Michael C Wilson
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 4054292 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Michael C Wilson |
| PRENOMES | Michael C |
| SOBRENOME | Wilson |
| ASSINATURA | WILSON M C |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Kent State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6797-5994 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 33 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 136 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 33 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1974 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
North American Clovis Point Form and Performance VI
Controlled comparative tensile tests of backed versus non‐backed edges’ adhesion
Backing is a procedure for retouching a stone tool edge to an angle of or near 90°. Archaeologists have recorded backed lithic specimens in the Pleistocene and Holocene around the world. One prominent hypothesis for the occurrence of backing is that it increases a stone tool's adhesion relative to what it would have otherwise been with unmodified, sharp edges. We conducted a highly controlled semi‐static tensile test in which we assessed lithic s…
Experimental bison butchery using replica hafted Clovis fluted points and large handheld flakes
Late Pleistocene Clovis fluted points and stone flake tools have been found in association with bison at several archaeological sites in western North America. To gain insight into how these tools may have functioned in bison butchery, as well as to assess the assumptions or interpretations of these implements by archaeologists, we conducted a bison-processing experiment. We examined the relative efficacy in the butchering process of hafted flute…
Hit or miss
Stone weapon tips can exhibit microscopic linear impact traces (MLITs), as a result of the tip impacting abrasive materials, including stone fragments from the tip itself that detached upon impact. Experiments have demonstrated that MLITs can form via the use of a variety of weapon systems, stone point types, and targets. MLITs found on North American Late Pleistocene Clovis points in association with proboscideans at the Colby and Lange/Ferguson…
North American Clovis Point Form and Performance IV
This study is an assessment of Clovis knife edge effectiveness and wear. This work is the fourth contribution in a series of experiments aimed at shedding light on the functional performance of distinct Clovis “point” forms. Here, we used both edges from 14 replica Clovis point forms in a wood slicing task: the first seven forms represent the average and extremes of observed Clovis points; the second seven represent length-standardized versions. …
North American Clovis Point Form and Performance V
This study is an assessment of Clovis spear thrusting penetration depth and entry wound size. This work is the fifth contribution in a series of experiments aimed at shedding light on the functional performance of distinct Clovis point forms. Here, using highly controlled and standardized procedures, we had a participant who had previously trained with bayonets and hand-to-hand combat thrust seven spears, each tipped with a distinct Clovis point …
Comparing Clovis and Folsom fluting via scaling analysis
This study examines the fluting of two well‐known Late Pleistocene fluted point types in North America: Clovis and Folsom. Using scaling analyses, we assess the changing relationship between flute length and point length in a large sample of each type. Researchers use scaling to investigate the physical constraints of an object and determine how its dimensions change with size. We compare the strength and consistency of the scaling relationships …
Líĺwat Climbers Could See the Ocean from the Peak of Qẃelqẃelústen
Among Líĺwat people of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia, an oral tradition relays how early ancestors used to ascend Qẃelqẃelústen, or Mount Meager. The account maintains that those climbers could see the ocean, which is not the case today, because the mountain is surrounded by many other high peaks, and the Strait of Georgia is several mountain ridges to the west. However, the mountain is an active and volatile volcano, which last erupte…
Another tool in the experimental toolbox
Experimental archaeology continues to mature methodologically and theoretically. Around the world, practitioners are increasingly using modern materials that would have been unavailable to prehistoric people in archaeological experiments. The use of a modern material substitute can offer several benefits to experimental method, design, control, replicability, feasibility, and cost, but it should be directly compared to its “traditional” analogue …
Experimental assessment of obsidian versus chert lanceolate projectile point durability and robusticity
