Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Clovis Settlement Behavior in the American Southeast: Using Lithic Artifact Analysis to Evaluate the Staging-Area Model

在Ted Goebel博士的指导下，Ashley Smallwood女士的博士研究将应用石器技术的现场级数据来了解克洛维人在美国东南部的定居行为。克洛维狩猎采集者是记录最完整的美洲早期居民。克洛维斯文化复合体最引人注目的一个方面是其广泛的地理分布，覆盖了威斯康辛冰盖以南的整个北美。在这个广阔的地区，克洛维人的双面凹槽抛射点在距今大约11000年前的考古遗址中被发现。斯莫尔伍德的研究将解决关键问题，以帮助了解克洛维斯人的定居过程。在晚更新世，克洛维斯技术是如何组织起来的？关于克洛维斯人的移动性，技术研究能告诉我们什么？克洛维人是如何分散到北美的？大卫·安德森（David Anderson）提出的“集结区”模型预测，克洛维斯族群进入美洲大陆后，放慢了迁徙速度，将领土范围集中在资源丰富的河谷周围。这些山谷成为了群体定居的集结地，并习惯性地使用当地的石器和生物资源。在这种定居模式下，分期地区的居住促进了人口的增长，并导致群体分裂为新的次级分期地区，从而激发了美洲早期的文化区域化。Smallwood的研究将通过分析美国东南部三个关键地点的石器组合来评估分期区模型的有效性：Topper (SC), Williamson （VA）和Carson-Conn-Short （TN）。卡森-康-肖特案发生在指定的主要集结区。托普和威廉姆森落在安德森指定的后期集中区域，或者是觅食者从主要集散区域扩展到次要集散区域。根据安德森的说法，这些人口集中是早期区域文化传统发展的地方。了解克洛维人在东南部定居的性质，对于充分解释美洲的人类活动至关重要。一旦驿站区模型得到验证，东南部克洛维斯人的记录就可以自信地为更广泛地研究古印第安人在新大陆的适应性做出贡献。最终，本研究将探讨更新世晚期人类如何在北美分散，以及区域环境变化如何影响人类的定居策略。这种深入的调查将有助于将东南部作为一个地区置于更广泛的背景下，以回答克洛维人起源和适应的理论问题。这项研究将涉及一个更大的文献体系，探讨现代人类如何分散到全球各地，以及过去小规模社会如何殖民空旷的土地。在进行她的研究时，斯莫尔伍德将通过综合来自私人和博物馆收藏的有价值的信息，教育公众了解他们收藏的重要性，并将她关于美洲人口的研究传播到公共领域，与公众建立联系。此外，斯莫尔伍德将在2009年继续担任托普遗址的克洛维斯遗址监督员，以这种身份，她将指导所有年龄的学生和志愿者学习考古技术和人工制品分析。自1996年以来，托普的实地项目一直在向公众介绍挖掘经验，仅在2008年夏天，它就吸引了来自世界各地的150多名志愿者和游客。建议的研究将把托普挖掘的结果报告给志愿者社区和感兴趣的公众。最后，斯莫尔伍德的研究将为她提供获得人类学博士学位所需的专业培训和资格。

Under the supervision of Dr. Ted Goebel, Ms. Ashley Smallwood's doctoral research will apply site-level data about stone tool technologies to understand Clovis settlement behavior in the American Southeast. Clovis hunter-gatherers are the best-documented early inhabitants of the Americas. One of the most remarkable aspects of the Clovis cultural complex is its extensive geographic distribution covering all of North America south of the Wisconsin ice sheets. In this vast area, Clovis bifacial fluted projectile points are found at archaeological sites dating to approximately 11,000 radiocarbon years before present. Smallwood's research will address key questions to help understand the Clovis population's settlement process. How were Clovis technologies organized during the late Pleistocene? What can studies of technology tell us about Clovis mobility? How did Clovis groups disperse across North America?A "staging area" model developed by David Anderson predicts that Clovis groups entered the continent and slowed migration to concentrate territorial ranges around resource-rich river valleys. These valleys became staging areas where groups settled-in and habitually used local tool-stone and biotic resources. Under this settlement model, residence in staging areas facilitated population growth and led to the fissioning of groups into new secondary staging areas, inciting early cultural regionalization in the Americas. Smallwood's study will evaluate the effectiveness of the staging-area model through analysis of stone tool assemblages from three key sites in the American Southeast: Topper (SC), Williamson (VA), and Carson-Conn-Short (TN). Carson-Conn-Short occurs within an area designated as a primary staging area. Topper and Williamson fall within areas Anderson designates as later concentrations, or secondary staging areas occupied by foragers expanding from a primary staging area. According to Anderson, these population concentrations are where early regional cultural traditions developed.Understanding the nature of Clovis settlement in the Southeast is essential to fully explain the peopling of the Americas. Once the staging-area model is tested, the Clovis record in the Southeast can be confidently contributed to the broader study of Paleoindian adaptations across the New World. Ultimately, this research will address how humans dispersed across North America and how regional environmental variation impacted human settlement strategies during the late Pleistocene. This intensive investigation will help place the Southeast, as a region, into an even broader context to answer theoretical problems of Clovis origins and adaptations. The research will pertain to a larger body of literature exploring how modern humans dispersed across the globe and how small-scale societies colonized empty landscapes in the past. In conducting her research, Smallwood will interface with the public by synthesizing valuable information from private and museum-owned collections, educating the public on the importance of their collections, and disseminating her research on the peopling of the Americas to the public arena. Further, Smallwood will continue as a Clovis site-supervisor at the Topper site in 2009, and in this capacity, she will instruct students and volunteers of all ages about archaeological techniques and artifact analysis. The field program at Topper has educated the public in the excavation experience since 1996, and in the summer of 2008 alone it attracted more than 150 volunteers and visitors from around the world. The proposed research will report the findings of the Topper excavation back to the volunteer community and interested public. Finally, Smallwood's research will provide her with the professional training and qualifications necessary to earn a Ph.D. in Anthropology.