Mark Cole “Colbert and Lauderdale County Paleo Indian Complexes”

Colbert and Lauderdale Counties, situated on opposite sides of the Tennessee River in northwestern Alabama, have long been recognized as two of the richest repositories of Paleoindian cultural material in the United States.  Fluted points receive a great deal of attention among collectors because of their beauty and relative rarity, making it easy to forget Paleoindians were actual people, not simply artifacts.  The sites in this region, many of them clustered in complexes, demonstrate extraordinary intelligence and the Paleoindian's perfectly honed skills as the apex predators of the Tennessee Valley.  If we can think of the prevalence of fluted points as an indicator of how the property was used, we can begin to see these sites, and their lives, through a different lens. 

Mark Cole is no stranger to the Alabama Archaeology Society, submitting literally hundreds of archaeological articles directly associated with North Alabama and the greater Tennessee Valley area.