Proof

ABRUPT CHANGES OF CLIMATE AND OF POINT STYLES ALONG THE
ATLANTIC SEABOARD OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA:

HOW WERE THEY CONNECTED?
Stuart J. Fiedel
PROOF
The styles of projectile points made by Native Americans of the Atlantic Seaboard changed
repeatedly throughout 13,000 years of prehistory, with a periodicity of roughly 1500 years. The
moments of transition between styles generally coincide with Bond events, drought episodes, and/or
discontinuities in pollen sequences, raising a strong possibility of climatic causation. I propose a
causal chain that links abrupt climate changes, resource fluctuations, inter-male competition, and
shifting societal boundaries as monitored by point styles.
ABRUPT POINT STYLE CHANGES: NO EVIDENT ADAPTIVE

OR TECHNOLOGICAL RATIONALE
The styles of projectile points made by the inhabitants of the Atlantic Seaboard of eastern North America
changed repeatedly, across the region, throughout 13,000 years of prehistory, with a periodicity of roughly
1500 years. This obvious fact has often been recognized, yet rarely has any explanation been offered. For
example, Kowalewski (1995:159) observed that “The concordant changes in point style remain unexplained,
but at least the fact that they change in concert means that there was a flow of information on a subcontinental
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scale.” As McElrath et al. (2009:16) lament, “archaeology as a discipline has yet to come to terms with issues
as seemingly straightforward as hafted-biface function, chronological associations, styles, delivery systems,
and so forth.” They insist, as I will also, that the facile assumption of increasing technological efficiency of
projectiles through time is a fallacy: “studies based on the principle of functional optimization may… be
misdirected when applied to ancient tradition-bound technologies” (McElrath et al. 2009:10).
Could the intermittent style changes be a simple matter of altered function? On the assumption that
points were used primarily as elements of hunting weapons, there were only two moments when inferred
changes in points’ function might have provoked changes in morphology. First, the abrupt extinction of
megafauna at the onset of the Younger Dryas (12,800 cal BP) required hunters to shift to smaller prey. We
might expect points to have gotten smaller at that time; smaller game animals, with thinner hides, could have
been brought down with smaller spear or dart tips. In fact, the fluted points that were used against megafauna
had not always been very large; some recovered from classic Clovis mammoth-hunter sites in Arizona
measured less than 5 centimeters (Haury et al. 1959), and small fluted points are prevalent in the Delmarva
area (Lowery 1989). In the Northeast fluted points continued in use for centuries after the megafauna
disappeared, until about 11,500 cal BP, the end of the Younger Dryas, when they were replaced by notched
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points (which often were actually as large as their fluted predecessors). Millennia later, the adoption of the
bow and arrow, which probably replaced spearthrowers about AD 700, would have required re-design of
projectile tips, and in fact, this is when triangles become ubiquitous. Between these events, for 11,000 years,
men were presumably hunting the same suite of game (mainly deer) and using the same weapon system (the
spearthrower and dart). Thus, there seems to have been no obvious functional impetus for most changes in
point form during the Archaic through Middle Woodland periods.
Basic functional requirements always would have constrained the range of possible stylistic variation;
the tip of a point had to be acute enough to penetrate a prey animal’s hide, and the base had to be securely
hafted in the dart or arrow shaft. In fact, most of the variability in point form over the course of millennia
Archaeology of Eastern North America (2014) 42:77-100

