A M Smallwood

Biographic Data

ID20112
NAMEA M Smallwood
GIVEN NAMESA M
FAMILY NAMESmallwood
SIGNATURESMALLWOOD A M
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Louisville
ORCID0000-0003-2945-9061
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS27
TOTAL CITATIONS315
AUTHOR COUNT27
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2010
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX8

  • Late Pleistocene paleoenvironments and social dynamics in the southern Lower Mississippi River Valley

    Open AccessThomas A Jennings, Charlotte D Pevny et al.ARTICLESoutheastern Archaeology2026

    Archaeologists studying the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene records in the Southeast have made significant methodological and theoretical contributions to our understanding of the earliest Native American record. In this paper, we briefly review these contributions. We then present a geographic case study of the southern Lower Mississippi River Valley. Relying on border, behavioral ecological, and cultural transmission theories, we show that …

  • Bifaces to Go (Again)

    A M Smallwood, J David Kilby et al.ARTICLEPaleoAmerica2025

    Bruce Huckell was a pioneer of experimental archaeology. His early work, “Of Chipped Stone Tools, Elephants, and the Clovis Hunters” and “The Denver Elephant Project,” demonstrated how actualistic experiments offer archaeologists powerful interpretative data for understanding Paleoamerican technology and subsistence. This paper builds on a more recent experiment presented by Huckell and colleagues in 2002 entitled “Bifaces to Go: An Experimental …

  • Using maximum entropy modeling of site distributions to explore late middle Holocene origins of horticulture in the Eastern Woodlands

    Jacob Ray, Jacob M Ray et al.ARTICLESoutheastern Archaeology2025References: 14

  • Theoretical and Methodological Contributions from Researching the Earliest Southeastern Record

    A M Smallwood, Jessi J Halligan et al.ARTICLEPaleoAmerica2024

    We review the contributions of archaeologists studying the Pleistocene and Early Holocene records in the American Southeast. Researchers have made great efforts in finding paleoenvironmental proxies for the past, discovering underwater sites, and embracing a record of isolated point finds. With a renewed interest in technological organization and behavioral ecology, researchers study landscape use as adaptive responses and consider the role of so…

  • The oldest house in the Southeast? Identifying a probable Clovis domestic structure at the Topper site, South Carolina

    Thomas A Jennings, Derek T Anderson et al.ARTICLESoutheastern Archaeology2024References: 47

  • Early Evidence of Atlatl Use in the Titicaca Basin

    Lucero Cuellar, A M Smallwood et al.ARTICLELithic Technology2024Cited by: 1References: 3

  • The third dimension of stone points

    Open AccessH L Smith, Thomas A Jennings et al.ARTICLEArchaeological and Anthropological…2024Cited by: 1References: 72

  • Current Research from Center for the Study of the First Americans Scholars

    H L Smith, A M SmallwoodARTICLEPaleoAmerica2023

    The Center for the Study of the First Americans (CSFA) is a collaboration of researchers focused on studying the peopling of the Americas and training students in the theory and methods necessary to address research questions regarding who were the first peoples to enter and spread throughout the American continents, when did they first arrive in the Americas, and from where did they come. This volume of PaleoAmerica presents seven papers that hi…

  • Topper Site Revisited

    A M Smallwood, Albert C Goodyear et al.ARTICLEPaleoAmerica2023

    Topper is one of the largest buried Clovis sites in North America. The decades of archaeological excavations and analyses of Topper assemblages have informed our understanding of Clovis technology, mobility, settlement, and, more recently, chronology in the American Southeast. In this paper, we use spatial analysis to explore intra-site variation at Topper. We find that distance and elevation from the outcrop influenced the organization of core a…

  • A brief history of modeling Early Holocene landscape use in the American Southeast

    D Shane Miller, A M Smallwood et al.ARTICLESoutheastern Archaeology2023References: 26

    The Early Holocene is a critical period in the American Southeast and represents the time between the end of the Pleistocene and emerging cultural complexity of the Mid-Holocene. Due to the limitations imposed by a relative lack of site preservation, an important avenue of inquiry for understanding this period has been connecting the few reported, well-dated sites with the distribution of surface finds to explore how people organized their mobili…

  • Early Archaic landscape use, cultural transmission, and aggregation in the lower Ohio River valley

    Thomas A Jennings, A M Smallwood et al.ARTICLESoutheastern Archaeology2023Cited by: 2References: 27

    In this paper, we use GIS and 2D geometric morphometrics to explore landscape use and social interaction among Kirk Cluster populations in the lower Ohio River valley. Using cultural transmission as a theoretical foundation, we develop models for identifying assemblages produced by macroband aggregations. We show that two distinct populations occupied northern Indiana and southwestern Kentucky. Intensively occupied sites in these areas are situat…

  • Using 3D Models to Understand the Changing Role of Fluting in Paleoindian Point Technology from Clovis to Dalton

    Open AccessA M Smallwood, Thomas A Jennings et al.ARTICLEAmerican Antiquity2022Cited by: 9References: 87

    Fluting is a technological and morphological hallmark of some of the most iconic North American Paleoindian stone points. Through decades of detailed artifact analyses and replication experiments, archaeologists have spent considerable effort reconstructing how flute removals were achieved, and they have explored possible explanations of why fluting was such an important aspect of early point technologies. However, the end of fluting has been les…

