The Mielke Clovis Site (33SH26), Western Ohio, USA, Geochemical Sourcing, Technological Descriptions, Artifact Morphometrics, and Microwear

Abstract

The Mielke site (33SH26) is a multicomponent locality in western Ohio, in an upland portion of the state that forms a drainage divide between the Great Lakes and Ohio River watersheds. The site possesses a prominent Clovis component that we describe here and assessed via test excavations, geochemical sourcing, technological descriptions, geometric morphometrics, microwear, and GIS analysis. Five different raw materials, whose outcrops are located 150+ km from the site in several different directions, appear to be present. Although our inferences about the activities that occurred here in Clovis times are constrained by the presence of later components and the collecting history of the site, its location and artifacts are suggestive of what type of Clovis site Mielke may have been and how its Late Pleistocene inhabitants may have moved across North America's midcontinent.