Archaeology with altitude: Late Prehistoric settlement and subsistence in the northern Wind River Range, Wyoming

Late Prehistoric hunter-gatherers inhabiting the greater Yellowstone ecosystem (GYE) of western North America, especially western Wyoming, made extensive use of the mountains. These Shoshone people (some of whom were called Sheepeaters) used wooden sheep traps, carved soapstone bowls, made distinctive chipped stone tools, pecked complex imagery into stone, and occupied high-altitude villages sites in whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) forests near treeline.;Here are three stand-alone articles that explore different topics, but share common themes: (1) high altitude Rocky Mountain archaeology, (2) Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric Shoshone Indians, and (3) artifacts and activities associated with women.;Because soapstone outcrops occur in the mountains, most of Wyoming's soapstone bowls originated at high altitude. The distribution soapstone vessels mimics ethnographically-derived Shoshone territory, helping to delineate a seasonal mobility system that included summertime use of alpine mineral, floral and faunal resources.;Recently discovered and radiocarbon dated high altitude prehistoric villages in the Wind River Mountains are compared to similar alpine villages in Nevada and California. All the villages appear to have been summertime occupations of hunting and gathering Numic-speaking peoples; however, the Wind River Mountain villages (WRMV) appear to be older than Great Basin alpine villages. The WRMV occur in the alpine ecotone, where abundant, predictable crops of whitebark pine nuts and seasonally migrating bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis ) drew prehistoric people to village locations during the summer.;Are low return rates of gathered foods such as biscuitroot ( Lomatium spp., Cymopterus spp.), sego lily bulbs (Calochortus spp.), yampa roots (Perideridia sp.), and whitebark pine nuts incompatible with the subsistence activities of hunter--gatherers? If each crop is harvested as it ripens, the result is that a gatherer could work eight hours/day and procure half the annual calories needed, whereas a hunter need only take 36 pronghorn a year to supply the same number of calories.;The presence of so many soapstone bowls, sub-alpine villages, and groundstone artifacts in the mountains suggests that prehistoric people chose to spend the summer in the mountains hunting and gathering because faunal, floral, and geological resources were optimized in terms of proximity, density, and diversity.