Documenting Subsistence Change During the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition: Investigations of Paleoethnobotanical and Zooarchaeological Data from Dust Cave, Alabama

Ancient DNA confirms a local origin of domesticated chenopod in eastern North America

“…6000 B.C. in Illinois and even earlier in Alabama (Asch and Asch, 1985;Hollenbach and Walker, 2010) suggests that native chenopod populations significantly pre-date cultivation. The broadly-sampled modern materials from eastern North America therefore most likely represent native, wild populations, rather than naturalized escaped cultivars.…”

“…The eastern archaeological record, however, does not preclude a Mesoamerican introduction. Early use of wild-type chenopod in eastern North America (Asch and Asch, 1985;Hollenbach and Walker, 2010) followed by the appearance of domesticates could reflect early low-level exploitation of a local variety preceding widespread displacement by Mexican cultivars.…”

Characterizing Cumberland fluted biface morphology and technological organization

“…Cumberland bifaces (as well as Quad, Beaver Lake, and Dalton) were recovered from the lowest cultural deposits of Dust Cave, northern Alabama (Driskell 1994(Driskell , 1996Sherwood et al 2004). A heavily reworked Cumberland biface and a Cumberland-like distal biface fragment were recovered from the basal components (Driskell 1994(Driskell , 1996Hollenbach and Walker 2010;Sherwood et al 2004). The precise stratigraphic sequence of the Paleoindian bifaces at Dust Cave is unclear, as multiple types co-occur within the same deposits.…”