Advances in Lithic Analysis for Early South American Archaeology
Antonio Pérez-Balarezo, Nora Franco and Marina González-Varas
Over the past fifteen years, lithic research in South America has progressed beyond descriptive typologies towards integrative and high-resolution approaches. Advances in geometric morphometrics, technological and functional analysis, raw material sourcing, and taphonomic criteria now enable a clearer understanding of reduction sequences and tool life histories. At the same time, refined chronologies and paleoenvironmental data have expanded our perspectives on human dispersals, settlement strategies, and adaptations during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. This poster symposium will bring together studies applying innovative methods to explore South America’s early lithic industries, illuminating patterns of technological diversity, mobility, and adaptation across varied landscapes. We particularly encourage contributions using or combining technological reconstruction, morphometrics, refitting, experimental replication, use-wear, and contextual taphonomic analyses to address specific research questions, such as the artifact/geofact debate, technological change, site formation processes, relationships between lithic technology and social organization, or the role of raw material networks in structuring mobility. The use of different theoretical approaches deeply linked to archaeological findings is welcomed. By moving toward integrative frameworks, this symposium seeks to discuss how advanced analytical methods are transforming our understanding of the earliest human occupations in South America, supporting multi-scalar comparisons and fostering broader continental perspectives.
Opening the Gateway: Emerging Perspectives on the Early Human Occupation of Northwestern South America
Brunella Muttillo
For decades, the first human settlement of northern South America — particularly Colombia — has remained a quiet chapter in the story of the Americas. Despite its importance as a gateway, this region has long been marginalized in discussions of the first peopling of South America. Few systematic research programs, limited reevaluation of legacy collections, and a handful of early excavations conducted decades ago have left many gaps and unresolved questions, particularly regarding when, how, and the routes of dispersion of the first inhabitants.Today, northern South America is experiencing a gradual but significant research awakening. Recent excavations, innovative analytical techniques, and interdisciplinary approaches are producing emerging insights into the Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene transition.This poster symposium brings together scholars and students from diverse disciplines to share new data, debate interpretations, and present ongoing or recently initiated projects. While the symposium emphasizes research from Colombia, contributions from Venezuela, Ecuador, and other northern South American regions are also welcome.By integrating evidence from archaeology, geoarchaeology, paleoenvironment studies, biological anthropology, and paleogenomics, the symposium highlights both progress and remaining questions. Contributions fostering interdisciplinary dialogue are encouraged, helping to build a more comprehensive understanding of this pivotal moment in human history.
Advancing Archaeological Science in First Americans Research
Justin A. Holcomb, Caroline Kisielinski, and Nicholas Bentley
Archaeological science has long been a vital component of First Americans research. Over the past decade, advances in analytical techniques spanning archaeology, geoarchaeology, biology, paleobotany, and zooarchaeology have helped identify potential migration routes, constrain the timing of initial dispersals, and contextualize past human activity. This includes recent advances in microscopic techniques, including applications of soil and sediment micromorphology, as well as ancient and sedimentary DNA, paleoproteomics (ZooMS), and various trace element, isotopic, and mineralogical analyses, to name a few. This symposium provides a forum for archaeological scientists to showcase and present new data derived from Pleistocene-aged contexts at key sites across the Americas.
Why two distinct basally thinned points, employing alternate technologies in different locations, merit assignments for a new type and name.
L. Kim Thompson and David Meyer
The small basally thinned projectile points co-mingled with ‘Classic’ Clovis assemblages in the Plains hub communally displayed overshot flaking technology and are subsequently subsumed into the same complex. Their extensive size reduction and feigned flutes are duly accounted for as byproducts of use, curation, repair, and breakage, imparted by the ever-grueling nature of mammoth hunts.
These refurbished points apparently produced the prototype for Clovis’ northern transition into basally thinned points recovered along the vacated ice front and shorelines of meltwater lakes in the Prairie provinces and ice-free corridor. The Charlie Lake excavation obtained secure 10,380-10,770 BP dates (from bison bone collagen) for the site’s point, and by extension, for the sparce but widely spread compendium of similar Northern points.
The Powars II site in Wyoming produced 34 basally thinned points alternately employing pressure thinning flattening technology, albeit, on Clovis preforms. Bruce Bradley designated this assemblage, and the Hell Gap site point he formerly assigned ‘unclassified,’ a new type . . . purportedly named ‘Sunrise.’
Given this precedent, our posters illustrate how Northern basally thinned points collaterally merit a new type and name assignment, which Eugene Gryba assumed ‘must be Charlie Lake because it’s the only point stratigraphically dated in excavation.’
