G. Logan Miller

Illuminating Activities at Paleo Crossing (33ME274) Through Microwear Analysis

Abstract Microwear analysis provides a means to extract important information on the activities conducted at Paleoindian sites from meager assemblages. Microwear analysis was conducted on a sample of 10 tools from the Paleo Crossing site in Medina County, Ohio. Tools analyzed included fluted points, end scrapers, blades, gravers, and unifacial knives. Wear patterns indicated that the tools were used to cut, scrape, engrave, and penetrate (i.e., via a projectile) such materials as soft plant, meat, hide, and bone/antler. Several of the tools were hafted and wear patterns were well developed overall. Based on this pilot study, comparison with microwear studies conducted on sites in the Great Lakes region and beyond suggests that Paleo Crossing provides new information on the number, as well as the types, of Paleoindian tools used to cut soft plant.

Smudge Pits and Stone “Drills”: The Use of Chipped Stone Tools at Burrell Orchard

Recent investigations by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (CMNH) identified an extensive Late Archaic occupation at Burrell Orchard (33LN15), located on a promontory overlooking the Black River in northern Ohio. CMNH excavations have documented widespread midden deposits, prepared clay floors, post molds, and pit features including numerous smudge pits. The formal chipped stone tool assemblage is dominated by lanceolate projectile points and bifacial “drills.” High-powered lithic microwear analysis was performed on 28 formal chipped stone tools recovered from the 2008 and 2014 CMNH field seasons. Tool types examined included complete and fragmentary lanceolate points, drills, and other bifaces. The results indicate that many “drills” were actually used to perforate dry hide and, thus, may have held a unique place in the hide-processing activities conducted at the site.

Hunter-gatherer gatherings: stone-tool microwear from the Welling Site (33-Co-2), Ohio, U.S.A. supports Clovis use of outcrop-related base camps during the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas

ABSTRACT During the Pleistocene Peopling of North America, the use of stone outcrops for forager gatherings would have provided Clovis colonizing hunter-gatherers with several advantages beyond that of toolstone procurement. Stone outcrops would have been predictable and immovable places on an emerging map of a landscape for a thinly scattered colonizing population needing to find one another, as well as ideal teaching locales where novice flintknappers could learn to make the complex Clovis fluted projectile point without worrying about running out of, or transporting, raw material. For these reasons, several researchers have suggested that stone outcrops were ‘hubs’ of regional Clovis activity where Clovis people not only made tools, but also assembled in large groups at outcrop-related base camps. Once there, they exchanged information and mates, feasted, lived and explored. Here the authors test, using microwear analysis of stone tools, the hypothesis that the Welling site, located within the Upper Mercer chert source area, was an outcrop-related base camp. Their results – suggesting a variety of stone tool functions including dry- and fresh-hide scraping, hide cutting, meat butchering, sawing and scraping bone/antler, sawing and scraping wood, and plant scraping – were consistent with the idea that Welling represents an outcrop-related basecamp in which Clovis foragers assembled, carried out a variety of activities, and regularly travelled to and from the site. These results, when considered in conjunction with recent morphometric analysis of Clovis fluted projectile points, suggest that Welling was indeed a ‘hub’ of Clovis regional activity in Northeast Ohio, and permit us to propose a scenario for how the region was colonized during the terminal Pleistocene.

Microwear Analysis of Hopewell Bladelets from Two Sites Associated with the Stubbs Earthworks, Southwest Ohio

ABSTRACT Hopewell bladelets represent one of a handful of standardized blade industries in prehistoric North America. In the past 25 years, archaeologists produced a great deal of published research on Hopewell bladelets. Yet much remains to be explained about this lithic tradition. This project presents the results of functional analysis of bladelets from two sites near the Stubbs Earthworks along the Little Miami River in southwest Ohio. Results indicate that bladelet use at these sites largely focused on bone/antler processing. This is in contrast to the generalized function of many of the artifacts in Ohio bladelet assemblages and provides researchers with another piece of the puzzle in examining the variation in bladelet function between sites and across regions.