Stone‐tipped weaponry was important for the survival of past peoples, and many functional and non‐functional factors likely influenced their design. Two functional factors that past peoples likely considered in the design of their stone tips are durability (whether or not a stone tip breaks) and robusticity (how much damage is incurred upon breakage). Many factors have been shown experimentally to influence stone tip influence durability and robu…
The Effect of Isometric Scaling on Flaked Stone Projectile Point Impact Durability
A variety of flaked stone projectile point attributes can affect impact durability, which is the relationship between projectile impact force and point breakage. We examine the role of isometric scaling – size – on impact durability. Using 30 experimentally knapped points that varied predominately only in size, we conducted a ballistics experiment to understand whether points of certain sizes were more likely to break, or more likely to lose leng…
Rock Music
We explore and describe the auditory landscape that emerges from stone tool making. Using two trained musicians, we identify the pitches and octaves produced from percussion knapping. We also analyze whether knapping sounds vary by raw material, knapper skill level, or by flake size. Our results show that our chosen stone material types each displayed a single fundamental pitch (E or G) with one or two additional octaves present, and each individ…
The non-invention of the ceramic arrowhead in world archaeology
Human behavior or taphonomy? On the breakage of Eastern North American Paleoindian endscrapers
Experimental replication shows knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work
The ethnographic account of an Inuit man manufacturing a knife from his own frozen feces to butcher and disarticulate a dog has permeated both the academic literature and popular culture. To evaluate the validity of this claim, we tested the basis of that account via experimental archaeology. Our experiments assessed the functionality of knives made from human feces in controlled conditions that provided optimal conditions for success. However, t…
Controlled ballistics tests of ground, percussion-flaked, and pressure-flaked projectile point impact durability
Heritage landscapes compared/contrasted, contested/interpreted, lost/won
The landscape concept plays a growing role in anthropology and archeology, especially for discussions of “heritage landscapes.” Landscape has long been a central theme in geography, but with democratized Geographic Information Systems (GIS), that theoretical legacy can be overlooked. Critical theory based on international examples shows that heritage landscape designation is socio-politically charged, with indigenous voices often drowned out by t…
Microblade Cores from the Northwestern Plains at High River, Alberta, Canada
In the late 1950s, some 69 microblades and microblade fragments were collected from a small prairie blowout east of High River, Alberta (EdPk-1). In 1968, David Sanger analyzed these specimens, including distinctive ridge flakes, and attempted to reconstruct their manufacturing process without the benefit of any cores. The first microblade core recognized from the High River area was found in 1981 at site EdPk-3, approximately 2 km southeast of t…
Late Pleistocene butchered Bison antiquus from Ayer Pond, Orcas Island, Pacific Northwest
Late Pleistocene Bison antiquus from Orcas Island, Washington, and the biogeographic importance of an early postglacial land mammal dispersal corridor from the mainland to Vancouver Island
A Bison antiquus cranium and partial skeleton from Ayer Pond wetland on Orcas Island, San Juan Islands, Washington, date to 11,760 ± 70 14 C yr BP. They lay in lacustrine sediments below peat, unconformably above emergent Everson Glaciomarine Drift (> 12,000 14 C yr BP). Several bison finds in similar contexts on Orcas and Vancouver Islands dating between 11,750 and 10,800 14 C yr BP indicate an early postglacial land mammal dispersal corridor wi…
Rise and Fall of the Beringian Steppe Bison
The widespread extinctions of large mammals at the end of the Pleistocene epoch have often been attributed to the depredations of humans; here we present genetic evidence that questions this assumption. We used ancient DNA and Bayesian techniques to reconstruct a detailed genetic history of bison throughout the late Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. Our analyses depict a large diverse population living throughout Beringia until around 37,000 years…
A vonlea Phase Winter Fare at Lost Terrace, Upper Missouri River Valley of Montana
The nearly singular subsistence reliance by Late Prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the northwestern Plains on bison (Bison bison) is well-established. In a significant departure from that subsistence adaptation, a group of Avonlea Phase people occupying a floodplain of the upper Missouri River during late winter ca. 1200 radiocarbon years before present (RCYBP) procured a large number of pronghorn (Antilocapra americana). The excavated sample conta…
