WHERE THE DESERT MEETSTHE MOUNTAINS
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ice-age mammals disappeared (and perhaps contributing to their disappearance), humans had taken up residence in what is now Emery County.
Prehistory Paleo-Indian Culture. Anthropologists use the term Paleo-Indian to designate the period from about 12,000 to 8,500 years before the present. Only scattered artifacts from this period have been discovered in the Emery County region, most notably fluted projectile points of a size to suggest that the Paleo-Indian people hunted big game, including mammoths, camels, bison, and giant sloths. The earliest Paleo-Indian cultural complex clearly identified in Utah is the .~ has Llano, dating to around 11,000 years before the p r e ~ e n tWhat been described as "the first unequivocal specimen" of a Clovis point from the Llano culture was discovered in 1964 on the ridge between Acord Lake and the head of Convulsion C a n y ~ n . ~ After the Llano complex came the Folsom complex, dating from about 11,000 to 10,000 years before the present. Folsom projectile points resemble Clovis points but are somewhat smaller and more finely chipped.' A possible Folsom point was discovered by Homer Behunin in the wall of Horn Silver Wash, about twelve miles east of F e r r ~ nMost . ~ Clovis and Folsom artifacts have been found at elevations between 5,000 and 6,000 feet, suggesting that the Paleo-Indian people occupied the Castle Valley lowlands. As the climate became warmer, however, the game may have retreated to the higher elevations on the Wasatch Plateau.'' This may explain why the Huntington Mammoth was found at an elevation of 9,000 feet, and why a projectile point identified as a possible "Pryor stemmed point" dating to approximately 9,500 years ago was found near the recovery site." Stemmed projectile points were characteristic of the later stages of the Paleo-Indian era. Archaic Culture. As the large ice-age mammals disappeared, the Paleo-Indians were compelled to rely on a wider variety of animal and plant resources. Over the period from about 8,300 to 7,500 years before the present, the Paleo-Indian culture in the Colorado Plateau region evolved into the Archaic culture, characterized by sidenotched projectile points and migratory hunting and gathering prac-
