It is interesting to note that the Paleo-Indian artifacts described here were found in various topographic situations from mountain-side to flood plain. The same situation apparently exists in other areas of western Pennsylvania and there have not been enough Paleo-Indian artifacts collected as yet to formulate a predictive model for locating other sites. All habitation sites were, of course, not far removed from a source of water but this could be said for sites of later periods also. I doubt that any of the sites mentioned in this paper were discretely Paleo-Indian but future surface work should concentrate on accumulating every scrap of flint as well as the more recognizable artifacts. Paleo-Indian tools other than fluted points are becoming better recognized and their presence on a site can be used to explain site function.
The area of present-day Somerset County was not covered by the Wisconsin ice sheet. However, there is evidence that tundralike conditions existed along the high ridges until approximately 12,700 B.P. (Maxwell and Davis 1972:524). At a nonarchaeological site known as Buckle's Bog, which is located between Meadow and Negro Mountains in Garrett County, Maryland, dated pollen samples indicated that after 12,700 B.P., tree pollen sharply increased and the authors (ibid.) believed that the "changes represent replacement of tundra vegetation by boreal woodland and shrubs." This change was thought to have been caused by a warming trend as the Wisconsin ice sheet and its high fingers into the south retreated.
What effect this change might have had on the Paleo-Indian is not known at this time. Little is known of Paleo-Indian subsistence patterns in eastern North America but if he was not exploiting all available food sources, I would be surprised. He was not exclusively a big game hunter and it may be that the diversity of artifact find locales directly reflects multienvironment exploitation.
In the near future I hope to explore the presence of Paleo-Indian and Early Archaic sites in and around the Somerset Plateau area. We will especially be interested in relating these sites to prehistoric environments and this will necessitate multidisciplinary research by the Somerset Plateau Archaeological Project that will begin during the summer of 1978. It was the existence of the fluted points described in this paper that initiated our interest in this project.
(Richard L. George)
REFERENCE
Maxwell, Jean A. and Margaret Bryan Davis
1972
Pollen evidence of Pleistocene and Holocene vegetation on the
Allegheny
Plateau, Maryland. Quaternary Research, Vol. 2,
No.
4, pp. 506-530.