Geological Society of America Special Paper 297: Archaeological Geology of the Archaic Period in North America

The Archaic was the longest cultural period in the prehistory of North America. Although the timing and duration of the period vary regionally, it spans roughly the six millennia between 8,000 and 2,000 years before present. A number of important cultural changes took place during the Archaic period, including a move toward sedentism, the refinement of a sophisticated hunting and gathering economy coupled with the cultivation of indigenous plants, and interaction and trade among people in distant areas. Given the length of this period and the significance of the cultural transitions that occurred, one would expect that archaeological understanding of Archaic cultures would be thorough. This is not the case, however, and this volume underscores one of the primary reasons why our knowledge is so fragmentary: physical changes that occurred in the land during the Holocene make it difficult to identify Archaic sites.