78 Archaeology of Eastern North America
is seen in the shape of the base (e.g., flutes, side and corner notches, flared stems, contracting stems), and
these changes presumably relate to shifting modes of point hafting. However, these shifts did not amount to
any progressive trend toward greater efficiency in hafting (contra the speculations of Darwent and O’Brien
[2006] concerning Midwestern points; cf. McElrath et al. 2009:10,13). This lack of technological progress
is demonstrated, for example, by the intermittent recurrence over the centuries of very similar corner-notched
types (Palmer at 11,000 cal BP, Brewerton and Vosburg at 6000 cal BP, Jack’s Reef at AD 600). Indeed,
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replicative experiments suggest that chipped stone projectile points, regardless of their particular form, are
not significantly more effective for penetration of animal hides than tips made of fire-hardened wood
(Waguespack et al. 2009).
A significant alteration of projectile point form would not have been a whimsical matter. Small changes
in weight and shape could affect flight performance, range, penetration, and durability, and might require
changes in other elements of the weapon system, such as the length and raw material of the dart shaft, or
proper weighting of the atlatl. Unpredictable weapon failure in hunting or warfare could easily result in
injury or death. Therefore, once proven effective in repeated use, we can presume that strong selective
pressures would have favored conservative retention of a given point-haft-shaft-atlatl system.
In the archaeological record, preferred lithic raw materials often are closely linked to particular styles,
such that, when the new style appears, an abrupt change in raw material also occurs (e.g., from quartz Halifax
points to quartzite Savannah River points, or from rhyolite Selby Bay to jasper Jack’s Reef points). These
coincident changes (style, hafting technique, material) seem to imply major disruptions of previous cultural
transmission and exchange systems, particularly those involving interactions among males (the presumed
makers and users of hunting weapons).
PROOF
POINT STYLES WERE ETHNIC MARKERS AND MANIFEST GROUP INTERACTIONS
A hackneyed truism, deployed repeatedly in critiques of old-fashioned migration and diffusion models
of culture change, is that neither points nor pots are people. Nevertheless, in response to their own reiteration
of the question “Are points people?”, McElrath et al. (2009:10) reasserted “the demonstrable relevance [in
the study of Midcontinental Archaic societies] of projectile point types as group-identity markers and their
importance in documenting group interaction across space and through time.” They suggest that styles should
be viewed not as replications of mental templates (cf. Deetz 1967:88-93) but as the products of a “community
of practice.” This theoretical stance has emphasized the critical importance of the master-novice relationship
in the transmission of point styles.
Cultural transmission is a central concern of the variant of cultural evolutionary theory known as “dual
inheritance theory.” Bettinger and Eerkens (1999) applied this theory to explain apparent differences in the
weights and basal widths of Elko Corner-notched dart points and Rosegate arrow points, in central Nevada
vs. eastern California. The Elko-Rosegate transition in both areas represents introduction of the bow and
arrow ca. 1350 BP. In central Nevada, however, basal width and weight of the Rosegate arrow points are
correlated but in eastern California they are not. Bettinger and Eerkens suggest that these differences reflect
PROOF
different modes of cultural learning (after Boyd and Richerson 1985): guided variation in California and
indirect bias in Nevada. Bow, arrow, and point were adopted by faithful copying as a complete package in
Nevada, but individual attributes were adopted, with experimental trial and error, in California. These
differences may indicate only minimal contact with the donor group in California as opposed to close social
contacts with the donors in Nevada. Although they recognized that “cultural transmission differs in
fundamental ways from any form of genetic transmission,” Bettinger and Eerkens (1999:239) insisted that
“…cultural transmission simply must affect Darwinian fitness—how could it be otherwise? And Darwinian
fitness must also bear on cultural transmission.”
Boyd and Richerson (1987) showed how ethnic markers could develop as the logical outcome of young
individuals imitating adults who are perceived as both similar to them and successful. In the particular case
Abrupt Changes of Climate and of Point Styles along the Atlantic Seaboard 79
of point styles, the available ethnographic record indicates that boys generally are taught to make hunting
weaponry by their fathers (the father is the master, the son is the novice). For example, 87% of !Kung hunters
“said that they had learned to make arrows by watching their father or some other close relative” (Wiessner
1983:261). Apart from its functional role, the arrow (and presumably the dart in earlier times) thus becomes
an essential symbol of male identity and its transmission across generations. For the Blackfoot of the
Northern Plains, “Generation may succeed generation, but the arrow remains as the link between life, death,
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and rebirth; the link between father and son and son and father; and finally, the link between the origin of the
Blackfoot people and later generations” (Warburton and Duke 1995:223). The fundamental importance of
the bow and arrow to the formation of male identity across generations is similarly shown by a recent study
of the Awá of Brazilian Amazonia (Gonzalez-Ruibal et al. 2011):
Awá bows and arrows are much more than useful implements for hunting and, in older times,
fighting. We argue that they are crucial in the making and maintaining of Awá male being. We
consider that there are several facts that support this ontological perspective: (1) an enormous
investment in time and energy is made in the fabrication of arrows; (2) the Awá produce an
excessive amount of arrows, which go well beyond actual necessities; (3) there are significant
structural relations between arrows and key themes of Awá culture; (4) there is an intimate relation
between arrows and people, which is perceptible in the way arrows are made, used and discarded.
Awá children start using miniature bows and arrows as soon as they can walk. Even men who now use
shotguns still teach their children how to make and use the traditional weapons.
The famous case of Ishi, the last Yahi, may be the exception that proves the rule with respect to the
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transmission of point styles within male lineages. Ishi made arrow points not in traditional Yahi style, but
after the fashion of the neighboring Wintu. Shackley (2000) reasonably proposes that Ishi’s father, from
whom he learned his skills, must have been a Wintu who had married into or had been adopted by the Yahi.
A great body of archaeological evidence, beginning with Clovis caches and ending with Aztec sacrificial
knives, shows that chert bifaces functioned as male-related symbolic artifacts in the Americas. Although
ethnographic examples of the social contexts of lithic projectile styles are rare, Wiessner’s (1983) well-known
study of metal arrowpoint styles among contemporary San foragers of southern Africa showed that inter-
group differences were not related to functional factors, e.g., size of prey. Rather, distinct styles were
“emblemic”; they connoted membership in a particular language group (!Kung, G/wi, or !Xo). Variation of
point styles apparently has very little to do with direct environmental adaptation. Instead, styles are conscious
statements about membership in male lineages.
The fact that the San point styles correspond closely to distinct language groups suggests a strong
similarity in the modes of transmission of language and the mental templates for artifacts. James Deetz
(1967) presented a formal structural model along these lines (and actually applied it to an analysis of
projectile point shape), but it has had little influence on subsequent theory. Where Deetz posited an analogy
between “factemes,” discrete bits of information embodied in artifact attributes, and phonemes, recent
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Darwinian theorists emphasize instead the similar operation of vaguely defined “replicators” and genes.
Some theorists (Dawkins 1976, Blackmore 1999) have referred to these theoretical gene-like packets of
information – replicators – as “memes.” However, proponents of dual inheritance theory generally have not
adopted the meme concept (e.g., Boyd and Richerson 2000). Eerkens and Lipo (2005:318) argue that “When
we study cultural transmission it is not the physical package or suite of characters that matter but rather the
cultural information that the transmission units convey….The units of transmission are ideational and not
directly observable. They consist of information and are conceptually analogous to ‘recipes’ for behavior,
artifacts, and ideas.” O’Brien (2005:36) states that “artifacts are complex systems, comprising any number
of replicators, units analogous to genes.”
Boyd and Richerson (2010:3790) observe that “social learning processes are very rapid, and…they can
maintain behavioural differences among neighbouring human groups despite substantial flows of people and
ideas between them.”
As a result, human groups are more like different species than populations of the same species, and
this may be why phylogenetic methods work so well for cultural variation. If two human groups
have different adaptations to the same ecological niche, the dynamics of their evolution look more
like competitive exclusion than conventional multi-level evolution in a metapopulation of the same
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species. The speed of cultural competitive exclusion is often enhanced because people moving from
the losing group can be assimilated into the winning one, or because ideas diffuse from winning
to losing groups.
Boyd and Richerson (2010:3791) note that intergroup competition is ubiquitous in small-scale societies, citing
in particular the data that they assembled with Soltis (Soltis et al. 1995) from early ethnographers’ accounts
of intergroup conflicts and social extinction of local groups in New Guinea:
The typical pattern is for groups to be weakened over a period of time by conflict with neighbours
and finally to suffer a sharp defeat. When enough members become convinced of the group’s
vulnerability to further attack, members take shelter with friends and relatives in other groups, and
the group becomes socially extinct.
In their New Guinea sample, the percentage of groups suffering extinction in each generation, mainly
due to warfare, ranged from 1.6 to 31.3%. Globally, inter-male competition between social entities set apart
by ideology, customs, racial perceptions, and most importantly, language, has been an important engine of
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human biological and cultural evolution. Paradoxically, primitive warfare, with its high casualty rates, may
have resulted in the evolution of within-group altruistic behavior (Bowles 2009). The archaeological record
of the Eastern Woodlands provides evidence of warfare as early as the Middle Archaic (Dye 2009). In the
Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, early historic Iroquoian-speakers, Algonquian-speakers, and Siouan-
speakers were frequently at war, even though they shared numerous aspects of material culture, including
ceramic designs.
These unremitting conflicts resulted in frequent losses or gains of territory among hunter-gatherers and
hunter-gardeners (Keeley 1996). Cross-culturally, land loss and gain per generation is estimated at 5 to 10%.
Primitive warfare also exacts a heavy toll in casualties, estimated from both ethnographic and archaeological
cases as averaging about 14-15% (Keeley 1996, Bowles 2009); in the most extreme cases (e.g., Yanomamo
and Jivaro), 40-60% of male deaths result from warfare (Chagnon 1988).
Following the lead of Boyd and Richerson, we may view competing, bounded human societies as entities
analogous to biological species undergoing a Darwinian selective process. Chatters and Prentiss (2005:48)
propose a “macro-evolutionary model for cultural change” in which “socioeconomic systems” play the same
role as that played by biological species in the model of punctuated equilibrium that was developed by
paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould. Eldredge and Gould (1972) observed that in the fossil
