Byron-

No evidence to date that I know of. Late Pleistocene Caribou remains are sparse and none show evidence of butchery. Dutchess Quarry cave is earliest date I know of and the association btw the caribou bone and fluted point is tenuous at best. 

Hi Bryan, I’ve subscribed to Research Gate as a member of the Anthropology Department at York University because my home department (French Studies) did not appear on the list. I’m a linguist by training. However, after 20 years of research on Mi’gmaq language, culture and history, I have moved closer to anthropology than to any other branch of Social Sciences. This being said, my latest research on Mi’gmaq place names on behalf of the Gaspé Peninsula Mi’gmaq First Nation has prompted me to compare the place names with the archaelological excavation sites. I recently read reports and summaries of most – if not all – of the excavations done in the Gaspé Peninsula during the past century until now (including Anticosti and Magdalen Islands). As you know, the acidityof the soils in the area in combination with the huge changes in sea levels since the Clovis Period, have destroyed or sunk organic remains. There is not much left other than stone tools and sea shells, so to say. However, my research on ancient Mi’gmaq place names reveals many sites in the hinterland of Gaspé Peninsula bearing the Mi’gmaq word caribou (lake, brook, mountain, etc.). An interesting fact is that the word caribou is not shared by other Alonguian languages except Maliseet, a sister language of Mi’gmaq. It might very well be a word that early Eastern Algonquian people borrowed from a linguistic group already living in the area when they arrived there ca 3K BC. And, usually and among other naming techniques, prehistoric peoples would name places based on the kind of resources they could find there. If caribou is a word predating proto-Eastern-Algonquian presence in the area, then caribou hunting can be suspected earlier than 3K BC. It is most probably impossible that you can find physical evidence of this. However, paleo-linguistics might provide you with what you are looking for through abductionist reasoning. In logic, abduction comes to help when one cannot use the usual if A= B and B = C, then A= C. Abduction allows one to say with a high potential of accuracy that, because a hundred percent times when A= B and B = C, then A= C, then in cases we only have A = C, we can reasonably deduce that the missing B must have existed.

Thanks, Danielle, for your rapid and well-informed response, and your new interest in anthropology, which includes archaeology. I'm assuming that you have read some of the papers or corresponded with their archaeological aurhors on the Northeast. They include Dave Keenlyside, Bruce Bourque,  Jon Lothrop, Chelsee Arbour, Mike Gramly, Anthony Jenkinson, Jean-Yves Pintal, Jim Tuck and Stepen Loring. I'm not that concerned about the absence of caribou bone and the need to prove caribou was hunted. It is a special case because its range and migration route (traced via paleo-environment & existing archaeological sites in lines) are unique and reconstructible better than most game. Of the 1002 Barrenland sites reported in my People of Sunlight, actual bone occurs in only a handful, and it was in deep acidic permafrost and had the consistency of toothpaste. Surface bone and antler lasts only 1-2 years because they are chewed by rodents (and caribou!) for their calcium and phosphorous that are missing in their forage. Of course, fish and other game and berries were taken when available. Until I read otherwise, I'm assuming that post-Clovis hunters following the retreating ice after 12,000 years agoto your area also had little choice but to hunt caribou, with megafauna of very limited importance. George MacDonald's Debert site in Nova Scotia is an excellent example of caribou hunting 10,000 years ago where bone was absent. I and others are now reconsidering lancehead traits that suggest jabbing lances, which are mainly ascribed to caribou-hunting at water-crossings. I found this out in 1970 when I began in the Barrens and read about the Chipewyan and actually found hundreds of lanceheads at water-crossings over a dozen years. Regarding your linguistic links, I am very interested and wish they could be applied further than 3000 years, the maximum acceptable because caribou was in your area so early. Do you place the Mi’gmaq there because of linguistics only? People were there at least 7000 years earlier. It's also interesting in this respect when you say that the word caribou is so confined - very intriguing. I hope your paleo-linguistics and abductionist reasoning can help me. Our project is based on caribou range reconstruction based on GIS and the fact that sites are along linear migration routes. We started 5-6 years ago, knowing we must work without bone. On a linguistic matter, I wrote a chapter in a U Utah Press book (Everlasting Winter by Deni Seymour) that the Navajo-Apache descended from the Chipewyan-Dogrib of the NWT, leaving Canada 1000 years ago. Best, Bryan.

PS. I like your posted pic.

Bryan,

I agree with Tom regarding Dutchess Quarry Caves -- the association between the caribou bone and the fluted point there is fortuitous. There is substantial depositional mixing, none of the bones have evidence of butchery, and dating of several other caribou specimens places them well before humans are documented in the region.

