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Regional patterns of Folsom mobility and land use in the American Southwest

North American hunter-gatherer groups of the terminal Pleistocene are presumed to have boasted the highest rates of mobility in prehistory. Amick’s 1996 publication Regional patterns of Folsom mobility and land use in the American Southwest develops a regional model for Paleoindian land use based on seasonal patterns of resource variability and lithic raw material sources. His conclusions demonstrate the hunter-gatherers of the Folsom complex inhabiting the grassland savannahs of Southwestern North America were no exception to the highly mobile existence of their contemporaries.
The Folsom cultural complex, identified by a distinct fluted projectile point, is commonly associated with archaeofaunal assemblages riddled with Bison antiquus, a highly mobile, dangerous and migratory prey.

Amick’s Folsom analysis is limited strictly to hunting artifacts (projectile points, point performs and channel flakes). Although the distinctive projectile point, characterized by precision marginal pressure flaking and a bifacial channel flake scar from base to tip, has been the diagnostic Folsom artifact since their discovery in 1926, it has perpetuated a contorted andocentric perception of Paleoindian subsistence. Although an unavoidable taphonomic and archaeological sampling bias toward hunting exists, the degree to which plant resources affected Folsom mobility patterns remains to be proposed.

Lithic material used to construct the distinctive Folsom point in the Southern Plains was procured largely from a single source, the Edwards chert formation. This reliance on Edwards chert for 84 percent of the Folsom arsenal indicates a regular strategy of preparation whereby resources were stockpiled prior to entering the hunting grounds of the southwest. The subsequent scattered distribution of Edwards chert across the Southern Plains demonstrates Folsom groups exploited a territory of almost 120,000 square km. This reliance on a specific chert source suggests a system of planned logistical mobility.
Regional variation in Folsom weaponry assemblages, based on the ratio of points to point preforms, indicates functional variation in settlement and land-use strategies. Low point to preform ratios indicate relatively high manufacturing activity and frequent replacement of broken projectile points associated with reduced mobility, characteristic of residential land use patterns. Logistical mobility is characterized by the replacement of points due to immediate need and without recourse to material selection. “This replacement strategy is expected to be more continuous when land use does not involve planned logistical movement” (P.416).
High point to preform ratios imply high discard rates of broken points with minimal on-site manufacture of replacements. Characteristic of the Southern Plains, this pattern occurs when artifacts are manufactured at the material source and then transported great distances. Amick explains this strategy as a result of “hunting a very mobile and unpredictable resource (bison)… under a strategy of high mobility… caus[ing] high ratios of points to preforms because access to tool stone sources for point replacement may be reduced” (P.417). This would require the adoption of tool stone conservation strategies by Folsom hunters when on the Southern Plains; strategies such as regular tool recycling and using the same tool for multiple purposes.

It is interesting to note that the stockpiling of resources and the deposition of artifact caches were not an adaptation to material scarcity. This may be a result of the highly mobile and unpredictable movement patterns exhibited by the Folsom complex while hunting in the Southern Plains.

When points suffered an unrecoverable break, the bases were presumable discarded at residential camps and a new point replaced into the foreshaft. Conversely, the point tips would remain at the kill site, or occasionally return to the residential camp embedded in the carcass. This provides an additional criterion to infer land use patterns. The ratio of point bases to point tips may differentiate hunting and kill sites from residential camps. In the Southern Plains, an emphasis on hunting is inferred since the evidence of projectile point discard exceeds the rate of weaponry replacement.

Given that fractured point tips may logically appear in either hunting or residential contexts, I would prefer to rely on the presence of either low-utility or high-utility bones and processing tools to distinguish site function. An assignment of site function based strictly on the presence or absence of a single artifact form may produce misconstrued interpretations. Although certainly a valid contribution to the differentiation of site functions, it must be emphasized that it is typically the simultaneous presence of multiple lines of evidence and artifacts that clearly delineates site function.

Although predation on Bison antiquus influenced a substantial component of the Folsom adaptation, Amick’s work suggests some variation in Folsom diet breadth and land use exists as a repercussion of seasonal patterns of availability and tool stone sources. However the sheer paucity for Folsom sites reflecting activities aside from hunting greatly influences these interpretations.

Amick, Daniel S.
1996 Regional patterns of Folsom mobility and land use in the American Southwest. World Archaeology 27(3): 411-426.