Investigating Paleoamerican Use of the Now-Submerged Caves in Quintana Roo, Mexico.
Dominique Rissolo and James C. Chatters
The now-submerged cave systems of the Yucatan Peninsula provide access to well preserved Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene deposits containing a wealth of information about the human prehistory and paleobiogeography of the region. Although no subaerial campsites or lithic artifacts of Paleoamerican age have yet been found on the Peninsula outside of Belize, evidence for early human exploitation of caves is extensive. Ongoing interdisciplinary collaborations involving scholars from Canada, the US, and Mexico are identifying drowned subterranean sites dating back at least 13,000 years and reconstructing the processes that formed and transformed them over millennia. Sophisticated digital workflows have been developed to enable non-diving researchers access to these dark, dangerous settings. All finds have been digitally documented in 3D and integrated into a GIS database that includes multimodal and multi-scalar digital twins of several submerged Paleoamerican sites. These investigations are documenting aspects of Paleoamerican life that have never been revealed before, including deep subterranean ochre mining and sophisticated methods for acquiring water in a then-arid landscape.
Paleoamerican Ochre Mines in the Submerged Caves of the Yucatan Peninsula, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Silvina Vigliani, Samuel Meacham, Eduard G. Reinhardt, Brandi MacDonald, James C. Chatters, and Dominique Rissolo
Evidence of Terminal Pleistocene/Earliest Holocene Water Collection Activities in the Now-submerged Caves of Quintana Roo, Mexico. James C. Chatters, Alejandro Alvarez, Samuel S. Meacham, Dominique Rissolo, and Helena Barba Meinecke
A Light in the Darkness: Woods Exploited for Torches by Paleoamericans of the Yucatan. Kathy Puseman, Julien Fortin, James C. Chatters
Automating Photogrammetry-GIS Integration: Scalable Solutions for Spatially-Linked 3D data for Submerged Paleoamerican Cave Sites. Julien Fortin, Samuel Meacham, Andreas Rosland, Dominique Rissolo, and Wetherbee Dorshow
Simulating Human and Megafauna Movement through the Now-Submerged Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Caves of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Loren Clark, Julien Fortin, Dominique Rissolo, Scott McAvoy, and Silvina Vigliani
Recent Advances in Visual Analytics and Virtual Taphonomy of Submerged Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Human and Faunal Deposits in the Submerged caves of the Yucatan Peninsula. Dominique Rissolo, James C. Chatters, Alberto Nava-Blank, Blaine W. Schubert, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Vid Petrovic, Keila Bredehoeft, Scott McAvoy, Helena Barba Meinecke, and Falko Kuester
Artifact Recovery and Sampling in a Deep, Lightless, Underwater Setting; Methods Devised by the Hoyo Negro and Yucatan Prehistory Projects. Alberto Nava Blank, Alejandro Alvarez, Roberto Chavez, Julien Fortin, and James C. Chatters
Individual Posters
Younger Dryas-age Human Footprints at the Trackway Sites, Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah
Daron Duke and D. Craig Young
Human footprints at two sites in the Great Salt Lake Desert show adults and children walking in the shallow water bodies of the Old River Bed delta (ORBD), a large distributary marsh complex that existed during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Radiocarbon dating of organic remains from footprint infills places them in the Younger Dryas between ca. 12,600 and 11,900 calibrated years ago, contemporaneous with an extensive Haskett archaeological record. We detail the dated materials and subsurface context of the prints and present the geoarchaeological model that stratigraphically bounds them. Found on the Hill Air Force Base-managed Utah Test and Training Range, the project highlights military stewardship efforts to protect significant cultural resources.
Geometric morphometrics reveal a morphological relationship between Yubetsu microblade cores in Northeast Asia and Eastern Beringia
Nicholas Gala and Masami Izuho
The archaeological record of the late Pleistocene of Asia and northwest North America is dominated by microblade core technology. Scholars have searched for connections in this technology as a proxy for the origin of the First Peoples of North America. Recently, one hypothesis has proposed an origin on the Paleo-Sakhalin-Hokkaido-Kurile (PSHK) peninsula, finding similarities in microblade core and stemmed projectile point morphologies on the peninsula and in early North American contexts. To date, this hypothesis has used chronological and technological similarities to draw this connection; we employ quantitative methods and draw on cultural evolutionary theory to test the validity of this hypothesis using Strict Yubetsu microblade cores found throughout Northeast Asia and Alaska. Drawing on an iterative founder effect model derived from population genetics, we examine the relationship of within-group variation of these cores and their geographic distance from predicted points of origin. The results support a relationship between geographic distance from Hokkaido and core within-group variance, whose presence lends support to the early events of the PSHK hypothesis.
