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Early Native American populations—known to archaeologists as Paleoindians—migrated into deglaciated portions of northeastern North America during the late Pleistocene from the adjacent Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. The archaeological record of these early peoples suggests that they lived at low population densities and that residential groups routinely traveled extensively during annual rounds of movement (i.e., range mobility), at scales not matched by later indigenous populations (Ellis 1989, 2011; Lothrop and Singer 2017; Lothrop et al. 2016). Here, we combine geochemical sourcing of toolstone with geographic information systems least cost path analysis to better understand the nature of these seasonal movements as indicators of Paleoindian mobility and land use in northeastern North America during the late Pleistocene.
Paleoindian sites found north of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in northeastern North America are mostly marked by lithic scatters of fluted points and other flaked-stone tools and document Early Paleoindian (ca. 13,000–12,200 cal BP) and Middle Paleoindian (ca. 12,200–11,600 cal BP) populations. These peoples inhabited subarctic-like Younger Dryas environments, ranging with latitude and elevation from boreal forest to parkland to tundra. Their lifeways relied on a highly seasonal resource base that included seasonal hunting of migratory caribou (Rangifer sp.; Lothrop et al. 2016:228–230, 233–234; Newby et al. 2005). This contrasts with sites of contemporaneous eastern Paleoindian populations south of the LGM who occupied more temperate pine-oak forests during the Younger Dryas and practiced less extensive range mobility (Lothrop et al. 2016:201–203, 225) that some link to the hunting of nonmigratory prey species in largely closed forest settings (e.g., Gardner 1989; Meltzer 1988).
The recognition of more extensive Paleoindian range mobility in the formerly glaciated Northeast has prompted research on the relationship between high mobility and stone technology (e.g., Ellis 2008; Ellis and Lothrop 1989; Eren and Andrews 2013; Stothers 1996; Tankersley and Isaac 1990), as done elsewhere in North America (e.g., Ingbar 1994; Montet-White and Holen 1991). However, these assessments of Paleoindian range mobility in northeastern North America are often based solely on provisional identifications of geologic sources of artifact toolstone at individual sites, using macroscopic comparisons with source hand samples. Although a good first step, this can be prone to errors from look-alike sources (e.g., Calogero 1992; Tankersley 1989:260–261).
Some researchers have applied methods...