The terrain is more varied, the movement of large animals is constrained by topography, and the mix of available prey species is different from the plains environment.

But the evidence from Anzick — with stone materials potentially sourced from multiple geographic locations — suggests that the Clovis people of this area were moving through a landscape that connected the mountains to the plains and that they were exploiting the resources of both.

The Shields River Valley itself, running east-west through the northern Montana landscape, would have been a natural corridor of movement connecting the Rocky Mountain front to the broader plains environment.

Game animals moving between mountain summer ranges and lower-elevation winter ranges would have followed such valleys, and hunters following the game would have known these corridors intimately.