Innovation and cultural transmission in the American Paleolithic: Phylogenetic analysis of eastern Paleoindian projectile-point classes

North American fluted projectile points are the quintessential temporally diagnostic artifacts, occurring over a relatively short time span, from ca. 13,300 calBP to ca. 11,900 calBP, commonly referred to as the Early Paleoindian period. Painting with a broad brush, points from the Plains and Southwest exhibit less diversity in shape than what is found in the East, especially for the later half of the Early Paleoindian period. It remains unclear...