Justin Holcomb

University of Kansas | KU · Kansas Geological Survey

The Younger Dryas chronozone is an abrupt climate event terminating the last glacial period ∼12,900–11,700 calendar years ago marked by rapid changes in regional human, floral, and faunal population dynamics across the globe. Working at Connley Cave 5 in the Fort Rock Basin, Oregon, we demonstrate that this cold event generated microscopic cryogeni...

Fourteen years ago, Killick and Goldberg (2009) put forth the argument that there is “A Quiet Crisis in American Archaeology.” They argued that despite an expansion of training, innovation, and application of archaeological sciences in world archaeology, such developments have not occurred in North America. They go on to say that while archaeology...

Abstract On October 4, 1957, Homo sapiens crossed a new threshold of technological innovation after constructing an artifact capable of entering Low Earth Orbit and effectively paving the way for a future of space exploration. This artifact was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet space program which triggered the “space race” of the mid‐20th century....

Agricultural terraces provide farmers in hilly landscapes with effective ways to increase the area available for crops. They mitigate the risks of soil erosion and promote crop productivity by slowing surface water runoff and retaining moisture. As in other parts of the world, terraces have been constructed and used in the Mediterranean for millenn...

The Kelly Forks Work Center Site (10CW34) is a deeply buried and stratified late Pleistocene to late Holocene aged archaeological site located on the North Fork Clearwater River in the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, Idaho. Previous research suggested the site contained buried archaeological components associated with the Western Stemmed Trad...

Researchers at Arroyo del Vizcaíno (AdV), Uruguay, have argued that human occupation dates prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (33,000–31,000 cal BP) based on the presence of purported stone tools and cutmarks on bones. We provide a summary of their research and critically evaluate these claims. We conclude that the claims of a pre-LGM occupation at...

Stephen Bedwell excavated the Connley Caves in 1967 and 1968, uncovering dense Western Stemmed Tradition assemblages in the lowest deposits. Reporting a series of radiocarbon dates between 11,200 ± 200 14 C yr BP and 9150 ± 150 14 C yr BP, he suggested the earliest human occupation of Cave 4 dated to ∼11,000 14 C yr BP. Subsequent researchers have...

Paleoethnobotanical perspectives are essential for understanding past lifeways yet continue to be underrepresented in Paleo- indian research. We present new archaeobotanical and radiocarbon data from combustion features within stratified cultural components at Connley Caves, Oregon, that reaffirm the inclusion of plants in the diet of Paleoindian g...

The Connley Caves site (35LK50) consists of eight caves and rock shelters eroded by pluvial Fort Rock Lake at the end of the Pleistocene. The caves preserve nearly 4 m of stratified sediments bearing stone tools characteristic of the Western Stemmed Tradition (WST). This paper provides an overview of ongoing geoarchaeological research at the Connle...

Bluefish Caves, a cluster of four small rockshelters in the Yukon Territory of NW Canada, was excavated during the 1970s and 80s under the direction of Jacques Cinq-Mars. Caves I, II, and III yielded faunal remains dating to ca. 30-10 ka contained in loess, plus artifacts. Also, AMS 14C ages determined on cut-marked bones identified during a recent...

How aDNA is preserved in archaeological sediments remains an ongoing and sometimes contentious topic. We present preliminary results gleaned from archaeological excavations at Connley Cave 5 in the Fort Rock Basin, Oregon. Utilizing both ancient sedimentary eDNA and micromorphology, we assess how climactic conditions during the Younger Dryas may co...

Establishing the age and location of late Quaternary landforms and their associated deposits is a primary objective of Quaternary scientists across the eastern Mediterranean. In the Aegean Basin, geologists use marine terraces and other shoreline features to constrain estimates of Quaternary surface uplift to inform conceptual models of regional ge...

Recent archaeological discoveries from the Greek islands of Crete and Naxos point to the presence of hominins in the Aegean Basin beginning at least in the Middle Pleistocene (∼200 ka), indicating that the region may have been an important dispersal route for hominins (including humans) entering southeastern Europe. Currently, archaeologists lack a...

We present evidence of Middle Pleistocene activity in the central Aegean Basin at the chert extraction and reduction complex of Stelida (Naxos, Greece). Luminescence dating places ~9000 artifacts in a stratigraphic sequence from ~13 to 200 thousand years ago (ka ago). These artifacts include Mousterian products, which arguably provide first evidenc...

Archaeological soil and sediment micromorphology represent the most efficient way to obtain microcontextual information at archaeological sites. Because of the generally qualitative (descriptive) nature of micromorphology, one difficulty with the method is establishing vertical and lateral continuity of the observed layers or features. Through an E...

Despite Greece’s key geographic position between southeast Europe and southwest Asia, and its potential for documenting hominin dispersals, Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites are rare. This suggests the need for research to identify deposits that may contain Palaeolithic artefacts. Here we describe 165 quartz and quartzite artefacts with Palaeolit...

The Connley Caves in the Fort Rock Basin of Oregon contain stratified deposits dating to the late Pleistocene/early Holocene transition and a stone tool assemblage characteristic of the Western Stemmed Tradition. This research brief details preliminary results including stratigraphic, geochronological, and cultural information yielded from Cave 4....

In order to protect archaeological collections, access to artifacts is commonly restricted to researchers with specific purposes. Even so, traveling to collection facilities to make in-person studies of artifact attributes can be time consuming and costly; moreover, manual measures of artifact morphology are relatively slow and realistically limite...