John Lambert WASRA

John M. Lambert, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis documented Paleoindian materials from private and museum collections:

Archaeologists have long been interested in the behavior of the first human groups to occupy postglacial North America. Archaeological evidence indicates that Northern Wisconsin was first colonized by Agate Basin and Cody/Scottsbluff groups after 10,500-10,000 B.P. when glacial ice receded to the southern shore of Lake Superior. How these hunter-gatherer groups used mobility to cope with the unique ecological challenges presented by recently deglaciated landscapes remains a matter of considerable debate. Data I have gathered on a number of early Holocene lithic assemblages (n=9) from northern Wisconsin support the assertion that Paleoindian groups in the region were highly mobile. Average transport distances routinely exceed 200 km (several sites are located over 300 km from individual raw material sources), toolkit composition reflects a reliance on long-distance residential movement, and transport of toolstone occurs along a predominantly north/south axis, often between paired raw material sources that are inferred to lie at opposite ends of groups' annual ranges. Others have documented a strikingly similar pattern at early Paleoindian sites in the Great Lakes and Northeast, which has been interpreted as evidence for high seasonal mobility centered on the exploitation of large game. The distribution of specific lithic raw materials at the sites noted above implies that colonizing populations exploited an area extending from northeast Minnesota (e.g., Knife Lake siltstone and Gunflint silica) to central Wisconsin (e.g., Hixton orthoquartzite and Prairie du Chien chert). WASRA-funded travel to document the analysis of collections from the Forks View site in Calumet Co. Forks View site, as well as four other private collections containing Paleoindian material from a number of sites in Calumet and Sheboygan Co., as well as two museum collections, WI is helping to elucidate the behavior of groups at the southern end of this range, and is a crucial step toward answering questions about the role of mobility among human groups who colonize early postglacial landscapes.