CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE OF THE TERMINAL PLEISTOCENE THROUGH THE EARLIEST HOLOCENE IN THE FRENCH PYRÉNÉES AND AMERICA’S SOUTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAINS

Abstract

Cultural adaptive strategies in the French Pyrénées and north central Colorado Rocky Mountains in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, although reflecting quite different cultural traditions, had broadly comparable topographies and experienced similar climatic and ecosystem changes in the Late Pleistocene through the Early Holocene. Archaeological and paleoenvironmental data presented in this article describe and compare broadly-based culture-environmental change models associated with the role of natural and human seasonal transhumance patterns of respective Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene landscapes of two widely separated world mountain regions, Europe’s Pyrénées and the North America’s Rocky Mountains.