Spatial Response of Mammals to Late Quaternary Environmental Fluctuations
Analyses of fossil mammal faunas from 2945 localities in the United States demonstrate that the geographic ranges of individual species shifted at different times, in different directions, and at different rates in response to late Quaternary environmental fluctuations. The geographic pattern of faunal provinces was similar for the late Pleistocene and late Holocene, but differing environmental gradients resulted in dissimilar species composition…
Late quaternary vertebrates and the opening of the ice-free corridor, with special reference to the genusbison
Once upon a river
Late Quaternary geology and archaeology of the Bow River valley at Calgary, Alberta, Canada are considered in terms of archaeological visibility, defined as recognizability of any archaeological manifestations or patterns, in the field or laboratory. Geological factors selectively obscured portions of the record in the west Calgary study area (Bow Valley, Happy Valley Park to Elbow River mouth). Multiple tills suggest at least an interglacial age…
Fossil Bison and Artifacts From an Early Altithermal Period Arroyo Trap in Wyoming
The Hawken site is a steep-sided arroyo into which small groups of bison were driven and slaughtered. The bison, which date about 4500 B.C. during the Altithermal period, are an extinct variant (B. bison occidentalis) and are morphologically intermediate between B. bison antiquus and B. bison bison. The projectile points are in the Altithermal period Side-Notched tradition and the butchering tools are similar to those found in many bison kill sit…
Late Pleistocene butchered Bison antiquus from Ayer Pond, Orcas Island, Pacific Northwest
Controlled ballistics tests of ground, percussion-flaked, and pressure-flaked projectile point impact durability
The non-invention of the ceramic arrowhead in world archaeology
Another tool in the experimental toolbox
Experimental archaeology continues to mature methodologically and theoretically. Around the world, practitioners are increasingly using modern materials that would have been unavailable to prehistoric people in archaeological experiments. The use of a modern material substitute can offer several benefits to experimental method, design, control, replicability, feasibility, and cost, but it should be directly compared to its “traditional” analogue …
Vermilion Lakes Site
The Vermilion Lakes site in Banff National Park, Alberta, has yielded cultural remains suggesting a possible sheep-hunting focus during the Paleoindian period and providing evidence for windbreaks or shelters dating as early as 10,300 B.P. Debris flows at this site have separated and preserved six or more cultural components dating between the mid-eleventh and mid-tenth millennia before present. Paleoenvironmental evidence suggests that most of t…
Experimental assessment of obsidian versus chert lanceolate projectile point durability and robusticity
Stone‐tipped weaponry was important for the survival of past peoples, and many functional and non‐functional factors likely influenced their design. Two functional factors that past peoples likely considered in the design of their stone tips are durability (whether or not a stone tip breaks) and robusticity (how much damage is incurred upon breakage). Many factors have been shown experimentally to influence stone tip influence durability and robu…
North American Clovis Point Form and Performance IV
This study is an assessment of Clovis knife edge effectiveness and wear. This work is the fourth contribution in a series of experiments aimed at shedding light on the functional performance of distinct Clovis “point” forms. Here, we used both edges from 14 replica Clovis point forms in a wood slicing task: the first seven forms represent the average and extremes of observed Clovis points; the second seven represent length-standardized versions. …
The Effect of Isometric Scaling on Flaked Stone Projectile Point Impact Durability
A variety of flaked stone projectile point attributes can affect impact durability, which is the relationship between projectile impact force and point breakage. We examine the role of isometric scaling – size – on impact durability. Using 30 experimentally knapped points that varied predominately only in size, we conducted a ballistics experiment to understand whether points of certain sizes were more likely to break, or more likely to lose leng…
Bison Procurement and Utilization
Experimental bison butchery using replica hafted Clovis fluted points and large handheld flakes