I think it's well established that Clovis-related (I prefer "Paleoindian" because it's unclear if "Clovis" culture, as defined in the West occurs in the East at all) peoples hunted caribou to one degree or another, at least in the northeastern portion of the US and eastern Canada.  Caribou bone has been found in direct association (hearth contexts) at several sites (Whipple and Tenant Swamp [NH], Bull Brook [MA], Udora [OT], etc.).  But, by these same standards, they also hunted fox, hare, beaver, fish, and collected a variety of plants and berries.  By far the most abundant evidence suggests hunting of medium-large animals, with a large representation of cervid -- but caribou was not the only cervid present in the region at this time.

Regarding any asserted "pre-Clovis" sites, the only one from the East that I put any credence in is Meadowcroft, and there is no evidence for Pleistocene fauna or subsistence remains in the asserted "pre-Clovis" levels.  In the glaciated portion of the country, "pre-Clovis" isn't really a possibility, unless they were living atop or beneath a 3-km-thick sheet of ice.

The question most archaeologists are concerned with is, at least in the Middle Atlantic and Northeast, the degree to which Paleoindian people relied upon caribou--Did they follow herds? Did they have specific seasonal-related hunting behaviors? Or, did they simply take whatever game they could, and this included caribou when the opportunity presented itself?  My personal preference is that this last point is more in line with the available evidence and with hunter-gatherer behavior.

It should be noted that nearly all large Paleoindian sites in the Northeast, many of which have been interpreted as relating to caribou hunting, are located on fairly well-drained soil in close association with pro-glacial lakes and wetlands (see Spiess et al. 1998 for a good overview).  The Vail site in Maine, which Gramly interprets as a caribou hunting station, is the exception to the rule --- but given that Vail is situated under a modern reservoir, and was adjacent to an active river bed for 10,000+ years, we may never know what the exact geographical setting there was when it was occupied.  Spiess and Wilson (1987) in their Michaud volume note: "extant Paleoindian sites in the New England-Maritimes region, with the exception of several quarry-related sites, are all located on sandy deposits of marine deltaic or lacustrine origin...[t]he Vail site remains the only exception for phenomenon of bog and wetland association with these sand-based sites….It is possible, then, that sites located on a sandy surface adjacent to a bog were desirable locations for exploiting non-migratory game or migratory game in a sedentary portion of their annual cycle." 

A related question is whether barren-ground caribou behavior is the most appropriate analog for terminal Pleistocene caribou in this region.  On these points, you may know better than I do.  But, if it is true that caribou populations of a montane-like ecotype survived in an Appalachian refugia and later colonized eastern North America (and genetics has pretty much confirmed this), then we're probably not dealing with the same behavior during the Late Pleistocene that we see today in tundra/taiga herds (e.g., George River Herd).  Indeed, most biological and ecological literature that I'm familiar with suggests that the long-distance migrations are a thoroughly Holocene adaptation.  Bergerud (2007) suggests that the available data for the East demonstrate that caribou did not (and could not) have kept pace with the retreating glacial margins as they colonized the deglaciated landscape.  He suggests that herds that initially colonized southern Ungava (only deglaciated well after the Pleistocene) were most likely of a sedentary ecotype, drawing an analogy with modern herds whose annual migrations are ca. 60 km, who use water routes as a predatory-escape adaptation, and who have home ranges of ca. 250-2500 km2.  If this is true, then any caribou hunted by Paleoindians in the Middle Atlantic and Northeast were most likely behaviorally similar.

Probably more information than you wanted, but I figured I'd give myAdd your answertwo cents.

Best,

-M

Thanks, Matthew, for your much appreciated comments, I think that I downloaded my 2014 CAA PPt presentation and flier dealing with possible NE NA caribou migration routes based on Barrenland herd behavior on Academia.com, but if you can't find it, email me at:

[email protected] or [email protected]

Both cover aspects of lithic and migration paths of the various post-Clovis fluted point cultures, as represented in archaeological sites and their linear arrangement across the landscape, something absent in most forest game. This was done a year ago and we have added many more sites and comments from their excavators to our project ms., now 300pp. As Tom Bergerud says, migration length is not a sign of Woodland vs. Barrenland herd. It simply reflects what's needed for calf protection. Other cervids were present, but not viable in the north, and I would not put much faith in fox (rarely eaten), hare, beaver, fish, plants and berries because they were neither viable nor sustainable, and they are seasonal, while caribou can be harvested all year by herd followers. The Appalachian herd changed its migratory habits and ecotype from altitude to distance when it entered Canada and had the distance for predator avoidance, rather than water-bodies used further south. Distance was crucial for calving, not forage, because calving grounds are typically somewhat snow-covered with barely emerging plants.

