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128 8. Functional Variability in the Late Pleistocene Archaeological Record of Eastern Beringia A Model of Late Pleistocene Land Use and Technology from Northwest Alaska jeffrey t. rasic A rchaeologists working in eastern Beringia acknowledge a considerable degree of variability in the archaeological record of the region at the end of the last ice age, 10,000–12,000  C BP (11,500–14,000 cal BP), but have an uneasy time describing and explaining this variability or, in fact, grappling with the concept of variability itself. Researchers debate the fine points, and often even the most basic outlines, of a spatiotemporal framework to describe assemblages, but three organizational constructs with wide currency are the Paleoarctic tradition or Denali complex (Anderson 1968; Dumond 1980; West 1967, 1996), the Nenana complex (Goebel et al. 1991; Powers and Hoffecker 1989), and the Northern Paleoindian tradition, which encompasses the Mesa complex and Northern Fluted Point assemblages (Clark 1984; Humphrey 1966; Kunz and Reanier 1994; Morlan 1977). Assemblages are classified among these categories based on their age, the presence (and sometimes absence) of certain diagnostic lithic artifacts or technologies, and the particular combinations or proportions of artifact types within entire assemblages. There are differing views regarding which of these organizational categories are valid, which assemblages are to be included within a category, and which traits are most meaningfully used to characterize assemblages. Some researchers, for example, consider the Mesa complex as the hallmark of a distinct Northern Paleoindian cultural tradition and a key organizational tool for the region ’s prehistory (Bever 2006, 2008; Dixon 2001, 2006; Kunz and Reanier 1994), while others interpret the same archaeological data to suggest that Mesa complex assemblages represent a rather nondescript, regional variant of the Denali complex (Holmes 2001; West 1996). Similarly divergent views exist concerning whether the Nenana complex represents a distinct technocomplex (Goebel et al. 1991, Goebel et al. 2003; Hoffecker et al. 1993; Pearson 1999) or is instead composed of a functionally specialized subset of Denali complex assemblages (Bever 2006; Holmes 2001; Potter 2008). Despite these fundamental disagreements there is, surprisingly , wide agreement on perhaps the most fundamental issue of all, the underlying explanation for this kind of region-scale variability. Most researchers who have taken an explicit position see the fundamental cause of variation to be cultural or historical in nature, accounted for by the existence of multiple, distinct cultures, technocomplexes, or cotraditions (Ackerman 1994, 2001; Bever 2001a, 2001b, 2006; Clark 2001; Dixon 1999, 2001; Dumond 2001; Fiedel 2002; Goebel et al. 1991; Hoffecker 2005; Kunz and Reanier 1994). According to this view, the use of particular tools or technological approaches, and the adaptations and lifeways they were embedded within, are rooted in historical tradition and cultural norms. The use of microblade technology in the Denali complex , for example, is explained in terms of its use by Denali people’s forbears in western Beringia. Likewise, the presence within Mesa complex assemblages of lanceolateshaped projectile points and other tools similar to Paleoindian technologies in the midcontinent is interpreted to signify a migration of Paleoindian people between these regions (Hoffecker 2005; Kunz et al. 2003). At the same time, it is acknowledged that many of the differences observed to exist among early assemblages, particularly within a given complex, reflect “functional” or situational circumstances at particular locations, or localized adaptations to specific environmental settings. Archaeologists’ concern with these processes is a longstanding one that gained prominence in the context of Middle Paleolithic studies (Binford 1973; Binford and Binford 1966; Bordes and deSonneville-Bordes 1970); and Functional Variability in the Late Pleistocene Archaeological Record of Eastern Beringia 129 Paleoarctic complexes (Dixon 2001). The functional cast to this argument is a focus on technological systems rather than static artifact types, but the argument is still based within a normative, cultural-historical framework. Technological differences between the respective complexes , as they have been defined, are interpreted to demonstrate the profound differences between their respective users—distinct groups of people distinguished by unique technological repertoires and social concepts as well as by biology and language (Dixon 2001). Other functional explanations are aimed at specific assemblages and used to deemphasize variability and explain away its possible significance. The Akmak assemblage from the Onion Portage site (Anderson 1970, 1988), for example, is often considered to be an anomaly among Paleoarctic sites due to the presence of some rarely encountered tool types and the exceptionally large proportion of whole tools and large cores (Hamilton and Goebel 1999:180; West 1996:547). These deviations, however...

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