Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Clovis Mobility at the Gault site, Texas: A Chert Provenance Study using LA-ICP-MS

在Robert Hard博士的指导下，Charles Speer先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。该研究考察了新大陆早期居民的生存策略和景观利用。尽管关于13000年前的克洛维斯文化的长期观点是，它的成员是高度移动的猎人，他们从一个杀戮到另一个杀戮，专门狩猎已灭绝的猛犸象和其他大型哺乳动物，但越来越多的证据表明，这些分散在新大陆不同环境中的群体有一系列广泛的行为。描述克洛维斯人行为的经典模型基于三个关键要素：发现带有灭绝大型猎物的克洛维斯人石抛射点，制造克洛维斯人抛射点的外来（非本地）石头，以及克洛维斯人文化建筑群在新大陆的迅速传播。该项目将侧重于确定用于在高尔特遗址制作克洛维时期抛射点的燧石或燧石的来源。在人类存在的大部分时间里，人们以狩猎和采集者的身份生活在小群体中，许多科学家认为，物种的特征行为是在这种背景下发展起来的，也是最好的理解。施佩尔的研究具有重要意义，因为它将深入了解可能存在的行为范围。在德克萨斯州中部的高尔特考古遗址发现的克洛维时期的石器与传统的模式相反。在高尔特，近95%的石器和80%的克洛维抛射器都是由附近的材料制成的。由于这块石头的外观与德克萨斯州中部广大地区的其他石头相似，因此采用了地球化学技术来确定准确的来源。地球化学技术，激光烧蚀-电感耦合等离子体质谱（LA-ICP-MS），将分析在现场发现的用于制造弹丸点的燧石工具的地球化学。高尔特克洛维抛射点似乎是由当地材料制成的，而不是来自视觉上相似的非当地来源。这与许多克洛维遗址形成了直接对比，这些遗址主要由数百公里外的抛射点组成。为了进一步了解克洛维斯人的迁移行为，本研究分析了一个重要的克洛维斯遗址的文物，并对克洛维斯人的迁移行为进行了主观假设，并用客观数据对其进行了评估。该项目还将有助于发展一种高度有效和可靠的方法，以确定来源内部和来源之间的变化。本文认为，克洛维斯文化复合体在新大陆广泛存在，但克洛维斯人的行为却各不相同。高尔特遗址的文物表明，文化的传播可能使克洛维斯文化的技术方面在新大陆上迅速传播，而不是为了寻找游戏而进行的长途迁徙。这表明，克洛维人之前的人群可能已经遍布新大陆，以允许这种快速的文化传播。

Under the direction of Dr. Robert Hard, Mr. Charles Speer will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. The research examines the subsistence strategies and landscape use by early inhabitants of the New World. Although the long standing view of the 13,000 year old Clovis culture is that its members were highly mobile hunters who moved from kill to kill, specializing in hunting extinct mammoth and other large mammals, mounting evidence suggests a wide array of behavior was practiced by these groups which were dispersed across the New World in a diverse host of environments. The classic model of describing Clovis behavior is based on three key elements: the discovery of Clovis stone projectile points with extinct large game, the exotic (non-local) stone with which Clovis projectile points were made, and the rapid spread of the Clovis cultural complex across the New World. This project will focus on determining the source of the flint or chert used to make Clovis period projectile points at the Gault site.Over most of the course of human existence people lived in small groups as hunters and gatherers and many scientists argue that behaviors characteristic of the species developed and are best understood within this context. Mr. Speer's research gains significance because it will provide insight into the range of likely behaviors which existed.Clovis period stone tools found at the Gault archaeological site in central Texas run counter to the traditional model. At Gault, nearly 95% of the stone tools and 80% of all Clovis projectile points are made from material within the immediate vicinity. As the visual aspects of the stone are similar to others across a wide region of central Texas, a geochemical technique is employed to determine accurate provenance. The geochemical technique, Laser Ablation - Inductively Coupled Plasma - MassSpectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), will analyze the geochemistry of chert toolstone used in the manufacture of projectile points found at the site. The Gault Clovis projectile points appear to be made of the local material and not from visually similar non-local sources. This is in direct contrast with many Clovis sites that are dominated by projectile points derived from sources that are hundreds of kilometers away. This research analyzes artifacts from an important Clovis site to further understand mobility behavior and it takes subjective postulates concerning Clovis mobility and evaluates them with objective data.The project will also help to develop a highly effective and reliable methodology for determining both intra- and inter-source variation. This dissertation suggests that the Clovis cultural complex was widespread across the New World but the behavior elicited by Clovis peoples was varied and not uniform. The Gault site artifacts demonstrate that cultural diffusion may have allowed technological aspects of Clovis culture to spread rapidly across the New World, rather than long distance movement in search of game. This suggests pre-Clovis populations might have already been in place across the New World to allow for this rapid cultural diffusion.