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record, species generally maintain a coherent morphology with very little change for long periods, and then
are abruptly replaced by novel forms. The most spectacular manifestations of this “punctuated equilibrium”
are the mass extinction events, such as the Permian and Cretaceous-Tertiary, which are now attributed either
to extraterrestrial impacts or extraordinary tectonic events. This model explains the abrupt species changes
that Baron de Cuvier observed in the geological record, and that posed such a difficult problem for Darwin’s
theory of gradual evolution.
Dean Snow (1981:102-104) explicitly compared discontinuities between successive cultural entities in
the Northeast to biological allopatric species replacements:
In most cases we should predict that cultural systems under unusual stress would experience that
stress most strongly at their margins, and that readaptation often occurred first and most strongly
there, the marginal developments later becoming more generally adopted. The process is analogous
to some forms of biological speciation in which rapid evolution at the margin of a population’s
distribution followed by expansion of the new form and replacement of the old one leaves a record
of abrupt discontinuity over most of the range of the original population. We should expect too that
cultural systems occasionally collapsed completely and were replaced by systems expanding from
adjacent areas.
PROOF
O’Brien and Lyman (2000) have suggested that this is precisely the process by which Folsom points replaced
Clovis points in the Plains – “a classic case of punctuated equilibrium” (O’Brien 2005:39).
It may be useful here to distinguish two models of cultural transformation. The process described by
Snow and O’Brien and Lyman is analogous to allopatric speciation or cladogenesis (Lyman and O’Brien
2006). The parent population (species) splits due to migration and/or geographic barriers, and new distinct
species emerge on its periphery, in reproductive isolation. A different evolutionary process is anagenesis; the
parent population does not fragment, but adaptive mutations accumulate in the descendants leading eventually
to a new, morphologically and behaviorally transformed species occupying the original range. Statistical
studies of fossil lineages suggest that this sort of directional transformation is quite rare; either stasis or
random change arising by mutation and drift is normal (Hunt 2007).
There is some ambiguity in recent models of cultural evolution as to the biological consequences of
replacement or “extinction” of groups, socioeconomic or cultural systems. In the New Guinea examples cited
by Boyd and Richerson, the remaining losers are absorbed into neighboring groups, so there might be
minimal genetic effects at a regional scale. In Chatters and Prentiss’s (2005) model, the competing entities
are “resource management strategies,” which differ mainly in seasonal scheduling. “If the practitioners of
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the innovative strategy thrive….our innovative community’s population may grow, budding off new
communities and expanding its range at the expense of neighboring strategies and their implementers, or its
neighbors may perceive the success of the new strategy and emulate its behaviors…” A new strategy may
spread by “enhancing its bearers’ biological fitness.” These models do not state explicitly what ought to be
obvious: the clash of cultural systems or strategies is manifest on the ground as conflicts between coalitions
of related males. The deaths or dispersal of the losers should result in greater representation of the winners’
cultural patterns as well as their genes in succeeding generations. The controversy about the relative
reproductive success of aggressive individuals, e.g., the “fiercest” Yanomamo warriors (Chagnon 1988 vs.
Ferguson 1989) is beside the point:
The two key determinants of the effect of warfare on the evolution of social behaviors are the extent
of genetic differences between the winners and losers of conflicts and the effect of the number of
altruists in a group on group members’ average fitness. Warfare affects the second by making the
presence of altruists in a group critical to the members’ survival (and hence their fitness). There are
two ways in which the outcome of a conflict may affect the average fitness of its members. The first
is that members of losing groups are more likely to perish, and those who die may either produce
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no offspring or leave children who suffer high mortality due to inadequate parental care. The
second is that, as with chimpanzees, weaker groups cede territory, thereby redistributing fitness-
relevant resources between the groups (Bowles 2009:1294-5).
In contrast to the ostensibly ubiquitous pattern of inter-group hostility documented by Bowles (2009),
Wiessner (1983) observed no socioeconomic competition between San language groups; “Relations varied
along the borders from friendly to reserved, with only a few points where conflict occurred” (Wiessner
1983:256). However, she did not consider the likelihood that this low level of conflict might be a post-
contact development (see Draper [1978] on suppression of violence by South West African police). A long
history of inter-group hostility might account for the agitated response Wiessner elicited when she showed
arrows made by G/wi and !Xo to !Kung men, who “reacted…with surprise and anxiety” (Wiessner 1983:269).
Wiessner proposed that the language group (demarcated by its own point style) was the largest San social unit
maintained for the pooling of resources as a strategy of risk reduction. “The use of style by populations that
pool risk among the San…does not appear to be the result of social stress, but rather of environmental stress
in the Kalahari” (Wiessner 1983:272). The largest of these risk-pooling groups, the !Kung, numbered about
1500-2000 persons; the smallest, the !Xo, had a population of only 120-300.
The archaeological record of the Atlantic Seaboard provides examples of both gradual anagenetic style
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changes, and more abrupt changes that suggest interruptions of vertically-transmitting lineages. An example
of the former can be seen in the sequence leading across a span of about 1200 years (ca. 4200-3000 cal BP),
from Savannah River broadspears to Koens Crispin and Lehigh, to Perkiomen, to Susquehanna, to Dry Brook,
and finally to Orient Fishtail points. This sequence (or phyletic series) is comparable to the transformation
of design motifs on eighteenth-century New England gravestones that was documented by Deetz and
Dethlefsen (1967). The slight changes in details of those designs appear to be the result of a series of
individual copying errors. One might compare these to random genetic mutations, but a more useful analogy
might be drawn with the slight sound changes in individual speech that somehow spread rapidly through
entire populations (e.g., the Great Vowel Shift that occurred in English ca. AD 1400) (Jespersen 1909). David
Clarke (1978:228) distinguished “transform types,” which are descent-related, from “independent types,
which are not connected or derived from one another.” The Savannah River through fishtail lineage is, in
these terms, a series of transform types.
In contrast to such gradual and incremental changes, many of the point style changes we see in this
region instead appear abrupt, with no intermediate forms (for example, the shift from Stanly or Neville points
to Morrow Mountain or Stark points, from Lamoka-like points to broadspears, or from Orient Fishtails to
Meadowood and Rossville points). In well-stratified sequences, such as those excavated on the upper
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Susquehanna (Funk and Rippeteau 1977, Funk 1993), there is no evidence of a long co-existence of
competing styles with gradual shifts in their relative frequencies (the sort of gradual transition that could be
modeled as a frequency seriation graph with lens-shaped curves). Rather, the so-called Coe Axiom seems
valid- one occupation zone, one point style (Coe 1964:9). Why did these abrupt replacements occur?
PREVIOUS EFFORTS TO MODEL CLIMATIC CAUSATION OF CULTURE CHANGE
It seems improbable that some sort of recurrent cyclical process, intrinsic to cultural transmission
systems, can account for the periodic shifts of point style. Alternatively, we can search for an external
periodicity of ca. 1500 years in the climate and/or environment, which correlates with the style shifts and
might arguably be directly or indirectly causative.
The possibility of climatic causation has been entertained before (e.g., Funk 1993, Anderson 2001,
Munoz et al. 2010). Robert Funk (1993) attempted to correlate terrace formation processes on the
Susquehanna River, regional pollen transitions, and the Holocene climatic discontinuities identified by
Wendland and Bryson (1974), with cultural “discontinuities” in the sequence of the Upper Susquehanna
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Valley. Although several possible linkages emerged from this exercise (e.g., “A major episode at 810 B.C.
is roughly contemporaneous with the appearance of the Meadowood phase” [Funk 1993:322]), Funk
concluded on a cautionary and rather negative note:
If environmental change ultimately drives cultural change, the precise manner in which this was
accomplished in the study area may elude us for a long time. It is difficult, for example, to generate
plausible explanations for the shift from small, notched projectile points to the Broadspears in terms
of the cultural-ecological changes resulting from fluctuations in natural phenomena. It is far easier
to visualize overall shifts in subsistence-settlement patterns as a consequence of changes in the
distribution and density of key plants and animals, water sources, etc. The search for determinants
of the specific form of artifact traits such as projectile points may prove fruitless since other
variables enter the picture, e.g., stylistic drift around a set of functionally restricted attributes which
are the important and adaptively sensitive variables in the exploitative system. Examples of such
variables could be basic hafting elements, weight, or multifunctional potential (some point types
appear to have been useful as knives apart from their killing function) (Funk 1993:322).
PROOF
It is important to note that Funk attributed abrupt changes in point styles, such as Brewerton to Lamoka and
Vestal to Broadspear (Genessee, Snook Kill) either to migration or rapid diffusion (e.g., Funk and Rippeteau
1993:224-225).
Recently, Munoz et al. (2010) have attributed the “overall shifts in subsistence-settlement patterns” that
Funk recognized in the Northeast to episodic climate change. Their proxies for such pattern shifts are the
temporal boundaries between regionally recognized cultural periods. Major climate/vegetation transitions
at 11,600, 8200, 5400, and 3000 cal BP would correspond, respectively, to the Paleoindian/Early Archaic,
Early/Middle Archaic, Middle/Late Archaic, and Late Archaic/Early Woodland transitions. As a simple
causative model, they propose that “The ecosystems from which prehistoric humans subsisted changed
periodically in response to new climatic regimes, and as a result humans adjusted their toolkits accordingly
by developing or adopting new or existing technologies” (Munoz et al. 2010:4).
Two major problems vitiate this effort. First, their cultural transition chronology reifies arbitrary and
dubious archaeological periods. For example, Munoz et al. divide the Early from Middle Archaic at 8200
cal BP, equivalent to 7400 rcbp. Most researchers in the Middle Atlantic region follow Gardner (1988) in
starting the Middle Archaic much earlier, at 8800 rcbp (9900 cal BP), with the appearance of bifurcate base
points. Funk (1993) lumped together the Early and Middle Archaic of the Northeast, with no sharp temporal
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division. Munoz et al. would date the onset of the Late Archaic period at 5400 cal BP. Gardner and his
students regarded the regional appearance of Savannah River points after 4500 rcbp (5200 cal BP) as marking
the start of the Late Archaic. In contrast, Funk (1993) proposed to re-label the Northeastern Late Archaic as
the “Forager Florescent I” substage, which would begin with Proto-Laurentian cultures around 6000 rcbp
(6900 cal BP). The distributions of diagnostic points and other artifact types frequently span across the whole
Atlantic seaboard from the Carolinas to Maine and Nova Scotia, and it is unrealistic to postulate long
developmental lags between cultural stages within this zone.
