Early Human Life on the Southeastern Coastal Plain

Bringing together major archaeological research projects from Virginia to Alabama, this volume explores the rich prehistory of the Southeastern Coastal Plain. Beginning 50,000 years ago, contributors consider how the region’s warm weather, abundant water, and geography have long been optimal for the habitation of people. They highlight demographic changes and cultural connections across this wide span of time and space.

New data are provided here for many sites, including evidence for human settlement before the Clovis period at the famous Topper site in South Carolina. Contributors track the progression of sea level rise that gradually submerged shorelines and landscapes, and they discuss the possibility of a comet collision that triggered the Younger Dryas cold reversion and contributed to the extinction of mammoths and mastodons. Essays also examine the various stone materials used by prehistoric foragers, the location of chert quarries, and the details stone tools reveal about social interaction and mobility. Addressing many controversial questions in the archaeology of the early Southeast, this volume adds new evidence to the ongoing discussions and debates.