Coupling Lithic Sourcing With Least Cost Path Analysis to Model Paleoindian Pathways in Northeastern North America

Abstract

Projections of Paleoindian range mobility in the late Pleistocene are typically inferred from straight-line distances between toolstone sources and sites where artifacts of these raw materials have been found. Often, however, these sourcing assessments are not based on geologic analysis, raising the issue of correct source ascription. If sites of similar age can be linked to a toolstone source through geologic study, and direct procurement of toolstone can be inferred, geographic information systems (GIS) modeling of travel routes between the source and those sites can reveal route segments of annual rounds and aspects of landscape use. In the Hudson Valley of eastern New York, Paleoindian peoples exploited Normanskill chert outcrops for toolstone during the late Pleistocene. Here, we combine X-ray fluorescence sourcing results that link Normanskill chert artifacts at Paleoindian sites to the West Athens Hill source outcrop in the Hudson Valley with GIS least cost path analysis to model seasonal pathways of late Pleistocene peoples in northeastern North America.

Detecting Early Widespread Metal Use in the Eastern North American Arctic around AD 500–1300

“…Significantly, by expanding the evidence of known metal use, it is possible to refine the ways groups interacted with each other. Taking a raw material–centric approach for understanding past interaction networks is common in other regions (Bassett et al 2019; Hill et al 2018; Loring 2002, 2017; Lothrop et al 2018; Lulewicz 2019; McCaffery 2011; Pike et al 2019; Walder 2019), but this study demonstrates that it is possible to ask similar questions even when the raw material in question cannot be physically analyzed. Moreover, this approach complements traditional provenance studies analyzing sourcing, exchange, and network analysis by adding a robust way of understanding the scale of past interaction networks in a quantitative way.…”

An analysis of network brokerage and geographic location in fifteenth-century AD Northern Iroquoia

“…These rasters were used as inputs in the Cost Path tool to generate the final LCP adjacency matrix with cells representing distances (km). As shown in Table 6, the average percent slope of these LCPs originating from each centroid range from 0.982 to 1.699, which obviated a need to calculate least-slope paths as an alternative solution to Tobler’s Hiking Function as has been done in other recent LCP analyses (e.g., [55]).…”

The Road Not Taken: How Early Landscape Learning and Adoption of a Risk-Averse Strategy Influenced Paleoindian Travel Route Decision Making in the Upper Ohio Valley

“…Least-cost analysis (LCA) is a common method to reveal early forager migration travel and resource-acquisition routes in the Americas (e.g., Anderson and Gillam 2000; Boulanger et al 2015; Eren et al 2016, 2019; Gustas and Supernant 2019; Krist and Brown 1994; Lothrop et al 2018; Rademaker et al 2012). Most traditional LCA studies in archaeology assume that human actors employ consistent decision-making behavior, possess complete environmental knowledge, and search for the most cost-effective—or optimized—route based on environmental factors of distance and topographic relief (Herzog 2013; Surface-Evans and White 2012:2; White 2015:407–408).…”

“…Most traditional LCA studies in archaeology assume that human actors employ consistent decision-making behavior, possess complete environmental knowledge, and search for the most cost-effective—or optimized—route based on environmental factors of distance and topographic relief (Herzog 2013; Surface-Evans and White 2012:2; White 2015:407–408). Although some suggest that eastern-U.S. Paleoindians prioritized time optimization during seasonal trips (e.g., Lothrop et al 2018:75), ethnographic data on forager decision making does not fully support this proposition (Kelly 2013:33–36). Non-optimal satisficing principles, or bounded rationality, often guide forager decisions, including selection of the first option that surpasses some acceptable threshold (e.g., Golledge 2003; Morgan 2015; Simon 1956).…”

“…During the late Pleistocene, Paleoindian foragers (13,500–11,400 cal BP) of eastern North America traversed dynamic landscapes during early migration pulses and subsequently established annual-seasonal mobility patterns (e.g., Anderson 1990, 1995; Anderson and Gillam 2000; Anderson et al 2014, 2015; Ellis 2011; Ellis et al 2011; Kelly and Todd 1988; Meltzer 2004, 2009; Steele et al 1998; Surovell 2000). Embedded within this literature are studies that explore lithic procurement strategies, many through some iteration of least-cost path analysis (LCP) to identify potential toolstone acquisition routes (e.g., Boulanger et al 2015; Eren et al 2016, 2019; Lothrop et al 2018; Miller et al 2019). Understanding the nature of such movements has significant implications for anthropological and archaeological theory (e.g., Anthony 1990, 1997; Bruno et al 2014; Burmeister 2000; Cabana and Clark 2011; van Dommelen 2014), particularly as it relates to regional variability in land-use behavior, culture change, subsistence strategies and prey choice, band territory development, demographic trends, technological organization, and cultural learning and transmission.…”