Dispatches from an Archaeological "Backwater": Microwear as a Proxy Measure of Paleoindian Landscape Use in the Far Northeast

Summary

This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeologists have been examining and publishing on the fluted point period for over a century. However, the northeastern United States has received comparably less attention from the professional discipline, with one colleague describing prehistoric archaeology in New England as an archaeological backwater. This may be in large part to the added complexity of working in the area. Unstratified, shallow buried sites, containing few to no organics are the norm in this region, leaving archaeologists with little more than lithic artifacts to interpret human behavior. I examined stone tool assemblages from a wide range of archaeological sites in the region dating to the fluted point period and based upon their inferred uses combined with interpretations of occupation span I argue we can see evidence of seasonally specific behaviors. I further argue that the northeast offers unique opportunities to address questions of landscape use and colonization at the end of the Pleistocene. Far from being an archaeological backwater, this challenging region provides us with superior temporal control untainted by questions of Pre-Clovis. And holds important implications for the archaeological visibility of colonizing populations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39177.0