Ecological Succession of the Laurentide Ice Sheet: A Study of Human Colonization Lag in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Radiocarbon Record

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The ice margin chronology for North America provides archaeologists with discrete spatial units, much like stratigraphic units of an excavation grid, that aid in interpreting the archaeological record of colonizing populations. Treating deglaciation as an opening for a subsequent colonization event, ice recession helps contextualize Paleoindian population growth rates, distribution, and densities by looking at how quickly once glaciated lands were colonized after the widespread peopling of the Americas. Using discrete ice recession intervals for the continental extent of the Laurentide Ice Sheet from 15,100 to 6,900 years ago and the oldest 10 radiocarbon dates per interval, I calculate a lag measure between deglaciation and the appearance of geological, paleontological, and archaeological materials. There is an average lag of approximately 4,000 years between ice recession and archaeological radiocarbon dates, suggesting delayed colonization of the Laurentide Ice Sheet area. These data can aid in interpreting colonization models that use assumed population growth rates because a larger lag measure is interpreted as a very slow population growth rate, particularly if the Americas were colonized before or during the Last Glacial Maximum. This study can also contribute to further study of what a colonizing event may look like in the radiocarbon record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36275.0