THE EARLY PALEOINDIAN RECORD FROM AUGUST PINE RIDGE: A NEW SITE WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR PLEISTOCENE SETTLING-IN IN CENTRAL AMERICA

In 2023, the Pine Ridge Preceramic Project (PRPP) project was initiated in the village of August Pine Ridge, Orange Walk, to add to our understanding of the Preceramic period of Central American prehistory. Sand quarrying had been unearthing artifacts for over 70 years; this activity eventually came to the attention of archaeologists and collectors alike. The PRPP has begun documenting informal collections held throughout the village while also conducting excavations to understand archaeological contexts and depositional conditions. Based on two seasons of work, August Pine Ridge may be considered one of the most prolific Preceramic sites in Central America; temporally diagnostic artifacts and technologies spanning from Early Paleoindian fluted bifaces to the very latest Archaic are present here, making this one of the few study areas in Central America with a ~10,000-year long record of human occupation. Especially abundant are materials that appear to indicate bi-directional influences from South (Fell, or Fishtail) and North America (Clovis) during what we call the Fluted Biface Horizon, 13,000-12,200 years ago. We have examined approximately 50 specimens that we believe belong to this period and estimate another ~30 exist in collections outside of Belize. August Pine Ridge is one of three of four sites between Sonora, Mexico and Ecuador in northern South America that has produced a similar quantity of artifacts, and the technological record here has significant implications for the early settlement history of Belize, Central America, and the Western Hemisphere.