Late Pleistocene Clovis fluted points and stone flake tools have been found in association with bison at several archaeological sites in western North America. To gain insight into how these tools may have functioned in bison butchery, as well as to assess the assumptions or interpretations of these implements by archaeologists, we conducted a bison-processing experiment. We examined the relative efficacy in the butchering process of hafted flute…
Comparing Clovis and Folsom fluting via scaling analysis
This study examines the fluting of two well‐known Late Pleistocene fluted point types in North America: Clovis and Folsom. Using scaling analyses, we assess the changing relationship between flute length and point length in a large sample of each type. Researchers use scaling to investigate the physical constraints of an object and determine how its dimensions change with size. We compare the strength and consistency of the scaling relationships …
Microblade Cores from the Northwestern Plains at High River, Alberta, Canada
In the late 1950s, some 69 microblades and microblade fragments were collected from a small prairie blowout east of High River, Alberta (EdPk-1). In 1968, David Sanger analyzed these specimens, including distinctive ridge flakes, and attempted to reconstruct their manufacturing process without the benefit of any cores. The first microblade core recognized from the High River area was found in 1981 at site EdPk-3, approximately 2 km southeast of t…
A vonlea Phase Winter Fare at Lost Terrace, Upper Missouri River Valley of Montana
The nearly singular subsistence reliance by Late Prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the northwestern Plains on bison (Bison bison) is well-established. In a significant departure from that subsistence adaptation, a group of Avonlea Phase people occupying a floodplain of the upper Missouri River during late winter ca. 1200 radiocarbon years before present (RCYBP) procured a large number of pronghorn (Antilocapra americana). The excavated sample conta…
North American Clovis Point Form and Performance V
This study is an assessment of Clovis spear thrusting penetration depth and entry wound size. This work is the fifth contribution in a series of experiments aimed at shedding light on the functional performance of distinct Clovis point forms. Here, using highly controlled and standardized procedures, we had a participant who had previously trained with bayonets and hand-to-hand combat thrust seven spears, each tipped with a distinct Clovis point …
Human behavior or taphonomy? On the breakage of Eastern North American Paleoindian endscrapers
Hit or miss
Stone weapon tips can exhibit microscopic linear impact traces (MLITs), as a result of the tip impacting abrasive materials, including stone fragments from the tip itself that detached upon impact. Experiments have demonstrated that MLITs can form via the use of a variety of weapon systems, stone point types, and targets. MLITs found on North American Late Pleistocene Clovis points in association with proboscideans at the Colby and Lange/Ferguson…
Rock Music
We explore and describe the auditory landscape that emerges from stone tool making. Using two trained musicians, we identify the pitches and octaves produced from percussion knapping. We also analyze whether knapping sounds vary by raw material, knapper skill level, or by flake size. Our results show that our chosen stone material types each displayed a single fundamental pitch (E or G) with one or two additional octaves present, and each individ…
Experimental replication shows knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work
The ethnographic account of an Inuit man manufacturing a knife from his own frozen feces to butcher and disarticulate a dog has permeated both the academic literature and popular culture. To evaluate the validity of this claim, we tested the basis of that account via experimental archaeology. Our experiments assessed the functionality of knives made from human feces in controlled conditions that provided optimal conditions for success. However, t…
A Test of the Stone Circle Size-Age Hypothesis
The hypothesis that stone circle size increased significantly with the arrival of the horse has been current for more than 20 yr, but only recently has it been possible to structure tests. Data from sites in Wyorning and Alberta are presented; in the Wyoming case, they seem to support the hypothesis, while in the Alberta case they do not Closer examination of Wyoming data reveals that ethnic replacement could account for observed differences. The…
Fossil Bison and Artifacts from The Mona Lisa Site, Calgary, Alberta
In November, 1968, salvage excavations at the site of an art gallery under construction in urban southwest Calgary, Alberta, Canada, revealed a Paleo-Indian bison kill. The single kill level lay at a depth of more than 250 em. in flood plain deposits of the Bow River, now flowing more than a mile north of the site. The bone bed was overlain by a thick deposit of Mazama Ash (6600 years B.P.). A bone radiocarbon date of 8080 ± 150 years B.P. (G.S.C…
