The Paleoindian Period at the Aldrich Island Site: A Multicomponent Paleoindian site in the Hudson River Valley

Summary

The Middle and Late Paleoindian Periods had formerly been close to absent from the literature of known Hudson Valley Paleoindian sites. This led some researchers to suggest that these cultures might have, to a larger degree, stayed away from this region as a whole. However, recent findings from the Aldrich Island Site demonstrate that the Hudson Valley of New York State was indeed inhabited and utilized by these cultures, and perhaps much more extensively than once previously thought. A wide range of Middle and Late Paleoindian projectile point typologies are present at Aldrich Island, along with all stages of preforms manufactured from a large high-grade lithic source very close to the site. Some of these typologies, before now, are not known from the Northeast, where the "home" landscapes of these cultures are from far outside of this region. Highly exotic lithic materials, most of which from the Late Paleoindian portions of the collection, suggest that long distance travel just after the Younger Dryas, might not have experienced as much of a constricted environment as once had been thought for the Northeast during this time period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage