Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Clovis Settlement Behavior in the American Southeast: Using Lithic Artifact Analysis to Evaluate the Staging-Area Model

Texas A&M Research Foundation, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Dr. Ted Goebel, Ms. Ashley Smallwood's doctoral research will apply site-level data about stone tool technologies to understand Clovis settlement behavior in the American Southeast. Clovis hunter-gatherers are the best-documented early inhabitants of the Americas. One of the most remarkable aspects of the Clovis cultural complex is its extensive geographic distribution covering all of North America south of the Wisconsin ice sheets. In this vast area, Clovis bifacial fluted projectile points are found at archaeological sites dating to approximately 11,000 radiocarbon years before present. Smallwood's research will address key questions to help understand the Clovis population's settlement process. How were Clovis technologies organized during the late Pleistocene? What can studies of technology tell us about Clovis mobility? How did Clovis groups disperse across North America? A "staging area" model developed by David Anderson predicts that Clovis groups entered the continent and slowed migration to concentrate territorial ranges around resource-rich river valleys. These valleys became staging areas where groups settled-in and habitually used local tool-stone and biotic resources. Under this settlement model, residence in staging areas facilitated population growth and led to the fissioning of groups into new secondary staging areas, inciting early cultural regionalization in the Americas. Smallwood's study will evaluate the effectiveness of the staging-area model through analysis of stone tool assemblages from three key sites in the American Southeast: Topper (SC), Williamson (VA), and Carson-Conn-Short (TN). Carson-Conn-Short occurs within an area designated as a primary staging area. Topper and Williamson fall within areas Anderson designates as later concentrations, or secondary staging areas occupied by foragers expanding from a primary staging area. According to Anderson, these population concentrations are where early regional cultural traditions developed. Understanding the nature of Clovis settlement in the Southeast is essential to fully explain the peopling of the Americas. Once the staging-area model is tested, the Clovis record in the Southeast can be confidently contributed to the broader study of Paleoindian adaptations across the New World. Ultimately, this research will address how humans dispersed across North America and how regional environmental variation impacted human settlement strategies during the late Pleistocene. This intensive investigation will help place the Southeast, as a region, into an even broader context to answer theoretical problems of Clovis origins and adaptations. The research will pertain to a larger body of literature exploring how modern humans dispersed across the globe and how small-scale societies colonized empty landscapes in the past. In conducting her research, Smallwood will interface with the public by synthesizing valuable information from private and museum-owned collections, educating the public on the importance of their collections, and disseminating her research on the peopling of the Americas to the public arena. Further, Smallwood will continue as a Clovis site-supervisor at the Topper site in 2009, and in this capacity, she will instruct students and volunteers of all ages about archaeological techniques and artifact analysis. The field program at Topper has educated the public in the excavation experience since 1996, and in the summer of 2008 alone it attracted more than 150 volunteers and visitors from around the world. The proposed research will report the findings of the Topper excavation back to the volunteer community and interested public. Finally, Smallwood's research will provide her with the professional training and qualifications necessary to earn a Ph.D. in Anthropology.