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ALBERT C. GOODYEAR, Christopher R. Moore, eds. 2018. Early Human Life on the 

Southeastern Coastal Plain. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 434 pp. ISBN 

9781683400622 

KEY WORDS: Coastal Plain, Late Pleistocene, Early Holocene, Pre-Clovis, Younger 

Dryas. 

Albert Goodyear and Christopher Moore’s edited volume compiles the most up-to-date 

paleoclimatic and archaeological research on the prehistoric Southeastern Coastal Plain 

of the United States. The fifteen essays review the available archaeological record to shed 

light on the early human occupation of the region extending from Virginia to Alabama, 

and the adaptive strategies to major climatic and environmental changes which occurred 

over the last 50,000 years. The narrative structure follows a loose chronological sequence 

from the earliest arrivals (Late Pleistocene/pre-Clovis) until postglacial times (early 

Holocene/Early Archaic). It is finely divided into four topical sections that confront the 

latest research trends in Southeastern archaeology: pre-Clovis contexts, demographics 

and settlement patterns, climate and sea level changes, and lithic artifactual analysis. 

The first subtheme covers pre-Clovis cultures in the Southeast. In Chapter 1, Goodyear 

and Moore introduce the natural and geomorphologic features of the Southeastern Coastal 

Plain and early human arrivals. The strategic location of this area, enclosed between the 

Atlantic on the east and the Gulf of Mexico on the west, as well as its warm weather and 

biotic diversity during the Late Pleistocene, turned it into an optimal scenario for human 

occupation. The presence of the Pre-Clovis Clarian lithic complex at Topper site (South 

Carolina) described by Goodyear and Stain in Chapter 2 demonstrates that humans 

peopled the Americas well before the Late Pleistocene. Along the same lines, Ensor 

(Chapter 3) describes the unique resemblance of Capps lithic technology, found at Capps-

Shelley sites in Alabama, to the Old World Levallois percussion-based flat flaking 

technique. Hemmings et al.’s (Chapter 4) reconstruction of the depositional history at 

Vero site (Florida) and recovery of early Holocene nonlocal artifactual material and 



 
 

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thermally altered animal bone, suggest human presence in the area during the Late 

Pleistocene. 

The following thematical section focuses on settlement patterns. In Chapter 5, Harris 

examines the evolution of the paleolandscape along the continental shelf, from Virginia 

to the Gulf of Mexico. The author’s goal is to identify the regions submerged after the 

Last Glacial Maximum in order to locate ancient habitation sites. The results indicate that 

pre-Clovis and Clovis populations may have lived at the edge of the continental shelf 

from 75,000 to 11,000 years ago. Austin et al., in Chapter 6, apply a variant of the quarry 

cluster approach to assign lithic artifacts to geographic areas according to their geological 

characteristics, as well as visual analysis and nondestructive means. Chert procurement 

patterns in Florida show that Paleoindians and Early Archaic populations depended on 

local sources and had a relatively restricted foraging range, although they also accessed 

exotic stones via exchange. In Chapter 7, Smallwood et al. explore the changes in 

Paleoindian settlement in the South Carolina Coastal Plain based on the distribution of 

Clovis, Redstone, Post-Clovis unfluted, and Dalton Paleoindian points across the region, 

as well as the choice in raw material types, and the transport distances from source. 

Chapter 8 and 9 concentrate on the Younger Dryas cosmic event which occurred 12,800 

years ago. Lecompte et al. (Chapter 8) provide a thorough overview of the origin and 

characteristics of the cosmic impact. The authors detail the various primary and secondary 

impact-related proxies in the Younger Dryas Boundary layer and claim that these 

components can be used as chronostratigraphic datum regionally, nationally, and 

internationally. In the following Chapter, Kennett at al. describe the geological, 

environmental, and cultural consequences of the Younger Dryas cosmic collision, 

including abrupt cooling of temperatures, global changes in ocean circulation, 

Paleoindian Clovis decline, and megafaunal extinction. 

In Chapter 10, Moore et al. advocate for the implementation of optically stimulated 

luminescence, combined with sedimentology, archaeostratigraphy, and carbon dating, to 

study site burial processes in shallow and sandy geologic contexts along the Southern 

Atlantic Coastal Plain. Their purpose is to interpret the depositional environment and 

timing of burial processes and link them to cultural or climatic events. 

The final set of essays concentrate on stone artifact analysis. In Chapter 11, Bridgman 

Sweeney applies social network analysis to a large database of archaic lithic artifacts from 



 
 

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the Early Side-Notched Horizon (11,200-10,500 calBP) to reveal ancient social 

boundaries and intergroup interactions within the Coastal Plain. In Chapter 12, Thulman 

analyzes the shape and distribution of 329 Early Archaic Bolen points to establish a 

rigorous typology based on morphometric analyses, and to reconstruct prehistoric social 

organization patterns. In Chapter 13, Wilkinson studies over a thousand Early Archaic 

bifaces and unifaces from the interriverine area spread between the Savannah and the 

Santee rivers (in South Carolina) to understand settlement organization of Early Archaic 

cultures and their subsistence strategies. In Chapter 14, Anderson conducts artifact 

morphological and distributional analyses through the lenses of network analysis and 

cultural transmission theory to study diagnostic stone artifacts. The goal is to delimit 

subregional cultural traditions likely reflecting band ranges and multiband interaction 

patterns. 

Finally, Schuldenrein’s Chapter 15 performs as corollary and sums up the major lines of 

research presented in this volume. The author emphasizes the importance of reevaluating 

the question of the initial peopling of the Southeastern Atlantic Slope and its 

environmental correlates by focusing on complex human/landscape relationships and 

promoting the “inter-disciplinary imperative” in archaeology.  

In my opinion, Goodyear and Moore have put together an accessible, yet 

methodologically complex, account of the early days of Paleoindian cultures in the 

Southeastern U.S.  To non-specialists, this book provides solid background knowledge 

on the archaeological development of the Coastal Southeast. Although it is not meant to 

be an extensive and exhaustive linear chronicle of the prehistoric past of the United States, 

the well planned structure and the narratory flow help the reader to build an Early 

Amerindian timeline. Also, it inspires further reading on the field to fill up the existing 

(albeit inevitable) historical blanks. To specialists, the book gives testimonial evidence of 

the benefits of joining traditional and modern methodologies and theoretical approaches. 

Methodologically, these contributions are significant to the development of prehistoric 

archaeology in the United States as they introduce new scientific technologies into the 

archaeological toolkit, such as geographic information systems, digital modeling and 

imagery, remote sensing technology, and optically stimulated luminescence, which are 

interwoven with traditional methods like sedimentology, archaeoestratigraphy, carbon 

dating, visual analysis, and formal typology. Theoretically, this book makes a scholarly 

statement by addressing many of today’s controversial questions in the archaeology of 



 
 

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the early Southeast, such as the sudden demise of the Clovis technoculture, the 

recognition of the mysterious “Middle Paleoindian” period, or the adoption of the 

Younger Dryas Hypothesis.  

In sum, Goodyear and Moore succeed at consolidating the state-of-the-art knowledge of 

the Pleistocene and Early Holocene archaeological deposits, and presenting it as a point 

of departure for future inquiry. 

 

Irene Martí Gil is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Geography and Anthropology 

at Louisiana State University and the assistant curator at LSU Natural Science Museum, 

where she curates ethnological and archaeological collections since 2020. Her research 

interests range from cultural heritage studies, museology, anthropological linguistics, and 

archaeology. 

© 2022 Irene Martí Gil  

 

 

 


