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Paleo-Indians, Paleoindians or Paleo-Americans, were the first peoples who entered, and subsequently inhabited, the Americas during the final glacial episodes of the late Pleistocene period. The prefix "paleo-" comes from the Greek adjective palaios (παλαιός), meaning "old" or "ancient". The term "Paleo-Indians" applies specifically to the lithic period in the Western Hemisphere and is distinct from the term "Paleolithic".
Moundville Archaeological Site, also known as the Moundville Archaeological Park, is a Mississippian culture archaeological site on the Black Warrior River in Hale County, near the modern city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Extensive archaeological investigation has shown that the site was the political and ceremonial center of a regionally organized Mississippian culture chiefdom polity between the 11th and 16th centuries. The archaeological park portion of the site is administered by the University of Alabama Museums and encompasses 185 acres (75 ha), consisting of 29 platform mounds around a rectangular plaza.
The Stanfield-Worley Bluff Shelter, located on private property in Colbert County in northwestern Alabama, United States, is one of the most important prehistoric sites excavated in the state due to the archeological evidence deposited by the Paleo-Indians who once occupied the rock shelter. Lying in Sanderson Cove along a tributary of Cane Creek approximately seven miles (11 km) south of the Tennessee Valley, the shelter and the high bluffs of the surrounding valley provided a well-protected environment for the Native American occupants.
David G. Anderson is an archaeologist in the department of anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who specializes in Southeastern archaeology. His professional interests include climate change and human response, exploring the development of cultural complexity in Eastern North America, maintaining and improving the nation's Cultural Resource management (CRM) program, teaching and writing about archaeology, and developing technical and popular syntheses of archaeological research. He is the project director of the on-line Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA). and a Co-Director, with Joshua J. Wells, Eric C, Kansa, and Sarah Whitcher Kansa, of the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA)
The Thunderbird Archaeological District, near Limeton, Virginia, is an archaeological district described as consisting of "three sites—Thunderbird Site, the Fifty Site, and the Fifty Bog—which provide a stratified cultural sequence spanning Paleo-Indian cultures through the end of Early Archaic times with scattered evidence of later occupation."
J&J Hunt Site (8JE740) is an inundated prehistoric archaeological site located 6 km off the coast of northwestern Florida. The site which was discovered in 1989 is located in 3.7 to 4.6 m of salt water in the Gulf of Mexico along the PaleoAucilla River. In prehistory the site had at least two different occupations: a Late Paleoindian-Early Archaic and Middle Archaic. The J&J Hunt site was a major focus of the PaleoAucilla Prehistory Project conducted by Michael K. Faught.
The archaeology of Iowa is the study of the buried remains of human culture within the U.S. state of Iowa from the earliest prehistoric through the late historic periods. When the American Indians first arrived in what is now Iowa more than 13,000 years ago, they were hunters and gatherers living in a Pleistocene glacial landscape. By the time European explorers visited Iowa, American Indians were largely settled farmers with complex economic, social, and political systems. This transformation happened gradually. During the Archaic period American Indians adapted to local environments and ecosystems, slowly becoming more sedentary as populations increased. More than 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants. The subsequent Woodland period saw an increase on the reliance on agriculture and social complexity, with increased use of mounds, ceramics, and specialized subsistence. During the Late Prehistoric period increased use of maize and social changes led to social flourishing and nucleated settlements. The arrival of European trade goods and diseases in the Protohistoric period led to dramatic population shifts and economic and social upheaval, with the arrival of new tribes and early European explorers and traders. During the Historical period European traders and American Indians in Iowa gave way to American settlers and Iowa was transformed into an agricultural state.
Cueva Fell is a natural cave and archaeological site in southern Patagonia. Cueva Fell is in proximity to the Pali Aike Crater, another significant archaeological site. Cueva Fell combined with the nearby Pali Aike site have been submitted to UNESCO as a possible World Heritage Site.
Juliet Morrow is an American archaeologist and a professor of Anthropology at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Jan F. Simek is an American archaeologist and educator who was the interim president of the University of Tennessee system from 2009–2010.
The Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA), is a website dedicated to the compilation of projectile point and other relevant data pertaining to Paleoindian site assemblages across the Americas. As of April 2011, the PIDBA database contains information pertaining to locational data (n=29,393), attribute data (n=15,254), and image data on Paleoindian projectile points and other tools in North America and also includes bibliographic references, radiocarbon dates, and maps created making use of database and GIS data. The PIDBA site provides a database that is useful in studying stylistic and morphological variability, lithic raw material usage and procurement strategies, geographic distributions of technology, and land use strategies during the Paleoindian period, which took place prior to ca. 11,450 cal year BP. The PIDBA database also serves a function as an intermediary between academic and advocational archaeologists in the collection and integration of primary projectile point data. Overall, the PIDBA project aims to compile data from multiple sources into a comprehensive database, while simultaneously seeking out and including new data. The PIDBA website contains a large amount of primary data collected and donated by researchers and advocational archaeologists from all over the Americas ranging from metric measurements to the type of chert any particular piece is made from. It is the voluntary contributions of primary data from these researchers that makes PIDBA possible. While it is understandable that researchers would like to fully examine and publish on their data, the site's philosophy is that it is important to disseminate information freely, so that other researchers can work with it. This allows researchers to make new discoveries that they perhaps would not be possible otherwise.
