Site Formation Theory and Survivorship Bias in the Representation of Ice Age sites in the American Southeast

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Geoarchaeology in First Americans Research, Part 2" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Anderson (1990) used data from statewide fluted point surveys to argue that the distribution of fluted points was non-random, and likely reflected “staging areas” for the peopling of the Americas. In succeeding years, others have argued that the clusters of points and sites reflect biases in the recording and recovery of fluted points. Here, we build upon previous studies by using regional geomorphology, paleoenvironmental data, the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA), and the Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA) to examine the distribution of the early archaeological record of the American Southeast for the effects of “survivorship bias” in the documentation of fluted points.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Geoarchaeology in First Americans Research, Part 2   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52773