Cody Complex Land Use in Western North Dakota and Southern Saskatchewan

Please join us Saturday January 21st at the Park County Library Grizzly Room when Matthew Root presents his research on Cody complex land use.
ABSTRACT: Models of Cody complex land use based on optimal foraging theory indicate that the open Plains of North Dakota and southern Canada would have been exploited with a non-regional strategy in all seasons, with the possible exception of summer. These areas have relatively low resource abundance and, excepting the Knife River flint (KRF) quarry area, have few good sources of tool stone. Therefore these areas should have been occupied for short periods using non regional exploitive strategies. We test these expectations using data from sites in the KRF quarry area and the Missouri Coteau of North Dakota and southern Canada. Though data on seasonality are poor, analysis of tool stone use generally supports the land-use model. Cody groups used the KRF quarries as a core area before the fall bison hunts.

Matthew Root received his MA from the University of Kansas and PhD from Washington State University. He has conducted archaeological excavations across the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, Pacific Northwest, Puebloan Southwest, and Mongolia. He directed excavations at sites such as the East Wenatchee Clovis site in Washington, the Folsom Bobtail Wolf site in North Dakota and the Neolithic to Bronze-Age Soyo site in north- central Mongolia. He specializes in the organization of lithos technology, settlement-subsistence systems, and the Pleistocene colonization and settlement of North America. He has authored multiple journal articles, book chapters, and cultural resource reports on the archaeology of western North America. He is president and owner of Rain Shadow Research in Pullman, Washington and is Adjunct Full Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University.

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