Topper Site Revisited: Exploring Spatial Organization of Clovis Life at the Quarry

ABSTRACT

Topper is one of the largest buried Clovis sites in North America. The decades of archaeological excavations and analyses of Topper assemblages have informed our understanding of Clovis technology, mobility, settlement, and, more recently, chronology in the American Southeast. In this paper, we use spatial analysis to explore intra-site variation at Topper. We find that distance and elevation from the outcrop influenced the organization of core and biface reduction to some degree, as workshop areas were positioned close to the source. Other areas, closer to domestic spaces, were also provisioned with cores. Analysis of the Alluvial Terrace yielded evidence of spatially segregated campsite activities. The scale of excavation and the extent of the site vicinity – covering 629 m² and spanning multiple topographic features – offer an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the spatial organization of Clovis life at the quarry.

KEYWORDS:

• Clovis
• American Southeast
• quarry
• spatial analysis
• lithic technology

Acknowledgements

We have great appreciation for the hard-working volunteers who spent many summers with us at Topper: Alison and John Simpson, Darrell Barnes, Bill Covington, Ernest Plummer, DuVal Lawrence, Wes Muckenfuss, Tom and Betsy Pertierra, Bill Lyles, Carol Reed, Jean Guilleux, Judith Scruggs, Leslie Page, Paula Zitzelberger, Steve Williams, Judy Kendall, Leon Perry, Charles Terry, Lynne Nasi, Martha Christy, Neal Konstantin, Tom Cofer, Terry Hynes, Connie White, Erik Shofner, Henry Wilkinson, Rooney Floyd, Lori Smith, Lorene Fisher, Neill Wilkinson, Pat McGinnis, Bob Cole, Cynthia Curry, Elizabeth Allan, Hal Curry, Anita Lehew, Don and April Gordon, and Ann Judd. Thank you for the years of dedication, support, and friendship. We also thank Clariant Corp for their many accommodations from 1996–2013.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ashley M. Smallwood

Ashley M. Smallwood (PhD Texas A&M University 2011) is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Louisville. Her research interests include the Paleoindian and Early Archaic records of the American Southeast, hunter-gatherer adaptations, and stone artifact analysis.

Albert C. Goodyear

Albert C. Goodyear, III (PhD Arizona State University 1976) is a Research Affiliate for the South Carolina Institute for Archeology and Anthropology. His research interests include Paleoindian and other early prehistoric time periods, the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, lithic technology, and geoarchaeology with a special focus on soil science applications.

D. Shane Miller

D. Shane Miller (PhD Arizona 2014) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures at Mississippi State University and archaeologist whose main interests are the Ice Age colonization of the Americas and the origins of agriculture in eastern North America.

Joan Plummer

Joan Plummer is a volunteer and database manager for the Southeastern Paleoamerican Survey and the Topper site, Martin, South Carolina.

Douglas A. Sain

Douglas A. Sain (PhD University of Tennessee 2015) is a Senior Archeologist for Terracon. His research interests include the prehistoric colonization of the Americas, lithic technology, and the use of spatial data for the development of models to better understand past human behavior. His region of interest is the southeast and Mid-Atlantic United States.

Derek T. Anderson

Derek T. Anderson is an archaeologist and the outreach coordinator at the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University. His research interests focus on Late Pleistocene faunal and lithic resource use in North America.

Thomas A. Jennings

Thomas A. Jennings (PhD Texas A&M University 2012) is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and the Director for the Center for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage at the University of Louisville. His research interests include the peopling of North America, hunter-gatherers, geoarchaeology, lithic technologies, Quaternary environments, curation, and public archaeology.