ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors present the term "Archaic" to the preagricultural portion of the preceramic period and discuss several new finds pertaining to Paleoindian and Archaic research, as well as new chronometric evidence. Rearchers working in the vast area of southeastern Utah and northeastern Arizona face substantial obstacles in developing behavioral inferences. Problems of sampling, post-depositional disturbance, typology, and chronometrics continue to restrict the quantity and quality of behavioral inferences the authors can draw about the enigmatic preagricultural period. The Paleoindian occupation of the Four Comers area is documented by a number of scattered finds. As in most regions of North America, the climatic regime on the central Colorado Plateau changed significantly at the end of the Pleistocene. An Archaic occupation of the Four Comers area has long been inferred from numerous surface finds of Pinto points in the region.
