Late-Paleoindian Archaeology at the Eaton Site, Western New York

142 SMITH ET AL. Archaeology: North America Late-Paleoindian Archaeology at the Eaton Site, Western New York Kevin P. Smith, William E. Engelbrecht, and John D. Holland ➤ Keywords: Paleoindians, Northeast, Great Lakes Similarities among early-Paleoindian projectile points in the Great Lakes, New England, and the Maritimes and the movement of high-grade lithics between these regions suggest that intensively interacting, mobile populations produced styles such as Gainey/Bull Brook, Debert, Barnes/Michaud-Neponset, and Crowfield (Bradley et al. 2008; Ellis and Deller 1997; Newby et al. 2005; Spiess et al. 1998; White 2006). However, the late-Paleoindian period is marked by increasing reliance upon local lithics and diverging regional sequences. Although parallels are drawn between late-Paleoindian Holcombe points from the western Great Lakes region and the recently defined CormierNicholas style in New England (Bradley et al. 2008), subsequent Hi-Lo points of the central Great Lakes region are thought to have no correlates in New England or the Maritimes. Conversely, terminal-Paleoindian Agate Basin and Ste. Anne–Varney lanceolate styles have a clearly Northern distribution (Dumais 2000; Jackson 2004), replaced to the South by coeval Hi-Lo and notched projectile points linked to Southeastern and mid-continental earlyArchaic complexes (Ellis 2004; Newby et al. 2005; Smith et al. 1998). The period when these divergences may have begun, ca. 10,300–9500 RCYBP (Jackson 2004), is poorly documented in the lower Great Lakes region. Although both Holcombe and Hi-Lo points are widely distributed in southwestern Ontario (Ellis 2004; Jackson 2004; Stewart 2004; Woodley 2004), a survey of museum collections in western New York and the adjacent Niagara peninsula of Ontario recovered no Holcombe points, although Hi-Lo points were present in low numbers (Pengelly and Tinkler 2004; Smith et al. 1998). Recently we identified three Holcombe points and three Hi-Lo points in excavated collections from two discrete loci at the Eaton site, Erie County, New York (Figure 1). The Eaton site is located on a silty loam terrace developed from glacial outwash and lacustrine silts originally deposited below early Lake Erie late-Pleistocene high stands. Ca. 10,400–10,100 RCYBP, the Lake Erie water plane fell 2.3–1.3 m below its current level (Pengelly et al. 1997). During this low stand, Cazenovia Creek cut down to expose resistant chert-bearing Onondaga Formation limestone bedrock, creating the terrace in the process. Two of the Eaton Holcombe points were manufactured from Onondaga chert, accessible < 10 km from the site today and perhaps in Cazenovia Kevin P. Smith, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University, Box 1965, Providence, Rhode Island 02912; e-mail: [email protected] William E. Engelbrecht, Department of Anthropology (emeritus), Buffalo State College, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York; e-mail: [email protected] John D. Holland, Holland Lithic Laboratory, 1020 Humboldt Parkway, Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, New York; e-mail: [email protected] CRP 27, 2010 SMITH ET AL. A B 143 C 3 0 cm D E F Figure 1: Late-Paleoindian diagnostics from the Eaton Site, Erie County, NY. A, C, failed Holcombe fluted preforms; B, complete, refit Holcombe point; D, F, complete, resharpened Hi-Lo points; E, miniature Hi-Lo point. Creek’s entrenched early-Holocene bed; the third is made from Seneca chert, accessible less than 2 km from the site. All three are delicate and symmetrically flaked. The complete point is 42.4 mm long, 13.2 mm wide at the base, 20.8 mm wide at midpoint, and 5.7 mm thick, with a 1.9 mm deeply concave base, sharp basal ears, and bifacial basal thinning. Two fragmentary Holcombe bases are 16.0 and 17.7 mm wide at the base, 4.1 and 5.0 mm thick, with basal concavities 1.3 and 1.9 mm deep, respectively. Both are unifacially fluted. These points conform to published descriptions of Holcombe bifaces (Fitting et al. 1966; Jackson 2004; Justice 1995; White 2006). While the presence of three in close proximity suggests that a Holcombe component was present at Eaton, the site’s multicomponent nature (Engelbrecht 1994), plowing, and continuous use of Onondaga and Seneca cherts make it impossible to separate a complete late-Paleoindian component from the Eaton site lithic assemblage. In size and proportions, the Eaton site Holcombe points are intermediate between Holcombe points from Ontario (Jackson 2004) and Cormier-Nicholas points from the Nicholas and Esker (Maine) and Reagan (Vermont) sites (Moore 2002; Ritchie 1957; Robinson 2009), all of which are more delicate than Holcombe points from Michigan, Indiana, or Ohio. At the Esker and Hidden Creek (Connecticut) sites, these points are associated with dates of 10,090 ± 70 RCYBP (Beta-103284, Spiess et al. 1998) and 10,260 ± 70 RCBP, respectively (Bradley et al. 2008). The Hi-Lo points from Eaton include two complete, resharpened examples (32.5 and 36.7 mm long) and one miniature point, 19.1 mm long and 14.1 mm wide. All are slightly side notched, thick (8.2 and 8.8 mm for the full-sized points), crudely flaked, basally thinned but unfluted. These conform to published examples from western New York (Smith et al. 1998; Tankersley et al. 1996), Ontario (Ellis 2004) and the Great Lakes region (Justice 1995) but have no clear parallels in New England. 144 SMITH ET AL. Archaeology: North America The Eaton site expands the number of Holcombe and Hi-Lo points known from western New York. Although both metric and non-metric attributes of the Eaton site Holcombe points support assertions of affinity between the Holcombe and Cormier-Nicholas types, neither these nor the Eaton site Hi-Lo points directly address assertions of population replacement (White 2006) or in-situ development (Ellis 2004) at the Holcombe/Hi-Lo interface. References Cited Bradley, J. W., A. E. Spiess, R. A. Boisvert, and J. Boudreau 2008 What’s the Point?: Modal Forms and Attributes of Paleoindian Bifaces in the New England-Maritimes Region. Archaeology of Eastern North America 36:119–72. Dumais, P. 2000 The La Martre and Mitis Late Paleoindian Sites. 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