The second problem with the model proposed by Munoz et al. is the lack of clear evidence that
innovations in toolkits actually were adaptive responses to environmental changes. With respect to basic
adaptation, Funk (1993:139) suggested that all of the traditional McKern-Griffin-Ritchie phases from Early
Archaic through Middle Woodland could be lumped together as a “Forager” stage; this scheme “made clear
that on present evidence a hunting, fishing, and gathering way of life continued from the Forager Florescent
I through the first two ceramic stages” (Funk 1993:140). Within this long-term adaptive continuum,
settlement/subsistence patterns were, no doubt, tweaked repeatedly by minor shifts of emphasis, e.g., from
logistic to residential mobility (collector to forager) patterns, or from game to fish or shellfish, or from nuts
to seeds. But, as Funk recognized, it is the abrupt shifts of projectile point styles that defy easy explanation
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in adaptive terms, and to which I will return after a review of the most recent data on abrupt environmental
changes during the Holocene.
HOLOCENE CLIMATE EPISODES
The climate of the Holocene has been stable when compared to the sharp warm/cold swings of the
Pleistocene. Nevertheless, episodes of significant abrupt change can be seen in several records (Figure 1).
At the close of the nineteenth century, Blytt and Sernander recognized abrupt changes in depositional regimes
within Danish peat bogs; these were the basis for their division of the Holocene into Boreal (dry), Atlantic
Archaeology of Eastern North America
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Figure 1. Chronology of projectile point style transitions and climate episodes in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. Columns from left to right:
Point styles (line with arrows denote abrupt shifts); calendar years (marked as millennia cal BP); sharp transitions in North American pollen
sequences (after Viau et al. [2002] and Gajewski et al. [2007]); Bond events (Bond et al. 1997, 2001); pine pollen minima in Chesapeake Bay
sediments (Willard et al. 2005); pollen shifts in Northeast (Shuman et al. 2009); droughts in Northeast (Shuman et al. 2009); New Jersey
droughts (Li et al. 2007); West Virginia droughts (Springer et al. 2008); storminess peaks in New Hampshire and Maine lakes (Parris et al.
2009); Rapid Climate Change episodes (Mayewski et al. 2004); other climatic and environmental events (Alley et al. 1997, Ellis et al. 2004,
Booth et al. 2005, Karlen and Larsson 2007, Almquist et al. 2001, Sanger et al. 2007, Foster et al. 2006, Zhao et al. 2010).
84
(humid), Sub-Boreal (dry/ warm), and Sub-Atlantic (humid/ cool) phases. The dates for these phases are
about 11,500-9000, 9000-5800, 5800-2600, and 2600-0 cal BP, respectively. Wendland and Bryson (1974)
synthesized radiocarbon-dated abrupt pollen discontinuities throughout the northern hemisphere. They
recognized transitions corresponding to the Boreal/Atlantic climatic transition at 8490 rcbp (9500 cal BP),
the Atlantic/Sub-boreal at 5060 rcbp (5800 cal BP), and the Sub-boreal/ Sub-atlantic at 2760 rcbp (2850 cal
BP). Additional transitions were evident at 10,030 rcbp (11,600 cal BP), 9300 rcbp (10,500 cal BP), 7740
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rcbp (8500 cal BP), 6910 rcbp (7700 cal BP), 6050 rcbp (6900 cal BP), 4240 rcbp (4800 cal BP), 3570 rcbp
(3900 cal BP), 1680 rcbp (1600 cal BP) and 850 rcbp (800 cal BP).
Viau et al. (2002) examined radiocarbon dates obtained for more than 700 pollen diagrams from across
North America. As Wendland and Bryson had previously observed, these dates tend to cluster at significant
discontinuities in the climate record. However, only a few of the major pollen transitions identified by Viau
et al. within the past 14,000 calendar years coincide precisely with those defined by Wendland and Bryson.
The climatic episodes identified by Viau et al. occur at 13,800, 12,900, 10,190, 8100, 6700, 4030, 2850,
1650, and 600 cal BP. More recently, Gajewski, Viau and Sawada (2007) have synthesized dates for North
American and European pollen transitions, Bond events in the North Atlantic, and cold spikes in the
Greenland ice cores, to identify trans-hemispheric “climate transitions” at 13,900, 12,800, 11,100, 10,300,
9000, 8100, 6800, 5900, 4200, 2800, 1600, 600, and 350 cal BP.
Analyses of North Atlantic sediments have demonstrated a roughly 1450-year (±500) recurrence of ice-
rafted debris (IRD) events (known as “Bond events” in honor of geologist Gerard Bond), which are
interpreted as markers of sudden cold episodes accompanied by major reorganizations of atmospheric
circulation (Bond et al. 1997, 2001). The eight Bond events are dated to about 11,100, 10,300, 9400, 8100,
5900, 4200, 2800, and 1400 cal BP. Several of these dates are actually center-points or spikes within
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centennial-scale episodes; for instance, the 2800 BP event actually extends from about 3400 to 2700 cal BP.
Each time, reduced solar output is thought to have triggered changes in stratospheric ozone that caused
cooling of the atmosphere in high northern latitudes, a slight southward shift of the northern subtropical jet
stream, and decreased Northern Hadley circulation. These atmospheric changes would then have led to
increased North Atlantic drift ice, cooling of the ocean surface and atmosphere above Greenland, and reduced
precipitation in low latitudes.
The solar trigger for Bond events has been questioned by Debret et al. (2007), who also dispute the
supposed 1500-year cycle. They find instead evidence of a solar-dominated 1000-year periodicity until 5000
cal BP, but a 1500-year periodicity after that date, which was forced mainly by changes in ocean circulation.
Wanner and Butikofer (2008) review 28 studies published since 1995 that relate various environmental
records to Bond events. They conclude “that evidence for the existence of nine ~1500 years long cold or cool
events during the Holocene, called Bond Cycles, exists at least in the North Atlantic area and its
surroundings.” In another recent review of global evidence for Mid- to Late Holocene climate change,
Wanner et al. (2008:1816) similarly “support the idea that “Bond Cycles” are effective during selected time
periods in the NH [Northern Hemisphere].” However, like Debret et al., Wanner and Butikofer (2008) take
issue with the simple solar causal mechanism suggested by Bond et al.; they propose a more complicated
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interplay of solar forcing, ocean circulation, ice melting, and volcanic activity, particularly with respect to
the events (2, 1, and 0) after 4000 cal BP.
Numerous pollen sequences and sediment analyses have been reported in the past decade from lakes in
the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. It is difficult to create a coherent regional climate record from these
sources. Some sequences appear to contain events that reflect North Atlantic-forced atmospheric changes that
are coeval with Bond events; others, although derived from nearby locations, have no correlated events.
A recent analysis of pollen data from sediments of 22 lakes, located from New York to New Brunswick,
has shown that the most dramatic changes in Northeastern vegetation during the Late Glacial and Holocene
occurred in response to abrupt climate changes at ca. 12,900 cal BP (onset of Younger Dryas) (pine and oak
decline, spruce rise), 11,600 cal BP (end of Younger Dryas) (spruce decline, white pine rise), 10,500 cal BP
(pine decline), 8250 cal BP (pine decline, beech rise), and 5250 cal BP (hemlock decline) (Shuman et al.
2009). Inferences from pollen percentages, based on modern analogues, also suggest abrupt increases in
precipitation and temperature at 9500-9100 cal BP, 8000-7700 cal BP, and 2000-1900 cal BP, and cool/dry
episodes at 6300-6000, 4700-4600, 3700-3300, 2600-2000, and 1200-1100 cal BP. An independent proxy
record of aridity is the occurrence of sand layers attributed to lowered water levels in New Long Pond,
Massachusetts. These inferred episodes of regional drought are dated to ca. 8425-8300, 5390-5260, 4680-
4445, 3920-3695, 2980-2760, 2355-2040, and 1595-1460 cal BP. Shuman et al. (2009:1705) observe that
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“Five ice-rafting episodes [Bond events] overlap in time with episodes of high SCDs [squared-chord distances
between pollen spectra] and another five overlap with periods of high sand content in NLP43 [the core from
New Long Pond].” Newby et al. (2011) report a similar drought record from Davis Pond in southwestern
Massachusetts. Low water-levels are inferred for these periods: 13,400-11,000 cal BP; 10,900-10,400;
10,200-9500; 9200-9000; 8200; 7700; 6600-6400, 5600-4900, ca. 4100; 3500-3000; 3000-2800; 2700-2300;
and 1600 cal BP. Newby et al. (2011:529) admit that the inferred drought events do not correlate precisely
with Bond events, “but the sequence of events is similar and maybe consistent within the age uncertainties
of the two records.” They suggest that the droughts were caused by changes in ocean circulation and sea-
surface temperatures off the coast of New England.
Based on periodic declines in the percentages of pine pollen in cores from the Chesapeake Bay, Willard
et al. (2005) inferred the occurrence about every 1400 years of cool periods that each lasted 300-500 years.
These seven pine minima are centered at 9500, 8100 (8300-8000), 6000-5800, 4800-4100, 3500-2700, 1800,
and 650-350 BP. They appear to correlate with Bond events (including the 8200 cal BP event and the Little
Ice Age [AD 1300-1600]), and are taken to signify weakened solar activity, a change in the jet stream, and
enhanced meridional circulation. An eighth pine minimum, designated as 4A, is recognized in the Chesapeake
cores at 7000 cal BP, but there is no equivalent Bond event. These periodic pine declines are superimposed
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on a larger pattern: the amount of pine pollen doubled between ca. 5500 and 4800 cal BP, signaling the shift
from deciduous to mixed deciduous-conifer forests in the Mid-Atlantic region. This change was responsive
to warming late-Holocene winters (warmer by 2-4° C in January due to increased winter sunlight), and to a
slight increase in precipitation.
Springer et al. (2008) have reported that Bond events are expressed locally as decades-long droughts in
a 7,000-year-old speleothem from Buckeye Creek Cave, West Virginia. These droughts, at ca. 5800, 4600,
3800, 3000, 2000, 1300, and 600 cal BP, are attributed to a shifted jet stream, caused ultimately by solar
minima leading to cooling of the ocean surface. Hardt et al. (2010) interpret oxygen isotopes in three
speleothems from this cave as indicating a greater prevalence of summer precipitation in the Mid-Holocene,
beginning ca. 6300 cal BP and ending with an abrupt shift to more seasonally equable precipitation at 4200
cal BP. They suggest teleconnections with the Bermuda High, North American and Asian summer monsoons,
and the El Niño Southern Oscillation.
Li et al. (2007) observed episodes of lowered lake levels and chemical changes in White Lake in
northern New Jersey. These arid episodes also correspond to Bond events at ca. 6000, 4200, 2800, and 1400
cal BP.
In dunes along the Tar River in the North Carolina Coastal Plain, Moore (2009) has identified recurrent
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episodes of aeolian deposition that appear to correspond to Bond events 4 through 8 (5900, 8200, 9500,
10,300, and 11,100 cal BP).
Bond events are not evident in all regional climate records. For example, the isotopic record from
sediment of Lake Grinnell in northern New Jersey does not display equivalent episodes (Zhao et al. 2010).
Instead, this record indicates a major shift in mid-Holocene climate that occurred between 5800 and 4700 cal
BP, from warm/wet to cool/dry. Climate oscillations after 4700 cal BP were less frequent and less severe.
This transition after 5800 cal BP is notably coeval with that observed in the Chesapeake pine pollen record,
although in the latter case, colder but slightly wetter conditions are inferred (Willard et al. 2005). Also
noteworthy in the Lake Grinnell record is a sharp excursion in oxygen isotope ratios at 6800 cal BP, which
is not highlighted in the discussion of this record by Zhao et al. This seems to correlate with pine minimum
4A in the Chesapeake Bay record. Zhao et al. (2010) suggest that Bond events may have influenced only
moisture but not temperature in the Northeast.
Table 1. Changes in projectile point styles and coeval climate episodes.
Style Change Date Rcbp (Cal Bp) Climate (Cal Bp)
Fluted point to notched point 10,000 (11,500) 11,600 YD to Holocene,

