Lithic Technological Organization on Grand Island, Michigan, During the Late Archaic Period

Summary

This paper presents the results of a study of subsistence, chipped stone and hot rock technologies, settlement variability, residential mobility, and landscape interactions of the Late Archaic (c. 5,000-2,000 BP) people on Grand Island, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Recent excavations by the Grand Island Archaeological Program (GIAP) have yielded a sizable body of evidence for Late Archaic occupations on Grand Island, which is the largest island of Lake Superior's southern shore. Direct evidence is drawn from six archaeological sites excavated by GIAP that span the entire Late Archaic period and allow for a study of socioeconomic changes through time. I focus on the social-technological relationship between lithic raw material availability, raw material choice, and the manufacture of different stone tool types by Late Archaic hunter-gatherers occupying Grand Island. There, people utilized local materials for the production of expedient tools, and non-local cherts to manufacture curated formal tools. Faunal data indicates that the island was seasonally occupied in the autumn. Hearth features and the density and diversity of lithic artifacts suggest that the location was repeatedly used and represented an important place in the landscape.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Great Lakes Archaeology: Current Research and Perspectives   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage