Group mobility and lithic resource use in the Archaic to Woodland transition at the Morrow site (1FR703)

Abstract

The Archaic to Woodland transition in the North American Southeast (about 3000-2500 BCE) was a time of great social change for many ancient populations. Two of these included the Benton culture of the Archaic period and the Alexander culture of the Early Woodland period. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how changes through the Archaic to Woodland transition are represented in the lithic debitage of these two cultures. In order to accomplish this goal, several different types of comparative debitage analyses were performed on the Alexander and Benton cultural components at the Morrow site (1FR703), located in modern northwestern Alabama. It was posited that as cultures became more sedentary in the Woodland period, the types of debitage present at Morrow site would exhibit greater indicators for more sedentary practices over time. In addition, a secondary research goal was to examine and compare the preference for non-local blue-gray Fort Payne chert in flaked stone tool production within both components. Other researchers have noticed a preference for Fort Payne chert in the Benton culture; however, these previous studies have focused on diagnostic projectile points, not on the debitage. The results of the study failed to support the original hypothesis concerning mobility. Instead, the measures explored through debitage analysis exhibited only very slight differences between the two occupations. It appears that both components used the Morrow site for similar activities which display no conclusive evidence on increasing sedentism from the Benton to Alexander cultures. In response to the secondary research goal, there was a slight trend towards increased use of blue-gray Fort Payne chert in the Benton occupation compared to the Alexander component, but not to the same extent seen in intersite comparisons of diagnostic Benton points. This indicates that while the Benton culture may have used the Morrow site in very similar ways to the Alexander culture, they still had some preference for the Fort Payne stone material. Local materials were used for many activities, but not at the cost of completely ignoring the non-local Fort Payne chert.