11,100 Pre-Boreal Oscillation
PROOF
Kirk Corner-Notched to Bifurcate 8800 (10,000) 10,300 cold
Late Bifurcate (Stanly) to Morrow Mt (Stark) 7300 (8000)? 8100 cold
Stark to Brewerton (Otter Creek in Maine) 5700 (6700) 7000-6800 pine minimum;
Morrow Mt to Guilford 6800 oxygen anomaly
Brewerton to Narrow Stemmed ; 4500 (5500) 5800 cold; [5500 hemlock

Allendale intrusion decline]
Narrow Stemmed to Broadspear 3700 (4200) 4200 cold; drought
Orient to Meadowood and EW Stemmed (Rossville) 2700 (2800) 2800 cold
Adena intrusion 2500 (2800-2400) 2800 cold
EW stemmed to Selby Bay 1700 1650; end of dry period
Selby Bay to Jack’s Reef 1200 1400 cold; 1200 drought
Jack’s Reef to triangles

PROOF 900 1000 Medieval Optimum
Bond events are roughly coincident with the Rapid Climate Change episodes during the Holocene,
marked by montane glacier advances around the world, and chemical changes in Greenland ice indicative of
atmospheric changes over Siberia (Mayewski et al. 2004). These RCC episodes (too extended to be
considered transient events) date to ca. 9000-8000, 6000-5000, 4200-3800, 3500-2500, 1200-1000, and 600-0
cal BP. However, Wanner et al. (2008) have found insufficient temporal coherence in global records to
substantiate this RCC sequence.
POINT STYLE CHANGES ARE COEVAL WITH CLIMATE EVENTS
As noted above, Eastern Woodland projectile point styles seem each to have lasted for about 1500 years.
Not only is this about the same periodicity as seen in North Atlantic climate events, but the moments of
transition between styles coincide so often with Bond events and/or vegetation changes as to raise a strong
PROOF
possibility of climatic causation (Table 1, Figure 1). The dates in this table are based on a review of all
available radiocarbon dates associated with these types in the region stretching from Georgia to the Canadian
Maritime Provinces; a “hygienic” filter has been subjectively applied to remove obviously anomalous
outlying dates.
The transition from fluted to notched points took place at the onset of Holocene warming, 11,600 cal
BP (ca. 10,000 rcbp). A gradual transition is evident in the Carolinas, where Dalton-Hardaway points are
transformed into Hardaway Side-Notched. However, no similar intermediate forms precede such early side-
notched types as Kessell in West Virginia or Bolen in Florida. In the Northeast, following late fluted types
such as Crowfield, there are rare occurrences of Thebes-like points and probably coeval Plano-like
lanceolates, followed by a sparse distribution of Kirk Corner-Notched variants.
The Kirk Corner-Notched type is replaced by bifurcate-base points (St. Albans, followed by LeCroy and
Kanawha) around 10,000 cal BP (8900 rcbp). At the deeply stratified St. Albans site, there seems to be a
transitional form in Zone 14, the MacCorkle Stemmed (Broyles 1966). The development and extensive
spread of bifurcates (from Illinois to South Carolina to southern Maine) occurred about 200 years after the
peak of Bond event 7. A little earlier, at 10,500 cal BP, pine pollen declined markedly in the Northeast
(Shuman et al. 2009). A widespread pollen discontinuity coeval with Bond event 7 has been recognized (Viau
et al. 2002, Gajewski et al. 2007). Lake records in central and western New York have been interpreted as
indicating a delayed onset of Holocene warming, after the end of the Younger Dryas, until about 10,300 cal
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BP (Ellis et al. 2004). The Kirk/bifurcate transition seems to slightly lag these climatic/environmental events,
but to coincide with the onset of Chesapeake Bay pine minimum 6.
No major cultural transition is coeval with Bond event 6 (9400 cal BP). The transformation of LeCroy
bifurcates into Kanawha and Stanly points may have started about this time, but this is an example of gradual
rather than abrupt style change.
The 8200 cal BP cold event was the biggest abrupt climate event since the Younger Dryas ended (Alley
et al. 1997). It has been attributed to the final massive draining of glacial Lake Agassiz into the North
Atlantic. Its effects may have lasted for about 400 years. This was also the time of a Bond event, a
Chesapeake pine minimum and a pine decline in New England, and a continent-wide vegetation transition.
The transition in the Mid-Atlantic region from Stanly points (the last manifestation of the bifurcate tradition)
to Morrow Mountain (and from Neville to Stark in the Northeast) may correspond to this event.
Contracting-stemmed Morrow Mountain points are rare in the Northeast, perhaps indicating a population
decline and reorganization of settlement patterns after the 8200 cal BP event. However, they are very
common from Virginia southward to Georgia. In that area, the transition from Morrow Mountain II to narrow
lanceolate Guilford points is not well dated, but may occur at roughly 6800 cal BP (6000 rcbp). This is the
same time (6800-6500 cal BP) that large side-notched Otter Creek points began to spread across the
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Northeast, from the Upper Susquehanna (Funk 1993) to Maine (Sanger et al. 2007). This is culturally very
significant because Funk (1993) interpreted this “Proto-Laurentian” development as the initiation of the
region’s Late Archaic. These points may ultimately be derived from the side-notched types of the mid-
continent (e.g., Big Sandy, Raddatz). There is no coeval Bond event, but a widespread pollen transition is
evident at 6800 cal BP (Gajewski et al. 2007). As noted above, pine minimum 4A is recognized in the
Chesapeake cores at 7000 cal BP, and a sharp excursion in oxygen isotope ratios is seen in New Jersey lake
sediments at 6800 cal BP. In some Maine lakes, water level dropped to a stable minimum in Maine at this
time (ca. 7200-5800 cal BP) (Almquist et al. 2001), while an episode of severe storms is seen in lake
sediments in New England at 6800 cal BP (Parris et al. 2009). Events are also observed in lake sediments
in western New York at 7100 and 6600 cal BP (Ellis et al. 2004).
Multiple changes in climate and environment coincided at ca. 5800-5400 cal BP. These include: Bond
event 4; the collapse of hemlock throughout the eastern woodlands; droughts in New England, New Jersey,
and West Virginia; and hemispheric climate changes. This is also the time of transition from the mid- to late
Holocene (Zhao et al. 2010). These environmental changes precede the abrupt shift at ca. 5500-5000 cal BP
from the relatively broad, corner or side-notched Brewerton point types of the Laurentian tradition, to small
stemmed points such as Lamoka. At 5500 cal BP there is also a sudden, dramatic increase in radiocarbon
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dates associated with human occupation in New England (Hoffman 1988, 1990: Figure 24; Reeve and
Forgacs 1999; Munoz et al. 2010). Some time prior to 5700 cal BP a population using Benton-like Allendale
points seems to have migrated from the Mid-South and intruded into the Piedmont of South Carolina and
Georgia (Sassaman 2006).
The 4200 cal BP Bond event 3 is contemporaneous with a centuries-long megadrought in the interior
of North America (Booth et al. 2005). It also roughly coincides with the beginning of neo-glaciation in the
northern hemisphere. At 4200 cal BP, the Mill Branch culture abandoned the mid-Savannah River valley
(Sassaman 2006), but its characteristic broadspears began to spread north through the Piedmont and Coastal
Plain, replacing Late Archaic narrow stemmed points.
The 2800 cal BP Bond event 2 coincides with the end of the final Broadspear manifestation, the Orient
phase. Orient Fishtail points were replaced by side-notched Meadowood (and related Hellgrammite) and
contracting-stemmed Rossville (and related Lagoon, Teardrop and Piscataway) points, and Adena settlers or
traders briefly intruded into the Middle Atlantic (Fiedel 2001). An associated climate episode shows up very
strongly in the strontium/calcium ratios from Buckeye Creek Cave (Springer et al. 2008: Figure 1). In
Scandinavia (presumably also affected by the same solar forcing, cooling of the North Atlantic, and shifting
of the jet stream that altered the climate of the Eastern US), “During the period between 3000 and 2000 cal
yr BP (1050 and 50 BC) the climate was cold on repeated occasions, and glaciers expanded frequently and
became larger than they were even during the Little Ice Age” (Karlen and Larsson 2007:413). Abrupt cooling
PROOF
at 2800 cal BP has been attributed recently to a solar minimum (van Geel et al. 1996, 2004; Martin-Puertas
et al. 2012).
Bond event 1 centered at 1400 cal BP is coeval with the vegetation shift at 1600 cal BP (Gajewski et al.
2007). Funk (1993) dated the Fox Creek points in New York (equivalent to Selby Bay points of the
Chesapeake region) to AD 350-500. These are followed by Jacks Reef points after ca. AD 600, and Levanna
triangular arrow points after ca. AD 800.
TOWARD AN INTEGRATED MODEL
Cold events, droughts, and abrupt point style transitions along the Atlanic Seaboard appear to be coeval
and somehow correlated. However, their temporal coincidence might be no more meaningful than the
ostensible covariation of sunspot cycles and stock prices. How, then, do we get from mere temporal
correlation to a credible theory of causation?
Cold events in the north, or severe droughts farther south, could have affected people via three distinct
pathways: direct stress on humans, stress on deer and other game animals, and stress on trees and other plants.
PROOF
Most directly, cold winters can cause death or debilitating injury (e.g., frostbite) of people who lack the
protection of clothing, dwellings, or fireplaces. Or, deprived of drinking water, humans will perish of thirst.
The inhabitants of the Eastern Woodlands were heavily dependent on deer hides for clothing (Gramly
1977). This dependence opens another window of indirect vulnerability. If deer populations were decimated
by extraordinary cold or snowfall, fewer hides would be available for human use. Of course, as deer were
the primary game animal for humans, the supply of meat would also shrink. If trees died due to sudden cold
or drought, or traditionally utilized species were replaced by unfamiliar competitors, humans might
experience scarcities of firewood, building material, and/or edible nuts such as acorn and hickory.
Recent research on the fluctuating populations of moose and wolves on Isle Royale in northern Michigan
shows that large-scale variations in winter climate, caused by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), affect
the mortality of old moose, the predation efficiency of wolves, the growth dynamics of balsam fir, and the
intrinsic rate of increase of the moose population (Post et al. 1999; Post and Forchhammer 2001). This is a
real-world quantitative demonstration of the sensitivity of extant North American flora and fauna to
atmospheric circulation changes over the North Atlantic. Although the causes of NAO variability are not well
understood, they appear to be affected by sea-surface temperature changes (Visbeck et al. 2001). We can take
this case as a micro-version of the kinds of changes that would have been set in motion by Bond events. Snow
PROOF
(1981) had previously suggested that northern Archaic hunter-gatherers would have been most susceptible
to starvation whenever impaired hunting of moose due to bad weather coincided with unpredictable but
cyclical crashes of the population of hares, the back-up meat source in winter.
A possible example of a causal chain from climate change, through vegetation and fauna, to culture, may
be provided by the abrupt collapse of hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) populations throughout the Mid-Atlantic
and Northeast at ca. 5500 cal BP (4750 ±50 rcbp) (Bennett and Fuller 2002). The proximate cause was
probably a pathogen or insect infestation (Bhiry and Filion 1996); but the trees may already have been
weakened by drought. The collapse involved two successive events, around 5800 and 5200 cal BP; these
correspond to two coeval lake-level drops in the Northeast, which indicate drought conditions (Haas and
McAndrews 1999). Winters seem to have become colder at the same time (Calcote 2003). These droughts
