Middle Archaic Mobility and Resource Utilization in the Cumberland Plateau of Southeastern Kentucky

Summary

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

The Sumac Terrace site (15Ls141), located in the Cumberland Plateau, was primarily occupied during the Middle Archaic (6000-4000 CE). The recovery of a large number of exhausted chipped stone tools and debitage from tool maintenance, and the presence of rock-lined hearths and cooking pits, and sheet midden within a relatively small area (20 x 30 m) suggests intensive, repeated use of this locality. The site is located on a toeslope beside a wetland, and surrounded by ridges, which would have offered those that camped at this locality access to a variety of plant resources and protection from the weather. The debitage raw material profile from this and neighboring sites indicates that about one-third of the chert used by the hunter-gatherers who frequented this region was obtained from more northerly sources in the Kentucky and Licking drainages. This is suggestive of seasonal rounds that involved movement over a relatively large area. The data from Sumac Terrace is considered in relation to contemporary sites in the Cumberland Plateau and neighboring regions to model hunter-gatherer use of upland settings during the Middle Archaic.

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): 36678.0