Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Clovis Mobility at the Gault site, Texas: A Chert Provenance Study using LA-ICP-MS

University Of Texas At San Antonio, San Antonio TX

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Robert Hard, Mr. Charles Speer will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. The research examines the subsistence strategies and landscape use by early inhabitants of the New World. Although the long standing view of the 13,000 year old Clovis culture is that its members were highly mobile hunters who moved from kill to kill, specializing in hunting extinct mammoth and other large mammals, mounting evidence suggests a wide array of behavior was practiced by these groups which were dispersed across the New World in a diverse host of environments. The classic model of describing Clovis behavior is based on three key elements: the discovery of Clovis stone projectile points with extinct large game, the exotic (non-local) stone with which Clovis projectile points were made, and the rapid spread of the Clovis cultural complex across the New World. This project will focus on determining the source of the flint or chert used to make Clovis period projectile points at the Gault site. Over most of the course of human existence people lived in small groups as hunters and gatherers and many scientists argue that behaviors characteristic of the species developed and are best understood within this context. Mr. Speer's research gains significance because it will provide insight into the range of likely behaviors which existed. Clovis period stone tools found at the Gault archaeological site in central Texas run counter to the traditional model. At Gault, nearly 95% of the stone tools and 80% of all Clovis projectile points are made from material within the immediate vicinity. As the visual aspects of the stone are similar to others across a wide region of central Texas, a geochemical technique is employed to determine accurate provenance. The geochemical technique, Laser Ablation - Inductively Coupled Plasma - Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), will analyze the geochemistry of chert toolstone used in the manufacture of projectile points found at the site. The Gault Clovis projectile points appear to be made of the local material and not from visually similar non-local sources. This is in direct contrast with many Clovis sites that are dominated by projectile points derived from sources that are hundreds of kilometers away. This research analyzes artifacts from an important Clovis site to further understand mobility behavior and it takes subjective postulates concerning Clovis mobility and evaluates them with objective data. The project will also help to develop a highly effective and reliable methodology for determining both intra- and inter-source variation. This dissertation suggests that the Clovis cultural complex was widespread across the New World but the behavior elicited by Clovis peoples was varied and not uniform. The Gault site artifacts demonstrate that cultural diffusion may have allowed technological aspects of Clovis culture to spread rapidly across the New World, rather than long distance movement in search of game. This suggests pre-Clovis populations might have already been in place across the New World to allow for this rapid cultural diffusion.