and temperature changes could have weakened the trees so that they became susceptible to pathogen
outbreaks (Foster et al. 2006; Haas and McAndrews 1999). The first drought event seems obviously coeval
with the 5900-5800 cal BP Bond event and the 5800-5300 cal BP rapid climate change.
The hemlock demise provided an opportunity for the growth of a diverse understory and the florescence
of northern hardwoods (Sanger et al. 2007). This new vegetation, combined with a possible reduction of
snowfall, would have provided prime habitat for deer. Coeval with the hemlock decline there is a sudden,
dramatic increase in radiocarbon dates associated with human occupation in New England (Hoffman 1988;
Hoffman 1990: Figure 24; Reeve and Forgacs 1999). It is probably no coincidence that, around 5500-5000
cal BP, Lamoka and other narrow stemmed points replaced notched points of the Brewerton tradition in New
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England. In Maine, Otter Creek points had appeared ca. 6500 cal BP (at the beginning of a regional thermal
maximum); they disappeared ca. 5300 cal BP (Sanger et al. 2007). In Quebec, a “post-Laurentian” Lamoka-
like complex, assumed to be intruders from the south, replaced the Laurentian Archaic culture at Pointe-du-
Buisson ca. 4500 rcbp (5200 cal BP) (Chapdelaine 2000). Perhaps this Lamokoid expansion is a signal of
southern deer-hunters replacing northern moose-hunters.
One of the assumptions that we began with – that prey animals had not changed significantly since the
demise of the megafauna – might be incorrect. Arid episodes during the Holocene may have caused
significant shifts from arboreal to nonarboreal and from mesic to xeric plant species. These changes could
have favored the spread of grazers, such as bison and elk, at the expense of browsing deer. The documented
extension of the range of bison into the Eastern Woodlands after the onset of the Little Ice Age ca. AD 1300
(Jakle 1968, Widga 2006) would be only the last example of this process. Arguably, hunting of larger prey
in more open landscapes might have fostered innovation in weapon systems. Bison might have entered the
region during the massive drought of 4200 cal BP, but, given the inadequate Archaic faunal record, we have
no evidence for or against this. Might the rapid spread of broadspears at that time have been a response to
the sudden availability of bison?
Those archaeologists who reflexively recoil from the idea of population movement and replacement have
PROOF
preferred to see broadspears as a useful new tool type that diffused rapidly through in situ local populations.
These groups would have been unusually amenable to borrowing new equipment because they were
confronted with new resources due to environmental change. This model of broadspear expansion (e.g.,
Turnbaugh 1975; Custer 1991; Custer and Mellin 1986) emphasizes changes in the marine environment,
particularly the assumed stabilization of estuaries as the rate of sea level rise slowed. Sturgeon and other
large anadromous fish began to regularly migrate up the eastern rivers ca. 6000 cal BP, and the broadspears,
in this view, were not projectiles at all, but specialized knives devised to process these fish. There are three
glaring problems with this interpretation of broadspears. First, the estuarine environment was already stable
enough for colonization by oysters, and presumably fish as well, by ca. 7600 cal BP (see Bratton et al. [2002]
for the Chesapeake), long before the appearance of broadspears. Second, broadspears are found, not only at
riverside encampments, but also in upland and montane settings; “As one approaches and finally reaches the
headwaters of those drainages originating in the Blue Ridge, a fishing function becomes less and less tenable
as the size of the spear point soon surpasses the size of the fish” (Tolley and Barber 1984:34). Third, no
major regression of the sea occurred after 4000 cal BP, and sturgeon were still abundant in eastern rivers
when Europeans arrived. If broadspears were such an efficient tool for fish-processing, why were they not
retained for this function after ca. 3400 cal BP? For that matter, if function dictated morphology, why did
PROOF
broadspears “evolve,” first into an exaggeratedly broad variant (Perkiomen) by ca. 3900 cal BP, then back
to a much more slender form (the Orient Fishtail)? Did these markedly different variants retain the same
function?
Others have attributed broadspear expansion to an actual migration of people who displaced their
precursors (e.g., Kinsey 1975; Snow 1981; Bourque 1995). Snow (1981), focusing specifically on the Frost
Island (Susquehanna Broadspear) culture in central New York, noted that abrupt changes are evident
throughout the whole cultural “system,” including the first appearance of steatite bowls and a shift to a more
riverine-oriented settlement pattern: “Independent invention is out of the question and diffusion seems
inadequate to explain such a sharp and pervasive change from the Late to the Terminal Archaic….The criteria
for migration are all met. However, we are still left with the need to explain why the carriers of the Frost
Island system were able to displace the previous inhabitants of central New York” (Snow 1981:132). Snow
hoped that more data might yield a definitive answer; he suggested vaguely that broad points implied some
“technological advantage” and that the Frost Island people also might have been advantaged by their
possession of squash and other “semidomesticates.”
The concept of a broadspear “expansion” or migration, of course, presupposes that an original core area
or homeland can be identified, where the point type has 1) greater antiquity than elsewhere and 2) may have
discernible stylistic roots in some earlier local tradition. Broadspears first appear in the presumptive Savannah
River valley homeland in the Mill Branch phase, about 4700 cal BP, several centuries before they occur in
PROOF
the Mid-Atlantic region. Some researchers (beginning with Coe 1964:35, 55, 121) have sought their origin
in the earlier Stanly type. Selected examples of each type may indeed appear very similar. However, both
in the Southeast and Northeast, the Stanly-Neville type was replaced by Morrow Mountain/Stark points at
ca. 8200 cal BP. It is unrealistic to suppose that the broad-bladed, stemmed form survived as a minority
functional type, or in isolated undiscovered pockets, for the intervening 3.5 millennia. Relatively small
stemmed points made of quartz and metavolcanic rock are characteristic of the Paris Island culture, the
“immediate ancestor” of the Mill Branch culture; some of these points, dated to ca. 5350-4700 cal BP, are
quite similar to small Savannah River points (Sassaman 2006:54-56). In turn, Sassaman (2006:56) proposes
that Paris Island Stemmed points had “arguably evolved” from Morrow Mountain, although he recognizes
the problem posed by the temporal gap of 1400 years between them (during which period, at ca. 6800-5700
cal BP, he postulates [2006:39, 42, 150] an intrusion of Allendale [i.e., Benton-like] point-makers from
Tennessee into the Carolina coastal plain). Drye (1998) suggests, unconvincingly, that a re-analysis of the
stratigraphy at Lowder’s Ferry, on the Yadkin-Pee Dee River in North Carolina, demonstrates in situ gradual
evolution from Morrow Mountain, through Guilford, to the Savannah River type.
The origin of the Morrow Mountain/Stark type presents a similar problem. In the Southeast, the stylistic
break from the preceding Stanly type appears quite sharp; this led Coe (1964:122) to state that, in the North
PROOF
Carolina Piedmont, this intrusive “cultural unit” “appeared without any background in the area.” However,
Claggett and Cable (1982:485) would see Stanly as fitting within a continuous local trend of stem diminution
and contraction that culminated with Morrow Mountain. In contrast, Sassaman (2001) observes the temporal
priority of Morrow Mountain points in the riverine shell midden sites of the Mid-South, where they appeared
ca. 7300 rcbp; he suggests that this style spread by diffusion or migration eastward across the Appalachians
into the Carolina Piedmont. Recently, Sassaman (2010) has proposed that the homeland of the intrusive
population that made Morrow Mountain points and began to harvest riverine shellfish lay far to the northwest,
on the Columbia Plateau.
In Massachusetts, Stanly-like Neville points and Morrow Mountain-like Stark forms ostensibly seem
to be contemporaneous elements of a single assemblage at Annasnappet Pond (Cross 1999). Large Neville
points were found, along with a stone atlatl weight, in a burial dated to 7570 ± 150 rcbp (8375 ± 150 cal BP).
Six additional dates for the early Middle Archaic component at Annasnappet Pond range from 7880 ± 240
to 7290 ± 120 rcbp (8780 ± 290 to 8135 ± 125 cal BP). All of these dates (if standard errors are considered)
fall earlier than the 8200 cal BP climate event. However, post-8200 cal BP dates were also obtained: 7130
± 110 rcbp (7960 ± 115 cal BP); 6810 ± 130 (7680± 115 cal BP); 6470 ± 80 (7380 ± 70 cal BP); and 6440
± 120 (7350 ± 105 cal BP). Cross suggests that the Neville and Stark points may have been functional
PROOF
variants within the same tool kit, the former used as dart tips and the latter, as tips of thrusting spears.
However, in the Mid-South, it seems that the Stark-related Morrow Mountain points were used as dart
tips. At sites in northern Alabama, Middle Archaic burials contain both Morrow Mountain points and atlatl
hooks and weights. Burial 84 at Mulberry Creek contained seven points: four in the thoracic cavity, one in
the mouth, and two firmly lodged in the vertebrae (Webb and DeJarnette 1942; Walthall 1980:64). These
multiple wounds seem attributable to projectiles rather than thrusting spears.
At Annasnappet Pond, Neville points (N = 166) and “Neville variant” points (N = 31) far outnumber the
38 Stark points. Notably, the two types are made on different raw materials: the Neville points of rhyolite,
the Stark points of quartz, quartzite, felsite, argillite, and indurated shale. An analogous distinction in lithic
preference is seen in a cluster of Middle Archaic sites near upper Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island: here, the
Nevilles are made of quartzite or, rarely, felsite, while Starks are of argillite (Rainey 2005). These distinctive
materials seem to be indicative of cultural choices, not functional requirements. Cross (1999) readily admits
that there is no stratigraphic separation of temporally distinct components at Annasnappet Pond, and
acknowledges that the Neville and Stark components may not be fully contemporaneous. Perhaps,
scavenging of lithics at a recently abandoned Neville camp by later Stark-making interlopers should be
considered as an alternative interpretation. The post-8200 cal BP dates might then be attributed to the Stark
occupation (best dated by the cluster of dates of ca. 7600-7300 cal BP), with re-use of artifacts and features
obscuring the temporal succession.
PROOF
Or perhaps the Stark point actually did develop from Neville prototypes in the Northeast, and its
appearance in the South represents a rare case of north-to-south expansion. In that case, we would have to
ignore the evidence of an Eva to Morrow Mountain succession in the Tennessee River Valley. Whatever the
actual genesis of the Morrow Mountain type may have been, a major change in settlement patterns is evident
in New England after the 8200 cal BP event, as groups shifted away from large interior wetlands. For
example, the fringes of Cedar Swamp, on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in Connecticut, seem to have
been “nearly devoid of a regular human presence” after 7500 rcbp (8300 cal BP), as inferred from the scarcity
of Stark, Morrow Mountain I, and Merrimack stemmed points (Jones 1999).
It may be futile to search the archaeological record for obvious precursors of innovative forms. Whether
a new type is invented by an individual or founder group de novo, or is merely imitative of some already
ancient and long-disused form, is inconsequential; what matters is the rapid adoption of the new form as an
