No abstract

Cactus Hill is located in the Virginia Coastal Plain on a terrace above the Nottoway River. The site has a record of occupation that spans the Holocene and also offers evidence of humans late in the Pleistocene before Clovis time. Soil investigations identified several deposit types, and demonstrated that multisequal eolian sands forming the site's primary core are arrayed in spatially and temporally discrete horizons. Resting atop an ancient paleosol, the earliest sand stratum (19,540 ± 70 14C yr B.P.) is marked by a conspicuous but culturally sterile buried surface horizon. Eolian sand above this surface supports another sequum in which Clovis and underlying “Blade” artifacts are associated with a fainter surface horizon and pronounced subsoil lamellae. Early Archaic and successively younger artifacts occur above the Clovis level in a more weakly developed uppermost sequum. This soil and cultural stratigraphy, together with considerations of regional topography, demonstrate that the landscape has evolved incrementally since about the last glacial maximum. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Twenty thin sections were studied from Cactus Hill, a ca. 20 ka stratified sand dune site in Virginia, USA, with a Clovis and hypothesized pre-Clovis component. The high-resolution soil micromorphology investigation focused on testing the integrity of Clovis and pre-Clovis stratigraphy from one location where there is a high density of artifacts. Site formation processes were dominated by eolian (dune) sand formation. There was also ephemeral topsoil development and associated occupation, along with their penecontemporaneous disturbance and dispersal by scavenging animals (assumed) and localized down-working by small invertebrate mesofauna (as evidenced by aggregates of fine phytolith-rich humic soil and fine soil-coated charcoal fragments). Partial erosion of these occupation soils (deflation?) was followed by successive sand burial. Post-depositional processes affecting these sand-buried occupations involved only small-scale bioturbation and overprinting of clay lamellae, suggesting site stratigraphy has been stable for a long time. Soil micromorphological analysis has defined a difference between occupational units (pre-Clovis and Clovis) and sterile units found between these units as well as above and below. In summary, according to this analysis, the site appears intact with only minor disturbances affecting the long-term integrity of the stratigraphy.