ABSTRACT Red Wing, Minnesota, is located in the upper Mississippi River valley near the northern margin of the Driftless Area, a portion of southeast Minnesota and western Wisconsin that was not glaciated in the late Quaternary characterized by river valleys deeply dissected through a sequence of Paleozoic sediments. River terraces are prominent in the field trip area. These terraces developed in two steps. Glacial outwash filled the valleys in the late Quaternary, followed by at least two pulses of incision associated with meltwater drainage from large glacial lakes to the north, including glacial Lake Agassiz. Following the last pulse of meltwater incision, tributary streams built sediment fans in the valley floor which the post-glacial Mississippi River was not able to erode. As a result, large lakes—including Lake Pepin—developed in the valley bottom. Lake Pepin has subsequently shrunk by delta progradation from the north. Evidence of Native American habitation in the area extends to Paleoindian time (ca. 11 ka B.P. calendar), but there is limited evidence of large, horticultural populations until A.D. 700. This timing coincides with the advance of the Lake Pepin delta front from St. Paul south to the Red Wing area. Large village sites were strategically placed on terraces above the Mississippi. Recent application of LiDAR (light detection and ranging) and resistivity surveys have aided ongoing archaeological investigations in the Red Wing area. Burial mound groups are visible in airborne LiDAR elevation data, and resistivity surveys have revealed evidence of an extensive village at the Silvernale site.

Abstract On this field trip, you will visit two important archaeological cave sites that provide the most compelling evidence for latest Pleistocene and earliest Holocene human occupation in the Bonneville Basin. Danger Cave, located near Wendover, Utah/Nevada, is famed for its deeply stratified archaeological deposits dating as old as 10,300 radiocarbon yr B.P., when the remnant of Lake Bonneville stood at the Gilbert shoreline. Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, located south of Danger Cave at the Lake Bonneville highstand shoreline, also contains well-preserved stratified deposits, including artifacts and cultural features dated to at least 11,000 radiocarbon yr B.P., making it one of the oldest known archaeological occupations in the Great Basin. We describe results of our recent research at these sites and show the stratigraphic evidence for these earliest human occupations. We also review recent work at the Old River Bed Delta, on Dugway Proving Ground, that has documented hundreds of Paleoarchaic occupation sites dating 11,000–8500 radiocarbon yr B.P. Together these localities give us an unparalleled picture of human occupation during the first few thousand years of known human occupation in the region, during a time of dramatic environmental change. Packrat middens, pollen sampling localities, and geomorphic features that illustrate the history of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville and the environmental history of the western Bonneville Basin will also be observed on this trip .

The pollen, sedimentary, geomorphic, pedogenic, and cultural records in the basin and foothill areas of the Northwestern Plains indicates that climatic conditions during the middle Holocene were warm and dry. However, chronologies are not synchronous and there are great differences in times of climatic transition between areas. The time of shift from the cool/moist conditions of the early Holocene to a more arid/warm climate varies between 9,000 to 6,700 radiocarbon years before present (RYBP), while the end of the middle Holocene, depending on locale, took place between 7,000 and 2,500 RYBP. The advent of Neoglaciation is commonly considered to mark the end of the middle Holocene. In Wyoming and Southern Alberta, this event began about 3,300 RYBP. In Glacier National Park and the Canadian Rockies, the major post-Pleistocene glacial episode was the Little Ice Age, about 400 to 100 B.P. The Early Archaic Cultural Period began about 7,600 RYBP and is characterized by a shift from the big game hunting economy of the Paleoindian to one with an emphasis on small-game procurement. Population numbers in Wyoming appear to have been low between 8,000 and 6,500 RYBP. The appearance of pithouses, in central Wyoming, between 6,000 and 5,000 RYBP signals a change to a more equitable climate. The sudden and widespread appearance of the McKean peoples at about 5,000 RYBP marks another change in life style and the end of the Early Archaic.

Literature pertaining to the archaeological geology of North Dakota and adjacent areas is reviewed to identify geological contexts in which early and middle Holocene sediments, containing Paleo-Indian through Early Archaic sites, are most likely to be found. In upland contexts, early and middle Holocene sediments have been encountered in thick eolian deposits along the Missouri River, and are locally preserved in settings conducive to eolian and colluvial sedimentation, including topographic lows and the lee sides of bluffs and knolls. Most uplands, even along the Missouri Trench, have been dominated by erosion, and most eolian/colluvial deposits are late Holocene in age. Voiding of early and middle Holocene alluvium appears to have occurred in low order and steeply graded valleys like those of the Little Missouri Badlands. In mainstem valleys, early and middle Holocene sediments are often voided or deeply buried, but are preserved in alluvial fans. Shallowly buried early to middle Holocene alluvium may be most extensive in the lower to middle reaches of tributaries to the major rivers.

This paper examines the effects of traditional operating scales in North American archaeology and Quaternary geology on archaeological interpretation. An apparent emphasis on landscape-scale geoarchaeological studies has underemphasized the potentially significant role of small-scale geological processes on archaeological interpretation. In general, archaeological and geological collaboration has occurred at a scale where archaeological and geological research objectives are most obviously coincident, at landscape scales. The most compelling reason for the trend toward landscape-scale studies seems to be a lack of interdisciplinary communication. Despite the interdisciplinary foundations of geoarchaeology, cross-discipline education and knowledge are surprisingly uncommon. The interpretive potential for small-scale geoarchaeological analyses is demonstrated using archaeological and geological data from the Jornada Mogollon territory in New Mexico and Texas. The area has a lengthy history of archaeological and geological research and interdisciplinary collaborations have focused on questions about the relationship between sites and the landscape. In the past, archaeological interpretations rarely incorporated the effects of geological processes, particularly at the scale of the archaeological site. A number of studies are used to establish how site typologies and subsequent interpretations can be influenced by geological processes. Three characteristics, artifact density, site size, and recognition of reoccupied locales, play an important role in the classification of Jornada Mogollon sites.