Crossing Boundaries in Early Archaic Research

Presented at 73rd Annual Southeastern Archaeological Conference

Objects of material culture can share social information, referencing other people-groups and even distant places. Ongoing analyses of large assemblages of side-notched hafted tools across multiple scales may assist in the modeling of social boundaries and intergroup interactions throughout the lower Southeast. Mindful that ambiguity plays an important (if implicit) role in considerations of Early Archaic and other ancient hunter-gatherer groupings, I examine the sources of information through which inferences about Early Holocene group dynamics historically have been drawn, discussing some recent uses of spatial and social network analyses in the construction of that past.