this volume, among the most intriguing elements of this record are the caches, of which there are some 20 reported to date (Figure 6.1). Research on these caches and how they served Clovis foragers has matured from brief site reports (e.g., Anderson and Tiffany 1972; Butler 1963; Taylor 1969), to technological issues (e.g., Lahren and Bonnichsen 1974; Lyman et al. 1998; Wilke et al. 1991; Woods and Titmus 1985), to the current emphasis on their broader, systemic import as it relates to landscape learning, technological organization, and diet and subsistence behavior (e.g., Huckell et al. 2011; Kelly 2003b; Kilby 2008; Meltzer 2003a). To this end, our goal in this chapter is to report on a cache of 43 Clovis artifacts that were recovered in 1968 near the small town of Carlisle in central Iowa (Figure 6.2). The Carlisle cache is significant for several reasons, most obviously as a collection of utilitarian gear—including 25 bifaces and 12 large flakes—that was stockpiled to back future hunting, butchering, and hide-processing activities in the area. Though lacking finished fluted points, the bifaces and large flakes display distinctive characteristics that are diagnostic of the reduction sequences employed by Clovis knappers. The collection thus provides an analytically tight snapshot of the organization of Clovis flaked stone technology. Furthermore, it was 80 Chapter 6 excavated by archaeologists from primary context, with the associated documentation offering clues on how the contents were packaged, emplaced, and buried. As such, it represents one of only a handful of contextually intact Clovis components in the Midcontinent as well as the easternmost example of a utilitarian Clovis cache published to date. Considered together with places like East Wenatchee and Simon in the Far West, Beach on the northern Plains, and de Graffenried on the southern Plains, the Carlisle cache stretches the geographic extent of Clovis caching practices to the eastern fringe of the Great Plains, upwards of 1,000 km east of CW and Drake in northeastern Colorado and Busse in northwestern Kansas. In addition, the geological context, including stratigraphic position and geochronology, has been established , providing information on the cache setting, its age, and the local Late Wisconsin environment. Figure 6.1. Locations of confirmed Clovis caches (map created by Matthew G. Hill) 81 Matthew G. Hill, Thomas J. Loebel, and David W. May the c a r lisle c ache Location The cache find spot is several hundred meters east of the Carlisle city limits, in northeastern Warren County, on a terrace overlooking the Des Moines and Middle Rivers, about 3km west of the Des Moines River (Figure 6.2). The location is roughly equidistant between the dams of two large reservoirs on the Des Moines River, Saylorville Lake to the north and Lake Red Rock to the south. The terminal moraine of the Des Moines Lobe, which formed...