Cultural Transmission and Stone Tools: A Study of Early Paleoindian Technology in North America

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Under the supervision of Dr. Bruce Huckell, Briggs Buchanan will analyze Early Paleoindian stone tool assemblages from sites throughout North America. The Early Paleoindian (ca. 11,500-10,500 B.P.) period represents the initial fluorescence of hunter-gatherer occupation of the New World. Buchanan's analysis will use the types and style of stone tools to define technological traditions that will be used to test hypotheses concerning the rate of migration and adaptation to regional environments and potential routes of colonization or diffusion across the continent.The Early Paleoindian occupation of North America traditionally has been considered as one of rapid colonization and cultural continuity across the diverse Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene environments of the New World. Early Paleoindian fluted projectile points were seen as broadly similar in form and technology across North America, suggesting a stylistic relationship that represents evidence of a residual cultural link connecting distant groups from Nova Scotia to Arizona. Current models, however, emphasize Early Paleoindian regional adaptations, particularly in diet choice and fluted projectile point distributions, suggesting a greater time-depth of occupation in the New World and greater cultural separation of groups living within distinct environmental regions. Buchanan's research investigates these competing hypotheses through the reconstruction of technological traditions, the lineages of technological knowledge that is passed on across generations.Technological traditions are defined by determining the types of tools within assemblages and stylistic traits on projectile points and investigated through cultural transmission models. To explore Early Paleoindian cultural dynamics through technological traditions, data on geographic distance separating assemblages will be used as a proxy for diffusion and paleoenvironmental data will be used as a proxy for convergent or parallel adaptation. The null model assumes that variability relates to distance in cultural descent. The influence of ancestry on technological traditions will be tested using cladistics, a method of determining phylogenetic relationships, and the consistency to which Early Paleoindian technology follows a bifurcating descent pattern.The method of cladistics provides new avenues for understanding human organization and behavior as well as providing a new perspective on change and continuity in material culture. The ability to define and trace cultural lineages in prehistory will have a significant impact upon archaeology, particularly in cases where cultural migration, diffusion, or change are difficult to discern in the record. This method may prove to be invaluable toward the understanding of how human learning systems can be identified and how cultural transmission functions in simple societies; it should also provide an important tool for anthropologists working elsewhere with such problems. This research brings these new perspectives to bear on a contentious issue of great public interest and scientific importance: the earliest period of cultural fluorescence in the New World. Defining the pattern of Early Paleoindian cultural relationships in the initial widespread occupation of North America addresses a topic of global interest in human evolution. The results of this research will help unravel questions concerning the adaptive processes of the last major human migration of a previously uninhabited continent.This project will also assist in training a promising young scientist.