Major Cultural Periods

These are the major named cultural/time periods used by archeologists as a broad chronological or culture history framework for the 13,000-year prehistoric span. The most basic divisions Paleoindian > Archaic > Late Prehistoric were originally conceived of as successive evolutionary stages of increasing cultural complexity. These stages are seen as a simplistic notion today, but the 3-part division of prehistoric time is still widely followed as a general framework (see FAQ “Periods” ). The three basic divisions (sometimes called “eras’) are divided into major early-late or early-middle-late periods (as well as smaller subperiods or intervals presented in the Prehistoric Basic sections).

Each period is characterized by distinctive assemblages (groupings) of certain types of artifacts (especially projectile points) and widely shared cultural patterns such as a predominance of bison hunting or a particular style of rock art. The naming of the periods is based on classification schemes developed in the 1950s that are now considered outdated; still, archeological tradition lives on and the general meaning of these terms is widely understood. The time interval for each period is based on radiocarbon dates, but should be taken with a large grain of salt—these are rounded-off approximations.

As research progresses in each archeological region (such as the Lower Pecos area) solid information is gained, archeologists continue to refine their cultural concepts of time and often define more precise chronologies with subperiods or smaller intervals (sometimes called phases). Entire books have been written on the subject of archeological classification, and articles outlining “new and improved” chronologies for most regions appear once or twice a decade.

For present purposes, just think of these periods as attempts to divide up prehistory into convenient blocks of time useful for outlining broad cultural patterns. We’ll never be able to discuss prehistoric patterns from year to year or decade to decade except in very rare circumstances. Even century-to-century patterns are very hard to unravel. Dating techniques just aren’t that sophisticated for most of prehistory. To really understand what happened over the 13,000 years of prehistory in the Plateaus and Canyonlands will require many hundreds of radiocarbon-dated excavated samples and a thorough geographic coverage of the region. This will probably take many decades of additional research.