Regarding Duchess Quarry Cave, you may wish to ask Richard Gramly about his new date and data. Caribou were present in Appalachia at least 22,000 years ago. If pre-Clovis people were there, they would have hunted this easily-killed, constantly-moving game. A dozen years of observing conservatively-maintained Beverly caribou herd migrations in the Barrenlands allowed my crews to find most of our 1002 sites, leading me to say "where you find caribou, you will find hunters if people are present". I don't worry about caribou bone absence if hunting camps are found later to be along our proposed routes predicted from paleoenvironmental reconstruction. See http://http-server.carleton.ca/~bgordon/Journal/Web_Journal.htm. Game viability is the key and it points to caribou. If one is locked in a cheese warehouse for a month, one doesn't need to look for missing cheese, and the same applies to caribou bone. Briefly, I think Palaeoindian caribou hunting was more predictable than opportunistic. Vail and other sites along the Megalloway River are one small example of herd-following, a subject of the CAA PPt and what we are currently working on, in conjunction with toolstone transport. As you know, most Barrenland sites are on sand next to rivers and lakes like Northeastern sites, but bogs alongside sites were commonly used not only for calf protection from wolves, but food sources, as caribou, like moose, can also subsist on aqueous plants and have no problem feeding in water.

Re. your point on differences in Woodland vs. Barrenland caribou behavior, it is mainly a function of available range. The George River Woodland sedentary ecotype changed to a migratory ecotype with deglaciation after entering Canada, as the Torngat Mountains and Labrador Coast were ice-free 11,000 years ago, and calving began there 7500 years ago. Its migrations were far longer than any Barrenland herd.

Re. differences in range and migration length of the sedentary George River ecotype in Appalachia and the same herd later to the north as a migratory ecotype is a matter of scale, with lineal arrangements of sites across the landscape applicable in both cases, but foreshortened in the former where we are currently working. The ancestral Pleistocene pre-Appalachian caribou were once a migratory ecotype where its remains can be documented in States across the US from Beringia. Ecotypes change, and long distance migrations happened before the Holocene. Old World reindeer as far west as Spain are another example that descended from Beringian caribou and didn't get there as a sedentary ecotype. When Tom Bergerud (2007) said Northeastern caribou did not keep pace with the retreating ice, I think he was following the change back from a sedentary to a migratory ecotype, something that takes time.

I hope that I've responded well, but suggest you email me directly because I circulate emails throughout the 60 odd people in our project according to what sector they're working in. As an example, Mike Gramly, whom we correspond with regularly, is in our North Appalachian Sector. You are in Missouri west of our Central Appalachian Sector but included under it. We have been reading your and Buchanan's and O'Brien's papers at your university.

Best wishes, Bryan.

Dennis L. Jenkins et al. report reindeer DNA at Paisley Caves  http://pages.uoregon.edu/ftrock/pdfs/jenkins_geochronology.pdf 

Is this useful to your project?

Mark E. Swisher

Thanks, Mark: I included Paisley Cave in the Project ms. 1-2 years ago. Caribou can be traced during the interglacial from Beringia south and then across the US and parts of S Canada to the Eastern Appalachian Refugium where they date near Alabama to 28K, and stayed there into pre-Clovis and Clovis times, ultimately pulling some Clovis hunters north towards Canada as postglacial warming made Appalachian summits forested and unsuitable for calving. It would be fascinating if you linked Paisley caribou.

Dennis reminded me of the particular details of the reindeer. He writes, "The reindeer identification was done by Bonnie Yates [of the USFWS forensics lab in Ashland, Oregon] and was of a very distinctive hair recovered in 14,000-15,000 year old Pleistocene deposits in Cave 2 as I remember it."

  Mark

Bryan, so far, unless I've miscounted, your answer is about 4 ... as a "scientist" I don't think there is enough evidence to "accept" your premise of wide-spread/southern  reindeer hunting ... I object to saying "pre-Clovis" east of the Appalachian divide likely for the same reasons as Matthew Boulanger, and I have less confidence in Meadowcroft than he (because zero is less than some), but I certainly DO NOT object to the concept or existence of pre-Clovis elsewhere (lots of elsewhere, in fact). If Bonnie Yates identified a hair at Paisley as reindeer, then you can have 100% confidence that it was, in fact, reindeer. However, I would NOT place the same level of confidence on the sanctity of the provenience of that hair (any more than I would that single hair with human DNA that Scotty MacNeish had, sticking out of a clod that he claimed had come from a deep 20,000+ year-old profile at Pendejo Cave ... I always suspected (from speaking with field personnel who were there) it more likely came from contamination, i.e., one of the excavators' or lab technicians' beards). I'm not claiming SHENANIGANS ... just saying, without SUPER-STRICT provenance control, it's really easy for a hair to drift around or get blown around from older sediments onto younger ones.

I'm certainly not relying on a hair in one site. Until someone can prove that there was other viable game near the retreating ice front for fluted point hunters, I'll stick to caribou as the most viable, easily-killed game that was harvestable in large numbers by few people. SE archaeologists are surprised that caribou were in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia at 14-24 k and all the way up the Appalachian Chain as herds retreated to Canada. As caribou bone does not preserve well, I found it in only deep frozen levels of a half dozen of the 1003 Barrenland sites in our project. Basically, there was no alternate viable game.