Epilogue
Fossil Bison and Artifacts from The Mona Lisa Site, Calgary, Alberta
In November, 1968, salvage excavations at the site of an art gallery under construction in urban southwest Calgary, Alberta, Canada, revealed a Paleo-Indian bison kill. The single kill level lay at a depth of more than 250 em. in flood plain deposits of the Bow River, now flowing more than a mile north of the site. The bone bed was overlain by a thick deposit of Mazama Ash (6600 years B.P.). A bone radiocarbon date of 8080 ± 150 years B.P. (G.S.C…
Fossil Bison and Artifacts From an Early Altithermal Period Arroyo Trap in Wyoming
The Hawken site is a steep-sided arroyo into which small groups of bison were driven and slaughtered. The bison, which date about 4500 B.C. during the Altithermal period, are an extinct variant (B. bison occidentalis) and are morphologically intermediate between B. bison antiquus and B. bison bison. The projectile points are in the Altithermal period Side-Notched tradition and the butchering tools are similar to those found in many bison kill sit…
Bison Procurement and Utilization
Epilogue
The First Americans
A Test of the Stone Circle Size-Age Hypothesis
The hypothesis that stone circle size increased significantly with the arrival of the horse has been current for more than 20 yr, but only recently has it been possible to structure tests. Data from sites in Wyorning and Alberta are presented; in the Wyoming case, they seem to support the hypothesis, while in the Alberta case they do not Closer examination of Wyoming data reveals that ethnic replacement could account for observed differences. The…
Beyond Subsistence
This volume presents a series of essays, written by Plains scholars of diverse research interests and backgrounds, that apply postprocessual approaches to the solution of current problems in Plains archaeology. Postprocessual archaeology is seen as a potential vehicle for integrating culture-historical, processual, and postmodernist approaches to solve specific archaeological problems.The contributors address specific interpretive problems in all…
Vermilion Lakes Site
The Vermilion Lakes site in Banff National Park, Alberta, has yielded cultural remains suggesting a possible sheep-hunting focus during the Paleoindian period and providing evidence for windbreaks or shelters dating as early as 10,300 B.P. Debris flows at this site have separated and preserved six or more cultural components dating between the mid-eleventh and mid-tenth millennia before present. Paleoenvironmental evidence suggests that most of t…
Spatial Response of Mammals to Late Quaternary Environmental Fluctuations
Analyses of fossil mammal faunas from 2945 localities in the United States demonstrate that the geographic ranges of individual species shifted at different times, in different directions, and at different rates in response to late Quaternary environmental fluctuations. The geographic pattern of faunal provinces was similar for the late Pleistocene and late Holocene, but differing environmental gradients resulted in dissimilar species composition…
Late quaternary vertebrates and the opening of the ice-free corridor, with special reference to the genusbison
A vonlea Phase Winter Fare at Lost Terrace, Upper Missouri River Valley of Montana
The nearly singular subsistence reliance by Late Prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the northwestern Plains on bison (Bison bison) is well-established. In a significant departure from that subsistence adaptation, a group of Avonlea Phase people occupying a floodplain of the upper Missouri River during late winter ca. 1200 radiocarbon years before present (RCYBP) procured a large number of pronghorn (Antilocapra americana). The excavated sample conta…
Rise and Fall of the Beringian Steppe Bison
The widespread extinctions of large mammals at the end of the Pleistocene epoch have often been attributed to the depredations of humans; here we present genetic evidence that questions this assumption. We used ancient DNA and Bayesian techniques to reconstruct a detailed genetic history of bison throughout the late Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. Our analyses depict a large diverse population living throughout Beringia until around 37,000 years…
Late Pleistocene Bison antiquus from Orcas Island, Washington, and the biogeographic importance of an early postglacial land mammal dispersal corridor from the mainland to Vancouver Island
A Bison antiquus cranium and partial skeleton from Ayer Pond wetland on Orcas Island, San Juan Islands, Washington, date to 11,760 ± 70 14 C yr BP. They lay in lacustrine sediments below peat, unconformably above emergent Everson Glaciomarine Drift (> 12,000 14 C yr BP). Several bison finds in similar contexts on Orcas and Vancouver Islands dating between 11,750 and 10,800 14 C yr BP indicate an early postglacial land mammal dispersal corridor wi…
