Gulf and Western North America (6,093–4,366 BCE): Early Holocene — Middle Holocene — Intensification & Niche Engineering

Geographic and Environmental Context

Gulf and Western North America includes Mississippi–Lower Mississippi, Gulf Coast Plains (FL Panhandle, AL–MS–LA–TX), Southern Plains (TX–OK–KS), Southwest deserts/plateaus (NM–AZ), Rocky Mountain fringes (CO–WY south), Great Basin (UT–NV), and nearly all California (except far NW).

Anchors: Lower Mississippi & Yazoo–Natchez bluffs; Mobile–Pensacola–Calusa estuaries; Edwards Plateau–Pecos; Chihuahuan–Sonoran drainages (Gila–Salt–Rio Grande); Colorado Plateau canyons; Great Basin playas; Sacramento–San Joaquin delta; Channel Islands & Chumash coast.

Subsistence & Settlement

• California: bigger shell-middens; fish weirs; island–mainland canoe commute (Chumash forebears).

• Lower Mississippi/Gulf: shell rings; riverine aggregation.

• Southwest: seed-processing economies; rock art fluorescence; agave roasting pits.

• Great Basin: wetland micro-patches; rabbit/drives; pine nuts.

Technology & Material Culture

• Nets, basketry, millingstones; early pottery in some Gulf belts (very late); lined pits/earth ovens.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Coastal cabotage; Lower Mississippi spine; Rio Grande–Gila–Salt exchanges.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Rock art in Canyonlands–Chihuahuan; shell-heap ancestor cults.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Engineered weirs, roasting pits, seed beats — “low-level food production.”

Transition

• Late Holocene brings preceramic → ceramic transitions and broad exchange.