The Lower-Middle Paleolithic Diring Yuriakh Site (Sahka Republic, Siberia) and the Pre-Clovis Peopling of the New World
James C. Hartley
The pre-Clovis (before 13,400 CALYBP) human record in the Americas is a disputed topic in archaeology. Recent finds and analyses suggest a human presence in the Americas at least 24,000 CALYBP, with potentially older remains across both continents. Many pre-Clovis sites have been found. Some of these pre-Clovis sites are older than 24,000 CALYBP, but they are not widely accepted. A comparably ancient site (Diring Yuriakh) was also found in Siberia, with the latest published dates around 417,000 years ago (Lower Paleolithic). While these sites are likely erroneous, they still suggest possible migrations prior to the last common ancestors of modern Native Americans. The debates will continue, and these new potential sites should not be accepted or rejected outright without any further analysis.
The Stolle Mammoth: Zooarchaeological, Isotopic, and Paleoecological Insights into a Clovis-Era Mammoth from the Southern High Plains
Tara Larson
The Stolle Mammoth, a Clovis-aged specimen recovered in 1977 from a playa basin on the Southern High Plains of Eastern New Mexico, offers a rare opportunity for the potential to reassess human-mammoth interactions in a region with limited archaeological data. Despite early indications of possible human involvement, the remains have never undergone comprehensive analysis until now. After excavation, geoarchaeologist Vance Haynes Jr. recommended further investigation into possible cut marks observed on bone surfaces, suggesting potential cultural modification. This study presents new zooarchaeological and isotopic data for the Stolle Mammoth, including taphonomic examination of bone surface modifications, ancient DNA, and isotopic analysis. These findings shed light on the potential for cultural activity at the site and reconstruct aspects of the mammoth’s life history, mobility, and ecological context. The Stolle Mammoth provides a unique lens through which to explore the intersection of human behavior and megafaunal ecology on the Southern High Plains. This study also highlights the research potential of established museum collections, where archaeological materials from past excavations remain largely unexamined yet offer valuable opportunities for new archaeological insights.
When the Fluting Stopped: Complex Late Paleoindian Period Bifaces from August Pine Ridge, Belize
Mike McBride, Jon C. Lohse, Victoria C. Pagano, and Sébastien Perrot-Minnot
Recent and ongoing research at August Pine Ridge, Belize is documenting an astonishing
assemblage of complex bifaces representing human occupation and social interactions that took place in Central America from approximately 13,000 to 8,000 years ago. As the Fluted Biface Horizon and the Pan-American production of such fluted bifaces ceased, we see new distinctive regional lithic technologies emerge in the Late Paleoindian and Early Archaic periods (ca. 12,000 – 8,000 years ago). Rather than ranges of thousands of kilometers of fluted biface technological behaviors, we observe these new and varied applications in ranges of hundreds of kilometers or less. This poster will present an overview of the documentation and analysis of at least five understudied or completely novel biface morphologies as part of the Pine Ridge Preceramic Project. With scores of lithic specimens recovered locally from the August Pine Ridge area available for study, we endeavor to advance new diagnostic elements in order to group various “types” and show possible developmental progressions among similar morphologies. We additionally propose evidence of these technological behaviors being shared among the Early Holocene occupants of Northern Belize and other areas of Northern South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
The occupation of the evergreen forest in West Patagonia extends into the Pleistocene- Holocene boundary
César Méndez, Amalia Nuevo-Delaunay, Pablo Marcelo Fernández, Omar Reyes, Antonio Maldonado
Human occupations in the continental evergreen forests of Central West Patagonia (South America) were long thought to date no earlier than the Late Holocene. Excavations at the El Toro rockshelter, located in the Cisnes River valley, a corridor linking the eastern steppe and the core of the humid evergreen forest have been interpreted as evidence of repeated short-term visits, likely associated with the pursuit of the Andean deer Hippocamelus bisulcus. These occupations occurred during periods of reduced moisture and diminished forest cover no earlier than 2,800 cal BP. However, new radiocarbon dates obtained from charcoal and from bones bearing clear cutmarks recovered in unpublished excavated units now indicate ages between 11,500 and 10,500 cal BP. These results extend the chronology of human presence in tempered forests of Patagonia by several millennia, revealing an unprecedented archaeological scenario for the region. This earlier-than-expected record compels reevaluation of (1) the timing and routes of initial peopling in West Patagonia, (2) the discontinuities in hunter-gatherer occupation of temperate forests after the initial occupation, and (3) the potential role of early populations in structuring habitats using fire. Ongoing research, together with emerging findings from other localities in the forests of the Southern Cone, will contribute to clarifying this archaeological puzzle.
