2021 Prehistoric Human Response to Climate Change in the Bonneville Basin, Western North

America: The Bonneville Estates Rockshelter Radiocarbon Chronology {For a .pdf, please request via ResearchGate}

Bryan Hockett's Webpage

2017 Late Pleistocene Subsistence in the Great Basin: Younger-Dryas-aged Faunal Remains from the

2023 A Latest-Paleoindian-Aged Pronghorn Trap in the Goshute Valley, Eastern Great Basin, USA {For a .pdf, please request via ResearchGate}

2016 Preface: Of Ancient Econs and Modern Humans

2023 Large-Scale Traps of the Great Basin. Texas A&M University Press. {Available for purchase at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, tamupress.com}.

Archaeology & Taphonomy Research

2018 A Brief History and Perspective of Spirit Cave, Nevada

Archaeology & Taphonomy Research

2016 Why Celebrate the Death of Primitive Economic Man? Human Nutritional Ecology in the 21st Century

Bryan Hockett's

2022 Lions and Brown Bears Colonized North America in Multiple Synchronous Waves of

Dispersal Across the Bering Land Bridge {For a .pdf, please request via ResearchGate}

Prehistoric large-scale traps are more common across the Great Basin and Nevada than once believed, suggesting that large game hunting was an important activity throughout much of the occupation of the Great Basin. Pronghorn, mountain sheep, and deer traps were built with a variety of raw materials and took a variety of shapes across the Great Basin. Pronghorn traps were built at least 8,500 to 7,500 years ago. Our book on the subject was recently published by Texas A&M University Press.

Updated: August 20, 2023.

2022 Early and Middle Archaic Projectile Point Typology and Chronology Across the Great Basin

2019 The Projectile Points from Bonneville Estates Rockshelter: Description of Two New Point Types and Implications for the Long and Short Chronology Debate in the Great Basin

Welcome to my Home Page Updated August 20, 2023

I completed my second fieldwork season at the ca. 13,900 cal BP Sheg Xdaltthi (McDonald Creek) site located in central Alaska during the summer of 2023. I am in the process of identifying the fauna.

Together with my co-author Eric Dillingham, "Large Scale Traps of the Great Basin" was published by Texas A&M Press in April, 2023. It is available for purchase on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and tamupress.com.

Together with my colleagues Ted Goebel, Kelly Graf, and Ed Stoner, we finished a manuscript on a remarkable set of three open-air Paleoindian sites from northeastern Nevada that appear to represent two kill zones and an associated campsite related to a large scale trapping event that occurred ca. 8,500 years ago during the waning phase of the Paleoindian Period in the Great Basin. The paper was recently published by the journal PaleoAmerica.

Together with my co-author Jason Spidell, we just completed a monograph on the typology and chronology of Early and Middle Archaic projectile points across the Great Basin. It is available for download in the list below and blm.gov.

I completed field work at the paleontological site of Mining Canyon Cave in September, 2022. Located in central Nevada, this site contains well preserved bones up to 30,000 years old, and appears similar in character to Mineral Hill Cave (publication below). Identification and analysis has begun. It appears that the extinct North American cheetah (Miracinonyx trumani) is among the animals represented; Miracinonyx is also present in Mineral Hill Cave.

I am also reanalyzing the fauna from O'Malley Shelter, as well as analyzing a ca. 14,000 year+ paleoecological fauna from Little Sister East Rockshelter located near Bonneville Estates Rockshelter. Speaking of Bonneville Estates, I also have a few paleontological specimens recovered below the human occupation zone (ca. 12,900 cal BP) that I need to write up. While few in number, wolf is present as well as probable Miracinonyx.