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Plants and Subsistence during the Fluted-Point Period of the Northeast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2021

Nathaniel R. Kitchel Open the ORCID record for Nathaniel R. Kitchel [Opens in a new window]  and
Madeline E. Mackie Open the ORCID record for Madeline E. Mackie [Opens in a new window]
Nathaniel R. Kitchel*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
Madeline E. Mackie
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, USA
*
(nathaniel.r.kitchel@dartmouth.edu, corresponding author)
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Abstract

The role of plant foods during the fluted-point period (FPP) of North America is contested. Central to this debate is whether the scarcity of FPP macrobotanical materials stems from poor preservation of archaeological features and the macrobotanical remains they might contain or from the limited use of plants during the FPP. Employing summed probability distributions of radiocarbon date frequencies in northeastern North America, we find that FPP hearths are as common as expected, given the small number of well-dated FPP sites in the region. A second comparison shows that northeastern FPP hearths contain macrobotanical remains at a higher frequency than hearths from a region with better preservation and where small seeds formed a part of the diet. The macrobotanical materials so far recovered from FPP hearths in the Northeast show that plant foods contributed to diets during the FPP but that the plant diet breadth was relatively narrow, consistent with a specialized caribou hunting lifeway.

La importancia de los alimentos vegetales durante el período de las puntas estriadas (FPP) de América del Norte es un tema de debate considerable. Un aspecto central de este debate es si la escasez de materiales macrobotánicos del FPP se debe a la mala conservación de los rasgos arqueológicos y los restos macrobotánicos que podrían contener o al uso limitado de plantas durante el FPP. Empleando distribuciones de probabilidad de frecuencias sumadas de fechados de radiocarbono en el noreste de América del Norte, encontramos que los fogones FPP son tan comunes como se esperaba dado el pequeño número de sitios FPP bien fechados en la región. Una segunda comparación muestra que los fogones FPP del noreste contienen restos macrobotánicos con mayor frecuencia que los fogones de una región con mejor conservación y donde las semillas pequeñas formaron parte de la dieta. Los materiales macrobotánicos recuperados hasta ahora de los fogones del FPP en el noreste muestran que los alimentos vegetales contribuyeron a las dietas durante el FPP, pero que la amplitud de la dieta con respecto a las plantas fue relativamente estrecha, lo cual es consistente con una forma de vida especializada en la caza de caribúes.

Keywords

fluted-point periodsubsistenceplant foodstaphonomyradiocarbon date distributionsPleistoceneperíodo de las puntas estriadassubsistenciaalimentos vegetalestafonomiadistribuciones de probabilidad de frecuencias sumadas de fechados de radiocarbonoPleistoceno
Type
Report
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 2 , April 2022 , pp. 368 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for American Archaeology

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