Brennan has provided us with a position paper designed to elicit our responses on the Early Archaic period
as currently known in New York State. I will address my remarks to some of the issues he raises and will also
consider other aspects of the subject in the light of contributions made by our current program of research in the
Upper Susquehanna Valley.
This paper is concerned chiefly with the following problems:
1) The identifying or diagnostic traits of Early to Middle Archaic complexes;
2) The external relationships of these complexes;
3) Relative and absolute chronology, i.e. the position of traits and complexes in the northeastern
developmental sequence and their age in 14C years;
4) The geographic distribution of traits and complexes in relation to possible routes of migration
or diffusion;
5) The density or abundance of surviving lithic remains as compared to other periods, with
implications for estimates of population size.