Petrographic chert characterization of Bolen projectile points from Florida and implications for hunter-gatherer mobility and social interaction at the onset of the Holocene

While a broad corpus of research exists on Early Holocene archaeological site distributions and cultural adaptations to climate change in the American Southeast, many of these studies lack additional tiers of analysis that might allow for improving our understanding of mobility and social behavior. This paper presents new petrographic chert provenance and lithic technological data for Bolen projectile points from Florida in the context of culture and environment. The data presented here shed new light on Early Holocene mobility in the region and are compared to analogous research from the same study area for the Late Pleistocene. By combining these datasets, new patterns are made visible for the movement and social interactions of Bolen point makers. It is proposed here that during the Late Pleistocene (∼12,900–11,700 Calendar Years Before Present [cal yr BP]) and Early Holocene in Florida (∼11,700–10,000 cal yr BP), hunter-gatherers reorganized their landscape use in the face of increasing aridity, human populations, and sea levels. This reorganization on a shrinking landscape resulted in the formation of new social networks, new lithic conveyance zones, and new areas of geographic overlap which are visible through the lens of chert provenance and notch-treatment data.