Exploring hunter-gatherer lifeways during the late Pleistocene is critical for understanding early human occupation in the Americas. Big questions remain to be answered about these populations, including those east of the Mississippi River. Eastern North America is a complex landscape, with a mosaic of different environments and ecologies, and would have been even more so in the past. During the Paleoindian period (ca. 13,200–12,000 cal BP), this area saw some of the largest archaeological sites and greatest technological diversity in the Americas. As such, it is a significant region of research on Paleoindian foragers.
In 21 chapters, Volume II of In the Eastern Fluted Point Tradition follows on the success of the first volume (Gingerich, ed., In the Eastern Fluted Point Tradition, 2013; Spiess, review of Gingerich, American Antiquity 79 [2014]:176–177), providing new data and new interpretations and analyses of classic sites. It also moves beyond the first volume to present recent research and sites that have been documented within the last decade, and it covers geographic areas not covered in the first volume, primarily the Northeast and Great Lakes regions. Organized into three parts—(1) site reports; (2) fluted point surveys, settlement patterns, and regional overviews; and (3) artifact- and site-specific studies—the book is a comprehensive look at current data and patterns presented by established and emerging scholars.
The Paleoindian period in eastern North America is largely defined by its lithic technology, especially fluted points. Across the Americas, there is local variation on this broader theme, and eastern North America is no exception. While the book's focus is therefore largely on fluted points, fluted point sites, and their spatial distributions, it also draws attention to other artifact classes (e.g., endscrapers, pièces esquillées, and others; chapters 2, 18, and 19), manufacturing processes (e.g., bipolar reduction; chapters 2 and 9), and raw material acquisition and selection practices (Chapter 1), as well as use-wear (Chapter 8) and refitting studies (Chapter 17)—characterizing the Paleoindian record as far more complex than we tend to assume.
Analyses and syntheses in the book consider patterns in data at multiple scales, including detailed studies of individual artifacts, site-level investigations, and broad, regional surveys. Among the more significant contributions are landscape approaches and considerations of paleoenvironment and paleoclimate. New data and surveys reveal that Paleoindian sites are in areas we would not necessarily expect, including uplands and narrow valleys. When combined with paleoclimate data, particularly in New York (Chapter 15), there is a distinct use of wetlands and proglacial lakes and marshes—likely magnets for megafauna, plant resources, and humans (perhaps finding some parallels in western North America). New research in the Mid-Atlantic (Chapter 14) and around the former Champlain Sea (Chapter 16) also reveals resource acquisition along lakeshores and in marine environments. These landscape approaches are fruitful, and future work should include investigating now-submerged landscapes that would have been dry land available for human habitation at the end of the Pleistocene.
Many of our models of Paleoindian lithic technology still struggle to explain variation. What does regional variation in fluted points mean? Does it reflect change over time? Not always, as some different styles in Florida are contemporaneous (Chapter 10). Does fluted point variation reflect cultural differences or adaptations to environments? Does it reflect recycling or use-life histories of individual artifacts (Chapter 20), different social groups, cultural transmission (Chapter 13), or drift? These are age-old archaeological questions, and this volume presents new data and approaches to reveal that no single explanation is applicable across a broad geographic area. Instead, it is likely that these explanatory models operate at different scales and vary by region. Overall, the incorporation of newly discovered sites and analyses in this volume is a tremendous contribution, and the volume clearly demonstrates that Paleoindian archaeology in eastern North America is an active field and a source of important new directions in research, methods, and ideas.
The more we learn, the more complex and complicated our models of Paleoindian lifeways become, and this volume—and every chapter within it—considers evidence of social boundaries, fixed territories, flexible and diverse tool kits and manufacturing practices, diverse raw material selection strategies and exchange, and large populations and aggregations. I look forward to the next steps that the data in this volume offer, including broad comparisons between sites drawing on the detailed site-level and artifact analyses presented. Overall, Volume II of In the Eastern Fluted Point Tradition exceeds its goals, and it is a rich resource that will be harvested for years to come.
