Testing for Paleoindian Aggregations: Internal Site Structure at Bull Brook

古印第安人的研究提供了最早的大量证据，证明人们如何应对晚更新世的环境波动和低人口密度，同时在北美分享文化的各个方面。 从大约11，000年前的放射性碳开始，众所周知的凹槽射弹点非常明显，但往往很稀少，这对一些研究来说是一个很好的组合。 遗址、人工制品群和外来原材料的分布为定居模式提供了异常清晰的证据，部分原因是它们并没有因丰富而变得模糊。东北部最大的古印第安遗址通常由独立的人工制品群组成（小屋位置？）似乎没有被重复的占领所掩盖。 然而，大型遗址带来了一个问题，因为它们发生在人口密度似乎较低的地区。 这些大型遗址代表的是几个家族的重复占领，还是来自遥远地方的大群体的聚集？ 这些问题对于理解所有移动的狩猎采集者都很重要。位于马萨诸塞州伊普斯维奇的布尔布鲁克遗址有40多个地点，形成了一个巨大的环形图案，是北美晚更新世以来已知的最大和最规则的定居点。 该遗址是在40至50年前由考古学家和专业人士合作挖掘的。 挖掘者坚持认为，这个巨大的环形图案类似于一个巨大的营地圆圈，但40年前的人类学家发现这很难相信。 从那时起，在低密度人群中进行大型社交聚会的想法变得可以接受。 虽然布尔布鲁克遗址广为人知，但证据还没有公布足够的细节来测试环形计划的一些含义。在国家科学基金会的支持下，Brian罗宾逊博士（气候变化研究所、阿拉斯加项目和缅因州大学人类学系）将与来自新英格兰和魁北克的教师、研究生和同事合作，测试布尔布鲁克的定居计划是否反映了最近狩猎采集者环形定居点的组织特征。 布尔布鲁克遗址计划将根据原始记录精心重建，并得到一些原始挖掘机的直接帮助。 航空摄影、实地勘察和邻近沼泽地的地下取芯将用于重建现代和古代景观。 整个布尔布鲁克收藏（超过8000件文物）由挖掘机捐赠给皮博迪埃塞克斯博物馆。 高级人员中将有两名石器专家对它进行新的描述，以识别石头来源。 布尔布鲁克定居计划的结构将从40个文物集中的文物和材料的分布进行分析。布尔布鲁克研究的历史反映了发现，不断变化的理论和对更精确证据的追求之间的相互作用。 特别具有启发性的罕见考古背景必须用新的问题来“重新审视”。 布尔布鲁克遗址为古印第安人定居和社会组织理论提供了重要的灵感。 虽然这个遗址很久以前就被摧毁了，但它保留了狩猎采集组织的基本证据，很少被保存下来，也很少被大规模挖掘，以进行评估。 由此产生的专著将伴随着人工制品目录和现场记录的数字记录，使研究人员能够评估和解决各种各样的问题。 由于其广泛的吸引力和教育价值，还计划由一群敬业的考古学家对这次非凡的打捞工作进行一次流行的描述。

Paleoindian research provides the earliest substantial evidence of how people coped with Late Pleistocene environmental fluctuations and low population density, while sharing aspects of culture across North America. From about 11,000 radiocarbon years ago, the well known fluted projectile points are highly visible but often scarce, which turns out to be a good combination for some research. The distribution of sites, artifact clusters and exotic raw materials provide unusually clear evidence of settlement pattern, in part because they are not blurred by abundance. The largest Paleoindian sites in the Northeast are often composed of separate clusters of artifacts (hut locations?) seemingly unobscured by repeated occupation. The large sites pose a problem, however, because they occur in areas that seem to have had low population densities. Do the large sites represent repeated occupations by a few families, or large groups coming together from great distances? These questions are important to understanding all mobile hunter-gatherers. The Bull Brook site in Ipswich, Massachusetts has over 40 loci that form a large ring-shaped pattern, the largest and most regular settlement plan known from the Late Pleistocene of North America. The site was excavated between 40 and 50 years ago in a cooperative effort between avocational archaeologists and professionals. The excavators insisted that the large ring-shaped pattern resembled a large camp circle, but anthropologists 40 years ago found this difficult to believe. Since then, the idea of large social gatherings among low density populations has become acceptable. Although the Bull Brook site is widely known, the evidence has not been published in sufficient detail to test some of the implications of the ring-shaped plan. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Brian Robinson (Climate Change Institute, Alaska Project, and Anthropology Department at the University of Maine) will work with faculty, graduate students and colleagues from New England and Quebec, to test whether the settlement plan at Bull Brook reflects the organizational characteristics of ring-shaped settlements among recent hunter-gatherers. The Bull Brook site plan will be meticulously reconstructed from original records, with direct assistance from some of the original excavators. Aerial photography, field reconnaissance and subsurface coring of an adjacent marsh will be used to reconstruct the modern and ancient landscape. The entire Bull Brook collection (over 8000 artifacts) was donated to the Peabody Essex Museum by the excavators. It will be newly described with two lithic specialists among the senior personnel to identify stone sources. The structure of the Bull Brook settlement plan will be analyzed from the distribution of artifacts and materials in the 40 artifact concentrations.The history of research at Bull Brook reflects the interplay between discovery, changing theory and the quest for more precise evidence. Rare archaeological contexts that are particularly revealing must be "revisited" with new questions. The Bull Brook site has provided significant inspiration for theories on Paleoindian settlement and social organization. Although the site was destroyed long ago, it retains fundamental evidence of hunter-gatherer organization that is rarely preserved and excavated at a scale large enough to evaluate. The resulting monograph will be accompanied by a digital record of artifact catalogs and field records, allowing researchers to evaluate and address a wide variety of problems. A popular account of the remarkable salvage effort by the dedicated group of avocational archaeologists is also planned, for its broad appeal and educational value.