The most ancient peoples of the region can be known ........

Directions: In this section, you have a few short passages. After each passage, you will find some items based on the passage. First, read a passage and answer the items based on it. You are required to select your answers based on the contents of the passage and the opinion of the author only.

For the Northeast, the ancient archaeological record is as rich as for anywhere else on the continent, but because of the historically early settlement of the region by European colonists, it is also unusually rich in archaeological sites from historic times. Of course, the most ancient peoples of the region can be known only through archaeological science, but because the documentary history of European colonization is so incomplete, archaeology is also indispensable for the study of colonial sites. The earliest site in the region is Meadowcroft Rockshelter in western Pennsylvania. The earliest human occupation there probably dates to at least 12,800 BP, perhaps earlier. The Paleoindian period, the hallmark of which was the Clovis

projectile point, came later, 11,200 to 10,000 years ago. Shoop, West Athens Hill, Reagan, Bull Brook, Sheep Rock, Shawnee-Minisink, Plenge, and Debert are important Paleoindian sites in the northern part of the region. Cactus Hill, Thunderbird, and Williamson are key sites containing Paleoindian and perhaps earlier evidence in the southern part. The Paleoindians who left remains at these sites appear to have spread rapidly across the continent after the close of the Younger Dryas climatic episode, a period of renewed severe cold that followed a generally warming climate and is considered the last gasp of the Pleistocene. Paleoindians ranged far and traveled light, using the spear-thrower (atlatl) as their principal weapon. Although their hallmark spear points seem to brand them as hunters, their subsistence base was already broad. Paleoindians hunted, gathered, and foraged for what they could find in an unfamiliar and still unstable range of environments. They did not erect permanent homes, and the exigencies of frequent relocation and exploration did not often allow for the luxury of caching supplies for later use. These were people who could not always be sure that they would come this way again. Yet just like all other human societies, the thin, mobile population of Paleoindians needed networks of human contact for the sake of security, food sharing, and finding mates.

Report error