Paleoindian Artifacts Research Articles

The Wapanucket No. 8 Site: A Clovis-Archaic Site in Massachusetts

AbstractThis site, which is on a low bluff overlooking Lake Assawompsett in southeastern Massachusetts, has yielded both fluted and Archaic projectile points, as well as other artifacts. The stratigraphy is complex, and a mixture of Paleo-Indian and Archaic artifacts is indicated. Two charcoal samples have been radiocarbon-dated at 1948 B.C. ± 100 years and 2758 ± 140 years B.C. These dates agree with the age of similar Archaic sites in the area.

Early Man and the Age of the Champlain Sea

Various dating techniques have yielded an approximately synchronous absolute chronology for fluted points characteristic of one phase of the Early Man or Paleo-Indian horizon in southern New England, the Upper Great Lakes, the high plains, and the southwestern United States. On the basis of these chronologies and on typology, some archeologists believe that closely similar artifacts elsewhere should be of nearly the same age. A recent attempt at geologically dating fluted points in areas formerly occupied by Lake Iroquois and the Champlain Sea has suggested, on the contrary, that this archeological assumption is incorrect and that the northeastern Paleo-Indian artifacts are not nearly as old as their counterparts elsewhere. The following paper examines this thesis and concludes with a reinterpretation of the geologic sequence in the Ontario basin and St. Lawrence Valley that seems to be supported by radiocarbon and by the most recent geological investigations involved and that, if correct, removes the archeological enigma. It is suggested that the available radiocarbon dates for the Champlain Sea are substantially correct, that Lake Iroquois is older than heretofore thought, and that the reinterpretation is more compatible with archeological sequences outside the area discussed.

Additional Information on the Bull Brook Site, Massachusetts

Due to the kind invitation of William C. Eldridge and the Vaccaro brothers, discoverers of the site, I have had opportunities to visit and excavate in this flutedpoint site during the current spring. In part of the work I was accompanied by Theodore L. Stoddard.In April we went to examine a possible hearth area where concentrations of charcoal had been reported in association with fragments of artifacts and chips of the stone used by the paleo-Indian occupants of the site. The surface which was exposed lay about 12 inches below ground level and well within the horizon of yellow-brown sand. Concentrations of charcoal were irregular in outline and density, and as one trowelled downwards they appeared to separate into fingers suggesting roots. Associated with some of the better preserved charcoal were bits of carbonized bark. We therefore concluded that the charcoal represented the remains of stumps which had burned out in rather recent woods fires, and that association of charcoal and fragments of paleo-Indian artifacts was purely fortuitous.