Locally (if 35 miles away can be deemed local) there is a university sponsored dig going on during our spring summer months. It's in a spot beneath a basalt rim that would offer some degree of shelter from the elements, but not a place one would expect village like numbers. They are down about a dozen feet, finding enough to keep them interested, but not anything a collector type would go bonkers over. Carbon dating has them back about 14,000 yrs right now.
The area is in about a 12" annual precip zone supporting an endless sea of Wyoming big sagebrush (about 2.5 ft tall). No perennial water within 10 to 15 miles. One of our primo obsidian sources is only about 5 miles away. An interesting aspect is that all the wood and fire ring remnants are willow. Today, one would have to hike all the way to perennial water to pick that up. Obviously, the climate and vegetation were quite a bit different around here when we were exiting the last ice age.
Most of us fail to think in those time scales, and mother nature can deposit or move a lot of soil when one starts thinking in thousands of years. If one deposits about 1/32 inch of soil in a single year (not unreasonable in a forest), he ends up with about 36.5 feet of accumulation after 14,000 years. Again, Cookie and I are not pot hunters, but I've sound a few worked pieces of obsidian (scrapers and bifaces) two to three feet down in forested road cuts.
A lot of evidence in this region suggests there were waves of occupation and abandonment through the ages with the lithic tools being of different styles for each era. They see some similar patterns up along the Columbia River where salmon were a mainstay. During any of the Missoula Floods, the water was too deep and fast for fishing, and tribes headed into the highlands to make a living for several generations returning when the flows subsided.
It also seems some of the more artistic artifacts come from areas where the living was relatively easy. Most of the pieces found in our arid deserts are quite crude. They're functional, but nothing suggesting much in the way of artistic pride.
Mathsr: Just curious: Where on earth does a guy from Georgia go to source obsidian?
