The topic of investigation of this thesis concerns a co-extensive analysis of Crete and Anatolia from the beginning of the Early Holocene (ca. 10,000 BCE) to the start of the Bronze Age (ca. 3000 BCE), with a select analysis of other locales in the Aegean, Levant, and eastern Mediterranean for comparative purposes. It has been long supposed in scholarship that the Neolithic on Crete (and, by extension, the Aegean) is of Anatolian extraction, but the claim has hitherto remained un-investigated systematically. Recent DNA studies have bolstered these suppositions, thus providing an appropriate opportunity for more detailed investigation via the archaeological evidence. / The aim of the thesis is two-fold. First, I aim to provide a systematic account of the archaeological evidence from various locales which has the potential to elucidate, materially, any affinities the Aegean and Anatolian locales may have shared throughout the aforementioned period of time. However, more detail will be devoted to phases in which Crete is supposed to have been subject to influx of settlers (early 7th millennium BCE, and late 4th millennium BCE). I shall examine elements such as pottery, chipped stone, settlement patterns, and hypothetical population movements in order to construct a picture of the dynamics in the respective periods. / The archaeological evidence will thus form a platform upon which I shall engage in a discussion using theoretical perspectives drawn from anthropological and sociological theory to answer questions about human comportment, and intentionality with regards to settlement patterns, material culture variation, and movement. Thus, I shall use the archaeological evidence to put forward a series of meaningful assumptions about social structures, people’s outlooks on the environments which they inhabited and experienced, and the motivations and reasons for particular changes. As a result, parts of the thesis will have a heuristic character, but it is hoped that such an approach will foster the capacity for debate in order to enhance the understanding of the dynamics spanning the geographies of the Aegean and Anatolia.

The topic of investigation of this thesis concerns a co-extensive analysis of Crete and Anatolia from the beginning of the Early Holocene (ca. 10,000 BCE) to the start of the Bronze Age (ca. 3000 BCE), with a select analysis of other locales in the Aegean, Levant, and eastern Mediterranean for comparative purposes. It has been long supposed in scholarship that the Neolithic on Crete (and, by extension, the Aegean) is of Anatolian extraction, but the claim has hitherto remained un-investigated systematically. Recent DNA studies have bolstered these suppositions, thus providing an appropriate opportunity for more detailed investigation via the archaeological evidence. / The aim of the thesis is two-fold. First, I aim to provide a systematic account of the archaeological evidence from various locales which has the potential to elucidate, materially, any affinities the Aegean and Anatolian locales may have shared throughout the aforementioned period of time. However, more detail will be devoted to phases in which Crete is supposed to have been subject to influx of settlers (early 7th millennium BCE, and late 4th millennium BCE). I shall examine elements such as pottery, chipped stone, settlement patterns, and hypothetical population movements in order to construct a picture of the dynamics in the respective periods. / The archaeological evidence will thus form a platform upon which I shall engage in a discussion using theoretical perspectives drawn from anthropological and sociological theory to answer questions about human comportment, and intentionality with regards to settlement patterns, material culture variation, and movement. Thus, I shall use the archaeological evidence to put forward a series of meaningful assumptions about social structures, people’s outlooks on the environments which they inhabited and experienced, and the motivations and reasons for particular changes. As a result, parts of the thesis will have a heuristic character, but it is hoped that such an approach will foster the capacity for debate in order to enhance the understanding of the dynamics spanning the geographies of the Aegean and Anatolia.

Two deeply buried, well-stratified, and well-dated components dating to the Early Holocene period were excavated at the Richard Beene site (41BX831) in Bexar County, Texas. This thesis utilizes both qualitative (interpretation of maps) and quantitative (unconstrained clustering) spatial analysis techniques to identify site structure and assess post-depositional disturbance by analyzing patterns among artifact categories, selected artifacts, and features from these components. Results of spatial analysis are compared to expectations of the archaeological record based on previous research. Each component revealed a distinct pattern. The Lower Medina component (ca. 6900 B.P.) is well preserved and spatial analysis showed clear distinctions between domestic and peripheral zones. The Upper Perez component (8800 B.P.) is a fluvial lag deposit of displaced artifacts and fire-cracked rock features. Results of spatial analysis confirmed that most, if not all, of this component is disturbed, revealing no site structure.

Two deeply buried, well-stratified, and well-dated components dating to the Early Holocene period were excavated at the Richard Beene site (41BX831) in Bexar County, Texas. This thesis utilizes both qualitative (interpretation of maps) and quantitative (unconstrained clustering) spatial analysis techniques to identify site structure and assess post-depositional disturbance by analyzing patterns among artifact categories, selected artifacts, and features from these components. Results of spatial analysis are compared to expectations of the archaeological record based on previous research. Each component revealed a distinct pattern. The Lower Medina component (ca. 6900 B.P.) is well preserved and spatial analysis showed clear distinctions between domestic and peripheral zones. The Upper Perez component (8800 B.P.) is a fluvial lag deposit of displaced artifacts and fire-cracked rock features. Results of spatial analysis confirmed that most, if not all, of this component is disturbed, revealing no site structure.

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This thesis documents Agate Basin archaeological remains in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. By extension, it examines the context of the rapidly changing Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene environment. A database of information on Agate Basin sites in the study area is assembled. Site analysis allowed for the examination of Agate Basin adaptations based on radiocarbon chronology, landform use, mobility, resource use, projectile point production and climate and environmental context. The results confirm that Agate Basin producing peoples within Alberta and Saskatchewan displayed variability concerning projectile point production, landscape use, resource extraction, and hunting practice. It appears that Agate Basin producing people within Alberta and Saskatchewan practiced a predominantly broad-based strategy for procuring resources. No evidence exists to support a model of large-scale communal hunting. Likely, the strongest influence on the particular adaptive behaviours of Agate Basin producing people in Alberta and Saskatchewan can be summarized as environmental.

