Archaeology of northwestern Oklahoma: an overview

Abstract

This work will compile recent archaeological information about prehistoric inhabitants of northwest Oklahoma, the environments they occupied, and the archaeological studies that have informed us about them. The purpose is to construct an overview of the region that has been developed since the 1980s. Recommendations are offered about possible research objectives that might help tie this area in with larger studies of landscape archaeology, prehistoric adaptations to the area, and settlement systems. The primary contribution of the present study is to compile and make available in a single source some of the important information recently developed for Alfalfa, Blaine, Dewey, Ellis, Garfield, Grant, Harper, Kingfisher, Major, Woods, and Woodward counties. Studies in this area have added substantial information in the areas of pre-Clovis first Americans, the Clovis and other Paleoindian cultures, Archaic, and more recent inhabitants of the region.