Toward Recognizing the Prehistoric Butchery of Frozen Meat: An Archaeological Experiment and Stone Tool Microwear Analysis

ABSTRACT Prehistoric humans occupied cold environments for more than one million years without the controlled use of fire. Processing frozen meat may have been a regular occurrence. In order to explore whether this behavior is present in the archaeological record, archaeologists must first understand whether the butchery of frozen meat leaves diagnostic traces of microwear on stone tools. We present an experiment that investigates what sorts of micro-traces are left on replica stone tools used for butchering frozen versus raw meat. Our results indicate that polish of similar brightness and texture forms on specimens used to slice both frozen and unfrozen meat, but that there are differences in the extent of polish formation away from the tool edge, damage frequency, and damage type. These experimental results can be used as a model to recognize frozen and unfrozen meat butchery on artifacts, which in turn has implications for interpreting archaeological sites.

Thermoluminescence (TL) and Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) Dating of Two Burned Clovis Wyandotte Chert Lithic Specimens from Paleo Crossing (33ME274), Ohio, USA

ABSTRACT Paleo Crossing (33ME274), a Clovis site in Medina County, Northeast Ohio, USA, has played an important role in debates on the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas given its published, and assumed accurate, age of 10,980 ± 75 BP (12,717–13,020 calibrated BP, median age 12,854 cal BP). However, there are still questions surrounding the radiocarbon ages from the site. We aimed to bypass using the association of charcoal with features or artifacts, and instead date the Clovis artifacts directly via luminescence dating. The chronometric results of 9.14 ± 2.18 kya and 8.92 ± 3.03 kya suggest one of two possibilities: (1) there was a fire at Paleo Crossing sometime during the Early Archaic period or, more likely, (2) the inner parts of the lithics were partially bleached, reducing the signal, while they were exposed on the surface.

HOPEWELL BLADELETS: A BAYESIAN RADIOCARBON ANALYSIS

Hopewell bladelets may be the most common diagnostic artifact of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. As such, they are often recognized as a Middle Woodland “index fossil” and a key materialized indication of Hopewell ceremonialism. However, few formal analyses of their occurrence across space and time exist. Drawing on published reports, as well as an extensive review of the unpublished gray literature, I present a Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon-dated, bladelet-bearing features from across Ohio. The Bayesian model provides insight into previously unrecognized temporal variation in this element of Hopewell material culture. Results indicate that bladelets are present from around the BC/AD switch to nearly AD 500 in certain portions of the state. Analysis by major drainages indicates that bladelets occur earliest in southern and central Ohio before subsequently spreading north to the Lake Erie region. Understanding the spatial and temporal variation in artifact classes such as Hopewell bladelets is essential to explaining prehistoric cultural processes. Las navajillas Hopewell pueden considerarse el artefacto de diagnóstico más común de la esfera de interacción Hopewell. Como tal, a menudo se les reconoce como “fósil índice” del Silvícola medio y un indicador material clave del ceremonialismo Hopewell. Sin embargo, existen pocos análisis formales de su ocurrencia a través del espacio y el tiempo. Con base en informes publicados y en una extensa revisión de la literatura gris inédita, se presenta un análisis bayesiano de rasgos contenientes navajillas y fechados por radiocarbono a lo largo del estado de Ohio. El modelo bayesiano revela una variación temporal no anteriormente reconocida en este elemento de la cultura material Hopewell. Los resultados indican que las navajillas estuvieron presentes en ciertas partes del estado entre el primer y quinto siglo dC. Tomando en cuenta su distribución alrededor de los drenajes principales, el análisis revela que las navajillas ocurren primero en Ohio meridional y central y luego se difunden hacia la región del Lago Erie en el norte. Un entendimiento preciso de la variación espacial y temporal de clases de artefactos como las navajillas Hopewell es esencial para explicar los procesos culturales prehistóricos.