Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Testing Colonization Models in New England

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Under the supervision of Dr. Robert Kelly, Mr. Nathaniel Kitchel will examine the earliest human occupations of northeastern North America through an examination of the stone used by the first settlers of this region to produce tools. The data produced during this study will provide a better understanding of large scale settlement processes at the end of the Pleistocene both in the Northeast and throughout the Americas. This research will address questions of landscape learning and settlement patterns to explore how the first human groups moved into previously empty regions following the retreat of continental glaciers. Geochemical sourcing using nondestructive X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) technology of the fine grained stone used by prehistoric people to produce their tools will augment previous visual identifications of these raw materials. This technique will be particularly advantageous in the case of stone that is difficult, if not impossible, to identify by visual means alone.Despite more than a century of research the timing and process of the peopling of the Americas remains poorly understood. Many competing models that describe the first settlement of the New World during the Pleistocene exist. Though these models vary in detail, each tends to fall into two categories; rapid and less rapid models. These model types also make specific predictions about how these first peoples interacted with their technology, landscape, and environment. These models also however, derive many of their predictions from observations of the archaeology of "Clovis" or early fluted point archaeology. While users of these large distinctive stone projectile points were once thought to represent the first human occupation in the Americas recent discoveries indicate this may not be the case. This study will avoid questions of when the first humans arrived in the New World through an investigation of landscape learning and settlement practices in the recently deglaciated Northeast thereby controlling for the possibility of an earlier settlement in the region. These data will be used to evaluate colonization models of the Americas providing a greater understanding of how modern human groups moved into the New World, as well as other large uninhabited landscapes such as Australia.The data produced by this project will also have impacts beyond the immediate goals of this study. Through the course of this project a library of chemical "fingerprints" for at least seven stone sources used to manufacture tools in the far northeast throughout prehistory will be created. These data can be used by other researchers to investigate the movements of these resources throughout the prehistory of the region. The raw data will be distributed online making all data produced available for public use. This project will also engage the public through presentations and outreach with the New Hampshire State Conservation Rescue Archaeology Program (SCRAP) as well as public presentations at the University of Wyoming for the Wyoming Archaeological Society. Mr. Kitchel will also present the findings of this study to the public through non-technical publications and talks to the public at the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.