An Archaeological Investigation of Clovis Blade Technology at Thunderbird (44WR11), a Paleolithic Stratified Site of the Flint Run Complex, Warren County, Virginia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Flint Run Complex in Northern Virginia contains not one, but several Late Pleistocene open-air stratified Paleoindian sites. Thunderbird (44WR11) is the main site within the complex with evidence of human occupation in the region at around 9,990 BP. Numerous tools were recovered which fit the Clovis technocomplex and extensive analysis has been performed on bifacial technology at the site. This study performed an analysis of lithic blade production at the Thunderbird site (44WR11) which refines our understanding of localized seasonal migration and exploitation of local resources among Paleoindian people of the Shenandoah River Valley. Confirmation of blades and their use would indicate a more robust exploitation of the region’s natural resources and reinforce previous assessments of the importance of Thunderbird as a sedentary seasonal base camp. This study examined 324 lithic artifacts from the site, to identify the presence of a concerted blade manufacturing technology where it was believed one did not exist. Additionally, the identification of blades at Thunderbird supports previous assertions that the site was an important refugia on a migratory pattern where scheduled resource exploitation and toolkit refurbishments took place as part of seasonal rounds.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53303