GSC-OAS Monthly Meeting

Saturday March 22

2 p.m. - 4 p.m.

Guest Leland Bement

From Mammoth Hunters to Bison Hunters: Culture Change During The Younger Dryas

As the glaciers began to melt 12,000 years ago an abrupt climate change cast the world back into ice age conditions.  This event is known as the Younger Dryas.  During this time in North America people of the Clovis culture were hunting mammoths and other large animals.  At the start of the Younger Dryas the mammoths went extinct, forcing the hunters to shift to hunting other animals.  Archaeology in Oklahoma adds to this research.  A look at the changing climate and cultures during this period will be presented from the perspective of excavations in Oklahoma. 

Dr. Bement is an archaeologist with the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, OU.  He has been with the Survey for 16 years and specializes in Paleoindian cultures, animal bones, and environmental reconstructions.

 Museum of the Great Plains

601 NW Ferris Avenue

Lawton, Oklahoma