Dr. Matthew Purtill
A recent column published in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch newspaper highlighted a journal article, “The Road Not Taken: How Early Landscape Learning and Adoption of a Risk-Averse Strategy Influenced Paleoindian Travel Route Decision Making in the Upper Ohio Valley," written by Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences Assistant Professor Matthew Purtill.
Brad Lepper, archaeology curator at the Ohio History Connection and a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Denison University and the Department of Anthropology at Ohio State University at Newark, wrote the column, “Ohio’s first settlers left few footprints but took the long way around.”
In his journal article, Dr. Purtill’s presents findings that suggest how Paleoindian groups may have traveled between the Ohio River and quarries located in what are now Licking and Coshocton counties.
“His conclusions offer important insights into how the first Ohioans settled into an unfamiliar landscape,” Dr. Lepper said. Purtill has been studying two potential travel routes used by Paleoindians, who arrived in Ohio at least 14,000 years ago, at the tail end of the Ice Age.
Purtill has been studying a rare combination of Paleoindian activity at a sprawling Sandy Springs site in Adams County, Ohio. His article appeared in American Antiquity, a peer-reviewed journal, published by the Society for American Archaeology and considered to be the premier journal of North American archaeology.
The newspaper column is available online at Purtill's research website.
