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Human Adaptation to the Changing Northeastern Environment at the End of the Pleistocene

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Human Adaptation to the Changing Northeastern Environment at the End of the Pleistocene Human Adaptation to the Changing Northeastern Environment at the End of the Pleistocene: Implications for the Archaeological Record Brian Denis Jones B.A. Oberlin College, 1986 M.A. University of Connecticut, 1998 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut May 4, 1998 Copyright by Brian Denis Jones 1998 APPROVAL PAGE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Human Adaptation to the Changing Northeastern Environment at the End of the Pleistocene: Implications for the Archaeological Record Presented by Brian Denis Jones, B.A., M.A. Major Advisor_________________________________________________ Kevin A. McBride Associate Advisor______________________________________________ Robert E. Dewar Associate Advisor______________________________________________ Robert M. Thorson ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks are due to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council for their generous financial support of archaeological investigations at Mashantucket, Connecticut. Dr. Kevin McBride of the Public Archaeology Survey Team, Inc. also provided funding for the excavation and analysis of this site, including generous grants for radiocarbon dating. Dr. Robert Thorson, Dept. of Geol- ogy, UConn, helped a great deal with geological interpretations at this site. Dr. Robert Dewar ed- ited early drafts of this dissertation with a keen eye for detail. Dr. Arthur Spiess has supported my efforts at the Hidden Creek site and provided many helpful suggestions and insights over the years. Personal thanks go out to Tim Binzen, Dan Forrest and Dave George for helping with ex- cavation and analysis of the Hidden Creek Site, as well as for their stimulating discussions and acumen. The careful work of Jonathan Renfrew and members of the 1993 University of Con- necticut Summer Field School in Archaeology crew are greatly appreciated. I thank Dr. Linda T. Grimm, Oberlin College, for first familiarizing me with the Upper Paleolithic of Europe. Herr Dr. Professor Gerhard Bosinski, University of Cologne, deepened my understanding of these fascinating people. Mani Neumann must be thanked for teaching me most of what I know about field archaeology. Margaret O’Keefe and Tristan O’Keefe Jones deserve special thanks for their unwavering patience and support. Margaret, thank you for your extensive editorial help. This dissertation is dedicated to my great uncle, Warren Holland, who showed me my first arrowhead at a young age and sowed an interest which would last a lifetime. iii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................................1 The investigation of human societies at the onset of the Holocene era: the global perspective ...............2 Human adaptation to the changing northeastern environment at the end of the Pleistocene....................4 Chapter 2: The Human Occupation of the Northeast During the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene.......................................................................................................................................................6 The Northeast as an archaeological region ...............................................................................................6 Northeastern Paleoindian and Early Archaic research in historical perspective.......................................7 An outline of the regional prehistory of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene of the Northeast .......24 The Pleistocene/Holocene transition in Europe......................................................................................35 Chapter 3: Hunter-Gatherer Demography, Ecology and Economy....................................................43 Introduction.............................................................................................................................................43 Hunter-Gatherers of the recent past....................................................................................................44 Section 1: The Demography of Hunter-Gatherers .................................................................................45 Foragers and Collectors......................................................................................................................51 Section 2: The Ecology of Recent Hunter-Gatherers.............................................................................53 The economics of foraging: a review of selected optimal foraging models.......................................57 Conclusions.............................................................................................................................................65 Chapter 4: The Archaeology of Hunter-Gatherers...............................................................................69 Site formation processes.....................................................................................................................70 Site deformation processes .................................................................................................................76 Site recovery.......................................................................................................................................84 Site interpretation ...............................................................................................................................89 Archaeology as long-term ethnography .............................................................................................90 iv Summary.................................................................................................................................................95 Chapter 5: An Environmental Baseline for the Study of the Archaeology of the Late-Pleistocene and Early Holocene of the Northeast..............................................................................................................96 Physiographic regional division of the Northeast...................................................................................96 Paleo-environmental change during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene of northeastern North America. .............................................................................................................................................97 Section I: the floral record .....................................................................................................................97 Section II: the faunal record..................................................................................................................106 Early Holocene fauna .......................................................................................................................112 Chapter 6: Model Development............................................................................................................119 General principles of hypothesis development and model building .....................................................119 The spatial and temporal scope of the model........................................................................................120 Human adaptation to terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene environments of the Northeast ..........124 Central points of the application of the resource response model ........................................................134 Caveats..................................................................................................................................................135 Chapter 7: Archaeological Implications of Modeled Settlement and Social Organization .............137 Expected archaeological patterns for the Younger Dryas (ca. 10,500 years B.P.) ...............................139 The southern Northeast.....................................................................................................................139 The central Northeast .......................................................................................................................142 The northern Northeast.....................................................................................................................144 Expected archaeological patterns for the early Holocene (ca. 9,000 B.P.)...........................................147 The southern Northeast.....................................................................................................................147 The central Northeast .......................................................................................................................149 The northern Northeast.....................................................................................................................150 Summary of expected trends in archaeological patterning ...................................................................152 v Chapter 8: Model Expectations vs. the Archaeological Record.........................................................155 Exemplary Younger Dryas period (ca. 10,600 – 10,200 B.P.) Paleoindian sites of the Northeast.......155 Debert/Belmont ................................................................................................................................155 Hedden..............................................................................................................................................161 Templeton.........................................................................................................................................164
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