emblematic artifact of an expanding social group.
With the exception of the previously speculated intrusion of bison, and the presumed northward retreat
of caribou in the early Holocene, there is no indication of any major change after 12,000 cal BP in the
terrestrial fauna that would have been targeted by Archaic hunters. If we exclude changes in prey as a cause
of point change, perhaps we should turn to the domain of warfare rather than hunting. Innovations in
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weaponry, such as the use of hide or wooden shields or wood slat armor (used by California hunter-gatherers
and by late prehistoric warriors in the eastern woodlands), or in tactics, might have provoked changes in
offensive weapons. Unfortunately, the very rare preservation of wood or hide in eastern soils, and the
absence of pertinent representations of pre-Mississippian warfare in any artistic media, preclude identification
of such factors.
The earliest direct evidence of warfare in the Northeast dates from only ca. 5800-4500 cal BP. Male
skeletons buried on Frontenac Island in Cayuga Lake in western New York exhibit unmistakable signs of
violence, such as a Lamoka point embedded in a rib, and a point tip stuck in a skull (Ritchie 1965:108, 119).
Absence of earlier evidence is probably attributable to a general paucity of older skeletal remains in this
region. In the Mid-South, as already noted, warfare as early as 8000 cal BP is attested by the Morrow
Mountain points embedded in skeletons at Mulberry Creek in northwestern Alabama. Dye (2009) interprets
these signs of violent death as evidence of institutionalized feuding. Heads and limbs may have been taken
as trophies from some of the dead on Frontenac Island, and limbs may have been removed as trophies at
Mulberry Creek (Mensforth 2007; Jacobi 2007). Heads and limbs were taken as trophies during the Middle
and Late Archaic (6000-3000 rcbp) in Indiana and Kentucky, more frequently than in the Late Prehistoric
period (AD 1000-1700) (Sharkey and Schmidt 2010).
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Given the extensive territorial range of most archaeologically attested styles, they probably should not
be attributed to a single clan or dialect tribe of ca. 500 people. More likely, they roughly correspond to
somewhat larger, multi-tribal linguistic entities (as in the case of Khoisan metal arrowheads [Wiessner 1983]).
The ubiquitous Late Woodland triangles are a clear exception, as they must have been used by multiple
language stocks—here, function (the bow and arrow) overrides filiation. The rapid spreads of styles, I
suggest, are tracking the reciprocal expansion and contraction of competing language groups—loosely
affiliated macro-bands growing at very fast rates (in a manner comparable to the initial pan-continental spread
of Clovis). These events may be analogous to the rapid spreads through populations of adaptive alleles,
which are now becoming evident in studies of the human genome (e.g., the lactase persistence allele in
Europe [Burger et al. 2007]).
A crude modeling exercise shows that such style spreads by replacement (and/or political/cultural
absorption of defeated or intimidated rivals, leading to ethnogenesis) are numerically feasible. Custer (1990)
noted that the ethnographically attested territories of Naskapi-Montagnais bands in Quebec and Labrador
ranged between 22,500 and 120,000 km2, with a mean size of 48,000 km2. Assuming a similar density and
mobile lifeway during the Early and Middle Archaic, Custer observed that a single band’s territory would
have encompassed almost the entire modern state of Virginia. If we hypothetically divide the entire Atlantic
seaboard from South Carolina to Maine into band territories of about 60,000 km2, the entire region is covered
by only eight such territories (compare similar reconstructions of Paleoindian and Early Archaic macroband
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territories by Anderson [1996]). If each regional band is estimated as comprising some 250 persons, the
entire regional population would number only about 2,000. This is the size of the !Kung language group
connoted by a distinctive point style (Wiessner 1983). Some 25%, or 500 of these people, would have been
adult males. Sparse archaeological evidence, in the form of diagnostic points and dated sites, indicates that
the population of the whole region north of Virginia was probably very low until the Late Archaic (e.g., Funk
1996, Sanger et al. 2007). Complete replacement of such a small male population, with war-related deaths
of 15 to 60% and loss of 10% of a losing band’s territory per generation (ca. 25 years), need not have been
a very long or difficult process. Later Archaic and Woodland populations would have been considerably
greater. Peros et al. (2010) suggest average population densities across northern North America of 0.35 people
per 100 km2 at 6000 cal BP and 1.67 people per 100 km2 at 2000 cal BP. At these densities, the population
of the region from the Carolinas to Maine would have numbered about 2100 at 6000 cal BP and 10,000 at
2000 cal BP. Snow (1981:113) estimated the typical density of non-agricultural groups in northern New
England at AD 1600 as about 12 persons per 100 km2. At similar density, the pre-Late Woodland (pre-
farming) population of the region from the Carolinas to Maine might have been about 60,000.
The cold events and associated droughts occurring every 1500 years were so infrequent that people
would have had no collective memory or anticipation of them. Rain and snow patterns would have been
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dramatically different. For people who depended on hunting, unpredictable weather changes in winter or
early spring would have been potentially the most devastating (Snow 1981). Disruption of accustomed
settlement patterns and subsistence rounds would have weakened some groups and, if their neighbors had
superior organization, storage capabilities, or just the luck not to have been as badly affected by storms or
erratic game movements, those neighboring males would have seized the opportunity to take over territories
and steal women. Northern groups, most susceptible to even slight changes in resource availability in winter,
may generally have been hit harder than those living farther south. We would therefore predict that most of
the hypothesized male population shifts in the coast and piedmont during the Archaic would track from south
to north, and the origin and expansion of Kirk, bifurcate, and Broadspear styles all appear to fit this expected
pattern. However, the temporal/geographic trajectories of Meadowood, Jack’s Reef, and Late Woodland
triangular points seem instead to follow a northwest/southeast axis. The inferred spread of Proto-Algonquian
speakers (Fiedel 1991), which might be linked to any or all of these latter archaeological proxies, followed
the same axis (from a homeland in the northern Great Lakes to the Atlantic coast). Perhaps, Woodland-era
expansion and contraction of male lineages were responses primarily to drought instead of cold, by more
crop-dependent than game-dependent populations.
PROOF
CONCLUDING REMARKS
As the abrupt climate transitions within the Holocene have come into sharper focus recently, many
archaeologists are reconsidering climatic causation of culture change. Our new models ought to be more
detailed and sophisticated than the early efforts (e.g., Huntington 1913) that have long been dismissed as
crude “climatic determinism.” I have suggested here that Bond events in the North Atlantic and teleconnected
continental climatic events (e.g., megadroughts) may have triggered coeval episodes of rapid socio-political
re-organization in eastern North America that are manifest archaeologically as abrupt, widespread changes
in projectile point styles.
Bond events also affected Europe, and Gronenborn (2009) has proposed that distinct stages of the
European Neolithic also correlate with, and were affected by, these cooling episodes. Gronenborn stresses
that, “rather than looking for simple, triggered, push or pull mechanisms, future investigations will have to
consider the manifold complex and diverse interactions between climate, environment and internal socio-
political and interconnected economic processing constantly in operation…Contrary to past post-processual
‘anti-climate’ paradigms, these theoretical approaches will have to regard climate effects on global,
hemispherical, supra-regional, regional and local levels” (Gronenborn 2009:103).
Robinson et al. (2012) observe temporal correlations of the mainly stylistic shifts (entailing different
PROOF
ways of retouching microlithic arrow armatures) from Early to Middle and Middle to Late Mesolithic cultures
in the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt area of northwest Europe with, respectively, the 9300 cal BP cooling event
(Bond event 6) and the 8200 cal BP cold event. They observe that explication of such correlations requires
a reliable, precise radiocarbon chronology. Their endeavor is complicated by the chronological variability
of the different climate proxies, as well as regionally variable hydrological effects and vegetation responses
to the cold events. Some culture changes that appear sudden actually may be responses to longer-term
processes, such as sea-level rise. Robinson et al. conclude that the 9300 event probably did cause culture
change, through the medial effects of rapid vegetation change. However, there seems to be so short a
temporal “lag”, if any, between the 8200 cal BP event and the Middle to Late Mesolithic shift that a cause-
effect relationship is more dubious.
The decadal precision achieved recently in the dating of climatic events has an undeniable allure for the
archaeologist seeking to tie perceived punctuations of cultural sequences to a well-established temporal
framework. However, as the late Paul Martin observed while dismissing a climatic explanation for Terminal
Pleistocene megafauna extinctions, “The climate is always changing, so we can always bring it into the
theater of explanations….Indeed, near time and the Quaternary have been so variable that the expression
“climate change” is redundant” (Martin 2005:167, 170). Inspection of Figure 1 will show that there have
PROOF
been few extended periods during the Holocene when abrupt climate changes did not occur. Nevertheless,
the best correlation of point change events along the Atlantic Seaboard seems to be with the 10 continent-
wide rapid vegetation shifts seen in pollen proxies (Viau et al. 2002 and Gajewski et al. 2007). Only one of
these episodes, at ca. 6700 cal BP, does not correspond at least roughly with a Bond event. As it happens,
this vegetation shift does coincide with one of the most important changes in the cultural sequence—the
spread of side-notched points. On the other hand, the 9400 or 9300 cal BP cooling event (Bond event 6),
which had evident cultural effects on the European Mesolithic, had little discernible effect on the cultures of
eastern North America; bifurcate points seem to transform gradually into Stanly/Neville points through this
time. There may, however, have been some range adjustments by population movement, reflected by
changing frequencies of points in particular areas (e.g., Stanly points are very rare in the mid-Atlantic). The
8200 cal BP event ought to be the “poster child” for climatic effects on culture; however, as noted, its role
in northern Europe remains to be clarified and in eastern North America, the details of the Stanly/Neville to
Morrow Mountain/Stark transition remain to be fully explicated. I expect that we will see more sophisticated
explanations of the archaeological record as the growing corpus of AMS radiocarbon dates facilitates a more
precise chronology.
PROOF
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to express my gratitude to several colleagues. Darrin Lowery created the figure. John Bedell, Julie Morrow,
David Anderson, Ken Sassaman, John Speth, and David Thulman read drafts of this article and provided useful
feedback.
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ABRUPT CHANGES OF CLIMATE AND OF POINT STYLES ALONG THE

