Misidentified Clovis-age fish bone at Shawnee-Minisink and the problem with single case studies in Late Pleistocene archaeology

Abstract

Paleoindians in North America are often described as specialized big game hunters. Over the years a few sites that show evidence of diversity in subsistence pursuits have been used to argue that Paleoindians were generalized foragers. In this paper, we provide new information on the fish remains reported from the Shawnee-Minisink Clovis site in Pennsylvania, USA. This site has long been touted as an example of generalized foraging by Paleoindians. Through detailed Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analyses and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, we demonstrate that the previous reported fish bone from the Shawnee-Minisink site is not bone but a modern contaminant. We briefly summarize these findings and other published results to show that this single site can no longer be used as an example of foraging diversity by Paleoindians. Based on these findings we caution traditional approaches to identifying calcined bone and the use of single case studies to characterize Early Paleoindian lifeways.