Measuring Paleoindian range mobility and land-use in the Great Lakes/Northeast

Distance and direction to source data were compiled on the main toolstones employed at 83 Paleoindian sites with concave-based points (ca. 11,000–10,000 B.P.) from across the recently deglaciated Great Lake-Northeastern area of North America. These data were used in order to more rigorously evaluate several much debated ideas about annual range mobility scale and land use patterns and how they changed over time as these groups colonized and settled into the area. Movements are significantly biased to north–south axes, strongly suggesting these represent mainly seasonal moves and procurement of toolstones during regular travels rather than by specialized task groups. Means of comparing the scale of range mobility to ethnographic norms are explored and the results clearly show that these groups, especially the earliest occupants, had large annual range mobility scales and distinctive patterns of land use that are rarely seen or approached historically. They had to have been intensively targeting widely spaced but relatively abundant resources on the landscape. The only ethnographic groups who come close to such patterns historically were all caribou hunters, a perspective consistent with the idea these groups regularly exploited that resource. As long suggested, these land use patterns are probably related to the colonization of new lands in which there were little or no existing populations.

► It is argued that the main toolstone source used at a site provides good measure of annual range mobility rather than logistical mobility or even the scale of exchange networks.
► Strategies are developed and applied that allow one to assess how Paleoindian patterns of land use and especially the size of ranges exploited measure up against ethnographic data.
► Paleoindians in the area were covering large ranges that appear unusual versus the range sizes seen ethnographically.
► The range size data suggest Paleoindians in the area practiced patterns of land use that are different from most ethnographically known cases, targeting very widely spaced resources on the landscape with little use of intervening areas.
► The few groups that practiced similar patterns of land use historically are all ones targeting caribou supporting the idea that a targeting of that same resource in the area by Paleoindians is still a reasonable model.
► Clear changes are demonstrated in the Paleoindian record over time including reduction in the scale of range mobility, a shift from predominantly north to south patterns of movement to less structured directional movements and a shift to less intensive use of toolstone source areas.