Late Pleistocene butchered Bison antiquus from Ayer Pond, Orcas Island, Pacific Northwest
Microblade Cores from the Northwestern Plains at High River, Alberta, Canada
In the late 1950s, some 69 microblades and microblade fragments were collected from a small prairie blowout east of High River, Alberta (EdPk-1). In 1968, David Sanger analyzed these specimens, including distinctive ridge flakes, and attempted to reconstruct their manufacturing process without the benefit of any cores. The first microblade core recognized from the High River area was found in 1981 at site EdPk-3, approximately 2 km southeast of t…
Experimental replication shows knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work
The ethnographic account of an Inuit man manufacturing a knife from his own frozen feces to butcher and disarticulate a dog has permeated both the academic literature and popular culture. To evaluate the validity of this claim, we tested the basis of that account via experimental archaeology. Our experiments assessed the functionality of knives made from human feces in controlled conditions that provided optimal conditions for success. However, t…
Controlled ballistics tests of ground, percussion-flaked, and pressure-flaked projectile point impact durability
Heritage landscapes compared/contrasted, contested/interpreted, lost/won
The landscape concept plays a growing role in anthropology and archeology, especially for discussions of “heritage landscapes.” Landscape has long been a central theme in geography, but with democratized Geographic Information Systems (GIS), that theoretical legacy can be overlooked. Critical theory based on international examples shows that heritage landscape designation is socio-politically charged, with indigenous voices often drowned out by t…
The non-invention of the ceramic arrowhead in world archaeology
Human behavior or taphonomy? On the breakage of Eastern North American Paleoindian endscrapers
The Effect of Isometric Scaling on Flaked Stone Projectile Point Impact Durability
A variety of flaked stone projectile point attributes can affect impact durability, which is the relationship between projectile impact force and point breakage. We examine the role of isometric scaling – size – on impact durability. Using 30 experimentally knapped points that varied predominately only in size, we conducted a ballistics experiment to understand whether points of certain sizes were more likely to break, or more likely to lose leng…
Rock Music
We explore and describe the auditory landscape that emerges from stone tool making. Using two trained musicians, we identify the pitches and octaves produced from percussion knapping. We also analyze whether knapping sounds vary by raw material, knapper skill level, or by flake size. Our results show that our chosen stone material types each displayed a single fundamental pitch (E or G) with one or two additional octaves present, and each individ…
Another tool in the experimental toolbox
Experimental archaeology continues to mature methodologically and theoretically. Around the world, practitioners are increasingly using modern materials that would have been unavailable to prehistoric people in archaeological experiments. The use of a modern material substitute can offer several benefits to experimental method, design, control, replicability, feasibility, and cost, but it should be directly compared to its “traditional” analogue …
Experimental assessment of obsidian versus chert lanceolate projectile point durability and robusticity
Stone‐tipped weaponry was important for the survival of past peoples, and many functional and non‐functional factors likely influenced their design. Two functional factors that past peoples likely considered in the design of their stone tips are durability (whether or not a stone tip breaks) and robusticity (how much damage is incurred upon breakage). Many factors have been shown experimentally to influence stone tip influence durability and robu…
Once upon a river
Late Quaternary geology and archaeology of the Bow River valley at Calgary, Alberta, Canada are considered in terms of archaeological visibility, defined as recognizability of any archaeological manifestations or patterns, in the field or laboratory. Geological factors selectively obscured portions of the record in the west Calgary study area (Bow Valley, Happy Valley Park to Elbow River mouth). Multiple tills suggest at least an interglacial age…
Archaeology (29 obras) · Geography (21 obras) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (19 obras) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (18 obras) · Geology (17 obras) · History (12 obras) · Geology (11 obras) · Biology (10 obras) · Paleontology (10 obras) · History (8 obras)