ATLANTIC SEABOARD OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA:

ABRUPT POINT STYLE CHANGES: NO EVIDENT ADAPTIVE

Archaeology of Eastern North America (2014) 42:77-100

ideas between them.”

PREVIOUS EFFORTS TO MODEL CLIMATIC CAUSATION OF CULTURE CHANGE

HOLOCENE CLIMATE EPISODES

Table 1. Changes in projectile point styles and coeval climate episodes.

Style Change Date Rcbp (Cal Bp) Climate (Cal Bp)

Fluted point to notched point 10,000 (11,500) 11,600 YD to Holocene,

Late Bifurcate (Stanly) to Morrow Mt (Stark) 7300 (8000)? 8100 cold

Brewerton to Narrow Stemmed ; 4500 (5500) 5800 cold; [5500 hemlock

Narrow Stemmed to Broadspear 3700 (4200) 4200 cold; drought

Orient to Meadowood and EW Stemmed (Rossville) 2700 (2800) 2800 cold

Adena intrusion 2500 (2800-2400) 2800 cold

EW stemmed to Selby Bay 1700 1650; end of dry period

Selby Bay to Jack’s Reef 1200 1400 cold; 1200 drought

Jack’s Reef to triangles

POINT STYLE CHANGES ARE COEVAL WITH CLIMATE EVENTS

TOWARD AN INTEGRATED MODEL

Claggett, S.R.,and J. S. Cable, (Eds.).

O’Brien, Michael J., and R. Lee Lyman

Springer, G.S., H. D. Rowe, B. Hardt, R. I. Edwards, and H. Cheng

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