The small number and diffuse distribution of sites with intact Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene occupations in the Southeastern United States consequently makes examining Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene settlement patterning in the region difficult (Goodyear 1999). The Hester Site (22MO569), located in northeastern Mississippi, contains intact Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene deposits that can potentially afford archaeologists with a better understanding of late Pleistocene/early Holocene settlement in the region (Brookes 1979; Goodyear 1999:463-465). Investigations at Hester by Brookes (1979) revealed a stratified site containing artifacts that represented the late Paleoindian through Woodland periods in the Southeastern United States. Burris (2006) developed an alternative typology by re-analyzing the Hester biface assemblage, which demonstrated four discrete occupations at the Hester site. I use formation theory to evaluate the degree to which post-depositional processes have impacted the deposits at the Hester site. I have determined that the Hester site has not been significantly altered by post-depositional processes.

The Lateglacial and Early Holocene are key periods with respect to the understanding of the present-day vegetation and environment. An interdisciplinary approach is important for the study of these changes. Only by interlinking biological and geoscience evidence can we obtain a more comprehensive picture of this key period. It is not possible to interpret any pollen spectrum in the sedimentary record without knowledge of the history of the locality and its vicinity. Rapid climate changes had a crucial effect on the environment and vegetation. Continentality of the climate and a deficit of precipitation amplify the effect of local conditions. Vegetation, as in the case of vertebrates and molluscs, comprises a combination of species of a continental steppe, mountain biotopes and disturbed habitats. This facilitated contact among species and populations that are biogeographically separated at present. Vegetation of the Lateglacial period in the Czech Republic ranges in character from frost barrens in the mountains, through steppe-tundra vegetation at medium altitudes to a continental steppe in the lowlands and pine woodlands constrained to a moist floodplain. The Western Carpathians were covered by a taiga. In the Pannonian Lowland, there were open forests with conifers and broadleaved woody plants....

This dissertation project focuses on three study areas in the middle Tanana Valley (mTV) to provide records of local terrestrial ecological contexts and environmental changes in lowland settings that dated to the Late Glacial and early Holocene (16,000 to 6,000 cal. years ago) in interior Alaska and Eastern Beringia. The archaeological record of the mTV provides a rich history of hunter-gatherer land use dating over 14,000 years old. This project is part of two larger projects focused on prehistoric human ecology and foraging behavior in Eastern Beringia: the Quartz Lake-Shaw Creek Flats Multidisciplinary and Upward Sun River Site Projects. The study areas are spread out across a 4,000 km2 area in the mTV and contain the presence of archaeological sites that have records of well-developed stratification of sediments and soils and preserved macrofossils. Two of the study areas are dune fields: the Little Delta Dunes (including the Upward Sun River Site) and Rosa-Keystone Dunes Fields; the third area is Quartz Lake, one of the largest lakes within the region. As a whole they provide important information to understand the evolution of regional landscapes, paleoecological systems, and paleoenvironmental conditions dating back to 25,000 years ago, over 10,000 years prior to the currently accepted earliest human occupation of the region. Late Glacial and early Holocene landscapes of the mTV were ones of moderate stability and landscape disturbance with high rates of loess and aeolian sand deposition, and the presence of early-to-middle successional vegetation communities (herbs and forbs, shrubs, and deciduous trees) that fostered the presence of diverse mammalian faunal communities that no longer coexist in the region. As the middle Holocene approached, landscapes became increasingly stable with the expansion of the boreal forest and aeolian deposition drastically decreased throughout the mTV. The disturbances that fostered the highly productive early-to-middle successional vegetative communities in the Late Glacial and early Holocene became progressively partitioned in the middle Holocene and primarily relegated to active floodplains. These local ecological contexts can be used to assess changes in Late Glacial and Holocene faunal diversity and in human ecology and foraging behavior in interior Alaska and Eastern Beringia.

The archaeological sites that inform the hypothesized coastal route of entry to the Americas are limited, with fewer than twenty sites older than 11,500 years before present on the Northwest Coast of North America. Late Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological sites are hard to find in this expansive, remote, and heavily forested area due to the complexity of paleoenvironmental change since the last glacial maximum. The study area for this thesis, Quadra Island, in the Discovery Islands, lies in the middle of a gap in knowledge about this time period. Changes in relative sea level have proven to be especially important for early site location on the coast. Predictive modelling has been used to search for new archaeological sites on the Northwest Coast, and is a basic component of cultural resource management practices in British Columbia. Such quantitative modelling can aid in archaeological site survey, but must be used critically. This study integrates quantitative and qualitative modelling with a heuristic method to incorporate more humanistic modelling theory and address some critiques of a traditional predictive modelling approach. In this study, quantitative modelling highlighted target areas which were then evaluated by qualitative modelling. A selection of targets were then subjected to focussed archaeological survey to evaluate methodology, results, and search for new sites. This method is important theoretically because modelling is explicitly used only as a tool and does not label the landscape with values of potential. Modelling was applied in two areas of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data which collectively host more than 4,000 kilometres of potential paleo-coastline. Fifteen new archaeological sites were found during this study, with at least two sites radiocarbon dated to ca. 9,500 calibrated years ago. This methodology could be applied in different archaeological contexts, such as underwater and in different coastal regions. The results of this study have important implications for coastal First Nations and implications for cultural resource management in the province. / Graduate / 2018-11-30