  • Do early Paleoindian point blades carry culturally significant shape information? Modules versus complete points using geometric morphometrics

    Open AccessH L Smith, Thomas A Jennings et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science…2021Cited by: 5References: 29

  • Projectile? Knife? Perforator? Using actualistic experiments to build models for identifying microscopic usewear traces on Dalton points from the Brand site, Arkansas, North America

    Open AccessA M Smallwood, Charlotte D Pevny et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science…2020Cited by: 12References: 14

  • Paleoindian Projectile-Point Diversity in the American Southeast

    A M Smallwood, Thomas A Jennings et al.ARTICLEPaleoAmerica2019Cited by: 12References: 30

    Paleoindian projectile points occur in high numbers in the American Southeast, and when compared to other regions of the East, the Southeast has the greatest projectile-point diversity. In this paper, we trace changes in elements of projectile-point design in the region to reconstruct the different evolutionary histories of specific point attributes and how these changes affected Paleoindian point design through time. With this approach, we consi…

  • The Convergent Evolution of Serrated Points on the Southern Plains–Woodland Border of Central North America

    A M Smallwood, H L Smith et al.CHAPTERConvergent Evolution in…2018

  • Clovis and Toyah

    Thomas A Jennings, A M SmallwoodCHAPTERConvergent Evolution in…2018

  • Expressions of ritual in the Paleoindian record of the Eastern Woodlands

    Open AccessA M Smallwood, Thomas A Jennings et al.ARTICLEJournal of Anthropological…2018

  • Redating the Late Paleoindian/Early Archaic Golondrina Component at Baker Cave, Texas and Implications for the Dalton/Golondrina Expansion

    Thomas A Jennings, A M Smallwood et al.ARTICLEPaleoAmerica2016

    Golondrina is a lanceolate point type linked to the Southeastern Dalton tradition that emerged during the Paleoindian to Archaic transition in southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. The type remains imprecisely dated because only a handful of sites have yielded Golondrina points in buried, dateable contexts, and the few radiocarbon dates from these sites often have relatively large standard deviations. In this paper, we present new radiocarbon d…

  • Testing for Evidence of Paleoindian Responses to Environmental Changes During the Younger Dryas Chronozone in Georgia

    A M Smallwood, Thomas A Jennings et al.ARTICLESoutheastern Archaeology2015Cited by: 8References: 18

    For the Southeast, it has been proposed that climate changes during the Younger Dryas period triggered a human population decline and/or substantial reorganization. We use the Georgia point record in the Paleoindian Database of the Americas to test for evidence of changes in landscape use through the Paleoindian period and consider these changes in the context of the Georgia paleoenvironmental record spanning the Younger Dryas. Based on differenc…

  • Exploring late Paleoindian and early Archaic unfluted lanceolate point classification in the Southern Plains

    Open AccessThomas A Jennings, A M Smallwood et al.ARTICLENorth American Archaeologist2015Cited by: 3References: 32

    During the late Paleoindian and early Archaic periods, the Southern Plains witnessed a diversification in unfluted lanceolate point styles. The classification of these points into distinct and meaningful typological groups continues to play a fundamental role in building an understanding of cultural changes at the end of the last Ice Age. In this study, we analyze a sample of points from the Hogeye site, Texas to explore unfluted lanceolate point…

  • Context and spatial organization of the Clovis assemblage from the Topper site, South Carolina

    A M SmallwoodARTICLEJournal of Field Archaeology2015Cited by: 6References: 23

    This paper reports results of a 40 sq m block excavation of the Clovis assemblage from the Topper site, South Carolina. Topper is one of only three buried, extensively excavated Clovis quarry-related sites in North America. The Clovis assemblage was recovered in a buried component distinct from overlying Archaic and Woodland components. The site geomorphology and formation processes and the horizontal distribution of the assemblage are used to id…

  • Pleistocene Human Settlement in the Southeastern United States

    David G Anderson, A M Smallwood et al.ARTICLEPaleoAmerica2015Cited by: 54References: 88

    Research into the earliest occupations in the southeastern United States has been underway since the 1930s, when a pattern of large-scale excavations combined with the reporting of surface finds was initiated that continues to this day. Work at Macon Plateau and Parrish Village, excavated during the New Deal, was followed by a series of stratigraphic excavations in floodplains, rockshelters, and other locales from the 1940s onward. These early st…

  • Building experimental use-wear analogues for Clovis biface functions

    Open AccessA M SmallwoodARTICLEArchaeological and Anthropological…2015Cited by: 48References: 21

  • Clovis Technology and Settlement in the American Southeast

    Open AccessA M SmallwoodARTICLEAmerican Antiquity2012Cited by: 88References: 24

    Kelly and Todd's (1988) 'high-technology forager' model predicts Clovis groups were highly mobile populations that left behind behaviorally consistent records of Clovis fluted points as evidence of their short-term occupations. Anderson's (1990, 1996) staging-area model predicts that Clovis settlement was more gradual; groups entered the continent and slowed migration to concentrate territorial ranges around resource-rich river valleys, and these…