Lithic Landscapes and Mobility from the Great Basin to the Salish Sea

Summary

Beck and Jones’ approach to settlement patterns is useful beyond the small highly mobile groups of the Great Basin Paleoarchaic because they expertly model how to connect lithic artifacts with the lithic landscape: first, conduct a thorough investigation of toolstone sources; second, consider how people brought toolstone to sites and how that might be reflected in the reduction sequence; and third, examine the representation of the reduction sequence at many sites across the landscape. I have been greatly influenced by this approach in my investigation of the mobility patterns of semi-sedentary late Holocene groups on the San Juan Islands, Washington. Settlement patterns here are complicated by boat travel and territoriality, but the analysis of lithic procurement, transport, and reduction still provides a useful perspective on where Coast Salish family groups moved over land and water. This research involves beach cobble surveys, analysis of transport costs, and beach cobble reduction analysis. I also consider Beck and Jones’ concept of parallel shifts between climate change, settlement patterns, and lithic procurement in a Salish Sea context.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Toolstone Papers in Honor of the Careers of Charlotte Beck and George T. Jones

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14906