Department of Anthropology Professor Emeritus Dr. William Lovis, Assistant Professor Dr. Kurt Rademaker, Adjunct Associate Professor Dr. Randolph Donahue, MSU graduates, and Geography colleagues publish in the journal PaleoAmerica on the 12,200- to 11,600-year-old Hipwater PaleoIndian site in southern Michigan. PaleoAmerica is the premier international journal for research on the earliest human entries into the Western Hemisphere.This interdisciplinary and interinstitutional collaboration included MSU PhD Dr. Dillon Carr, Grand Rapids Community College, MSU Geography Professor Dr. Alan Arbogast, and US Geological Survey Geospatial Scientist Dr. Kevin McKeehan. The research brought to bear a broad range of expertise in postglacial landscapes and geoarchaeology, the organization of stone tool production, elemental analysis of raw materials, lithic microwear analysis of stone tool function, and through the PaleoResearch Institute, the identification of protein residues on stone tool surfaces.  PaleoIndian sites across the Great Lakes region are uncommon, particularly from this time period known as the Parkhill Phase. Analysis of the Hipwater assemblage reveals how the multidisciplinary application of multiple contemporary analytic approaches can greatly enhance our understanding of even some of the earliest postglacial occupations of the Great Lakes region.

Read the full article at: https://doi-org.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/10.1080/20555563.2022.2135478

Abstract: The Hipwater Locale is a small Parkhill Phase Middle Paleoindian (ca. 12,200–11,600 cal yr BP) assemblage from south central lower Michigan, recovered by the property owners and the lead author. Interdisciplinary analysis reveals that the locale is likely a short term but intensive discard location with an assemblage composed of unfinished and broken fluted and unfluted bifaces with almost no associated debitage. There is evidence for a hearth in the form of soil discoloration, fire-cracked rock, color and structural alteration of tool stone, and thermal fractures. Tool-stone sources are local Bayport chert as assessed through hand-specimen characteristics and portable X-ray fluorescence analyses. Microwear and protein residue analyses corroborate the use of one tool fragment for use on rabbit/hare or deer/elk. Implications of the several analyses are discussed and synthesized.