Theoretical Frameworks for Modelling Late-Pleistocene Costal Migration into the New World

Summary

Spatial modeling of early prehistoric maritime movement on the Pacific Northwest Coast is important in contemporary archaeology because it can help locate new sites in

a landscape which has radically changed over the last 20,000 years. Here we present the theoretical framework used in a research project which modeled maritime movement using least cost path analysis (LCP) to determine the routes most likely to have been traveled by the inhabitants of the Dundas Islands, British Columbia over the last 16,000 cal yr BP. Two cases studies are presented to illustrate how this framework which hybridizes elements of landscape and migration archaeology can be used to suggest maritime migration routes. The resulting movement paths were systemically analyzed and locations with high probabilities of use as movement corridors and stopping points were identified. This work is some of the first to apply LCP to seascapes and marine migration in North America and the results have the potential to lead to a better under- standing of migration during the Late Pleistocene. Increasing our ability to predict the location of drowned sites on the Northwest Coast is an important step in furthering our understanding of this areas human history.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21099