Barnes' points are lanceolate Paleo-Indian projectile points distributed throughout the lower northeastern United States, from Missouri to the Great Lakes area, extending into Canada. Barnes points are associated with the Early Paleoindian Parkhill complex of the eastern Great Lakes region, with sites being especially common in southwestern Ontario. Barnes points have also been found in northeastern Indiana, which suggests affinities with the Great Lakes region during the early and middle portions of the Paleoindian period. It is a large, fluted spear point with "delicate ears" and a fishtail base. The fluting, or groove in the center of the point, tends to extend nearly the entire length of the point. It was first classified in 1963 by William Roosa. The Barnes site, in Midland County, Michigan, was first located by Mr. Wallace Hill, whose house was then a few hundred feet from the site. The staff of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology was informed of the site in 1959. William Roosa recognized that the fluting technique on the points, while similar to that of Folsom points, was otherwise unique.
The Cherry Creek Rockshelter is an archaeological site in central Colorado, located within modern-day Castlewood Canyon State Park near Franktown, Colorado. Current research indicates that it was used by Native American inhabitants beginning in the Archaic period. The site is situated on the Palmer Divide, which allowed for a unique prehistoric environment that contributed to an abundance of food and water sources, as well as lithic materials for tool-making. These factors, combined with the structure and situation of the shelter itself, made the site a particularly attractive environment for prehistoric peoples to settle in. Archaeological study of the site began in 1955, with the most current original research concluding in 2002.
Hell Gap is a deeply stratified archaeological site located in the Great Plains of eastern Wyoming, approximately thirteen miles north of Guernsey, where an abundant amount of Paleoindian and Archaic artifacts have been found and excavated since 1959. This site has had an important impact on North American archaeology because of the large quantity and breadth of prehistoric Paleoindian and Archaic period artifacts and cultures it encompasses. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016.
Hidden Cave is an archaeological cave site located in the Great Basin near Fallon, Nevada, United States. It got its name from Mark Harrington, who first excavated the cave and had a hard time finding the entrance, who said at the time, "This is one hidden cave!" It was excavated originally in the 1930s by Harrington and then excavated twice more before being returned to for the final time in 1978 by David Hurst Thomas for a more in depth excavation. The site dates back to the early Desert Archaic Culture from c. 4000 to 2000 years ago. Thousands of Archaic artifacts have been found here, and the site "provides important, if unusual clues about Desert Archaic lifeways". Hidden Cave was not lived in, but used as storage site for goods and tools for the 2000 years of its survival.
John Bertram Broster is an American archaeologist formerly serving as the Prehistoric Archeological Supervisor at the Tennessee Division of Archaeology, Department of Environment and Conservation. He is best known for his work on the Paleoindian period of the American Southwest and Southeast, and has published some 38 book chapters and journal articles on the subject.
The Gault archaeological site is an extensive, multicomponent site located in central Texas, United States, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Austin. It bears evidence of almost continuous human occupation, starting at least 16,000 years ago—making it one of the few archaeological sites in the Americas at which compelling evidence has been found for human occupation dating to before the appearance of the Clovis culture.
The Quad Site is a series of Paleoindian sites and localities in Limestone County near Decatur, Alabama. It was first reported by Frank Soday in 1954, and later findings were also documented by James Cambron, David Hulse and Joe Wright and Cambron and Hulse. The Quad Locale can seldom be viewed at current lake levels, even during normal winter pool, due to extensive erosion, but is considered one of the most important and well known Paleoindian sites in the Southeastern United States.
David Lloyd DeJarnette (1907-1991) was an archaeologist and professor with the University of Alabama, generally considered the "Father of Alabama Archaeology".
The Heaven's Half Acre complex is a concentration of Paleoindian sites situated on a series of Pleistocene terraces overlooking a sinkhole in northeastern Colbert County, Alabama, near the town of Leighton. Over one hundred and fifty fluted points have been recovered on these sites, making it one of the most dense fluted point localities in North America.
References
- 1 2 "Alabama Heritage Summer 2002, Issue 65." Alabama Heritage Magazine. <http://www.alabamaheritage.com/Issues/issue65.htm Archived 2011-07-21 at the Wayback Machine >.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Carmody, Stephen Byrnes, "Hunter/Gatherer Foraging Adaptations During the Middle Archaic Period at Dust Cave, Alabama." Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2009. http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/515
- ↑ Sherwood, Sarah C., Boyce N. Driskell, Asa R. Randall, and Scott C. Meeks. "Chronology and Stratigraphy at Dust Cave, Alabama." <http://www.saa.org/AbouttheSociety/Publications/AmericanAntiquity/Volume69Number3July2004/ChronologyandStratigraphyatDustCaveAlabama/tabid/555/Default.aspx>.
