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Abstract
This research explores the application of an ideal free distribution (IFD) model of settlement and subsistence to the Late Pleistocene and Holocene hunter-gatherer occupations (ca. 14,000 to 3000BP) of the interior Coastal Plain in Georgia. This study focuses on situating the culture history of the Ogeechee River valley, particularly its Coastal Plain extents, within its broader macroregional context, drawing on comparative archaeological and environmental data from surrounding watersheds and physiographic provinces. I address historical and contemporary critique of the interior Coastal Plain as a resource-poor region for Late Pleistocene and Holocene hunter-gatherer occupations. To do this, I constructed paleoenvironmental models using the Bryson macrophysical climate model (MCM) and hindcasted archaeological site and biface distributions to generate settlement models that test IFD predictions. My approach combines synoptic climatological methods, net primary productivity estimates, isometric fossil pollen data for target arboreal taxa, biodiversity indices, and site data to generate a continuous settlement landscape of variable habitat suitabilities through time. I argue that, while IFD explains much of the settlement variation seen in Late Pleistocene settlement patterns, it does not account for the hunter-gatherer settlement patterns seen during the Early and Middle Holocene. Instead, I suggest that IFD variants like IFD with Allee effect (IFDA) and Ideal Despotic Distribution (IDD) more appropriately explain the settlement processes that implicate the creation and maintenance of common pool resource bases and restricted access to products like hickory nuts and high quality tool stone. I propose that incipient management of and access to common pool resources like lithic outcrops and “predictable prey” like mast products may have set up collective action problems that necessitated the creation of incipient social institutions to manage these regularized interactions and activities. I suggest that these loosely integrated institutions manifested in settlement patterns and processes by at least the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene transition.