Facilities and hunter-gatherer long-term land use patterns: An example from southwest Wyoming

To fully understand prehistoric land use patterns, we must define how prehi storic peoples used particular places on the landscape over longer periods of time. Factors influencing the multi-yens use of particular places includ e human modifications to the landscape as a result of previous occupations. The construction of relatively elaborate and costly facilities for anticip ated reuse is one type of modification associated with the repeated occupat ion of specific locations. Slab-lined cylindrical basins of southwest. Wyom ing are an example of that type of facility. The archaeological evidence in dicates that prehistoric hunter-gatherers repeatedly reused some of these b asins on a periodic basis over periods as long as 500 years and reoccupied some locales containing such facilities over a period of more than 2,000 ye ars. The construction of such facilities and the repeated occupation of tho se locales were apparently related to the procurement and processing of a s table, predictable resource. Biscuitroot was the most likely target resourc e procured and processed at these locales.