Dr. Vance Holliday received a BA in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin (1972), an MA in Museum Science (with a minor in Soil Science) at Texas Tech University (1977), and a PhD in Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder (1982). He was on the Geography faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1986–2002) and is now in both Anthropology and Geosciences at the University of Arizona. His research career began on the Great Plains of the U.S., focused on reconstructing and interpreting the landscapes and environments in which the earliest occupants of North America lived, and how those conditions evolved during the Paleoindian period. Since arriving at the University of Arizona, he became Director of the Argonaut Archaeological Research Fund, which is devoted to research on the archaeology and geoarchaeology of the Paleoindian period in the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico. In addition, he has been part of an international project focused on the Upper Paleolithic archaeology and paleoenvironments of southwestern Russia and central Ukraine.

March 9, 2023

In-Person and Zoom Meeting (Speaker will not be present at the in-person meeting.)

Dr. Edward J. Knell

Paleoindian Land Use at Pluvial Lake Mojave in California’s Mojave Desert

Fluctuations in the extent and productivity of wetland habitat around Great Basin/Mojave Desert pluvial lakes influenced Paleoindian land use strategies. Paleoindians responded to resource fluctuations using a “wetland transient” land use strategy represented by frequent moves between pluvial lakes or a “wetland stable” strategy characterized by comparatively long stays at resource hotspots. To assess the optimal Paleoindian land use strategy around pluvial Lake Mojave—today’s Silver and Soda Lake playas—I and colleagues create a biotic resource structure-based and optimal foraging theory inspired land use model that predicts the conditions Paleoindians at Lake Mojave optimally should select a wetland stable land use strategy (when Lake Mojave supported substantial wetland habitat and was thus a high-rank resource patch) versus a wetland transient strategy (when Lake Mojave supported limited wetland habitat and was thus a low-rank resource patch). The model ultimately predicts that Paleoindians occupied Lake Mojave at a time of reduced wetland habitat or low patch rank, resulting in a wetland transient land use strategy being the optimal land use solution; the amount of wetland habitat and thus patch rank increased after Paleoindian times, with Middle Holocene and more recent groups optimally switching to a wetland stable land use strategy. This prediction is preliminarily tested and ultimately supported using multiple lines of archaeological evidence from 30 Paleoindian and recent period sites from Lake Mojave. Implications of this result are assessed in relation to other Great Basin and Mojave Desert pluvial lakes.