Late archaic hunter-gatherer lithic technology and function (chipped stone, ground stone, and fire-cracked rock)

Abstract

This doctoral research highlights the complicated trajectories of hunter-gatherers by offering a case study from an understudied but rich hunter-gatherer landscape, the Late Archaic period (c. 5,000-2,000 BP) on Grand Island in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, United States. Although there is a paucity of Late Archaic period archaeological data from the mainland of the Upper Peninsula, recent excavations by the Grand Island Archaeological Program (GIAP), directed by James M. Skibo (Illinois State University) and co-directed by Eric C. Drake (Hiawatha National Forest), have yielded a sizable body of evidence of Late Archaic occupations on Grand Island. I have been a staff member and collaborator with GIAP since 2007, conducting research, laboratory work, and co-directing excavations. My analysis of 39,186 lithics from five sites on the island more than doubles the current number of c. 32,000 lithics analyzed in the entire southern shore of Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula from dated Late Archaic sites. Similarly, the 495 faunal remains identified and analyzed by Terrance Martin and Elizabeth Scott for this dissertation also more than doubles the total 296 pieces of animal bones analyzed from dated Late Archaic sites of the Upper Peninsula. In addition, in contrast to those sites, where no complete and finished projectile points have been recovered in context, GIAP have identified a total of five projectile points. These points may contribute to data on diagnostic artifact types in the Upper Peninsula, which is currently almost non-existent, and to our general understanding of exchange practices and social interactions.