Glassow’s (2015) synthesis of “red abalone middens” on California’s Santa Cruz Island does not include the broader geographic, chronologic, and ecological context to this phenomenon. We explore the wider distribution of these site types and emphasize their importance for addressing modern fisheries management issues.

Ronald Mason’s hypothesis from the 1960s that the southeastern United States possesses greater Paleoindian projectile-point diversity than other regions is regularly cited, and often assumed to be true, but in fact has never been quantitatively tested. Even if valid, however, the evolutionary meaning of this diversity is contested. Point diversity is often linked to Clovis “origins,” but point diversity could also arise from group fissioning and drift, admixture, adaptation, or multiple founding events, among other possibilities. Before archaeologists can even begin to discuss these scenarios, it is paramount to ensure that what we think we know is representative of reality. To this end, we tested Mason’s hypothesis for the first time, using a sample of 1,056 Paleoindian points from eastern North America arui employing paradigmatic classification and rigorous statistical tools used in the quantification of ecological biodiversity. Our first set of analyses, which compared the Southeast to the Northeast, showed that the Southeast did indeed possess significantly greater point-class richness. Although this result was consistent with Mason’s hypothesis, our second set of analyses, which compared the Upper Southeast to the Lower Southeast and the Northeast showed that in terms of point-class richness the Upper Southeast > Lower Southeast > Northeast. Given current chronometrie evidence, we suggest that this latter result is consistent with the suggestion that the area of the Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee River valleys, as well as the mid-Atlantic coastal plain, were possible initial and secondary “staging areas” for colonizing Paleoindian foragers moving from western to eastern North America.

Although Braje and Erlandson express concern with my inclusion of Santa Cruz Island sites containing small quantities of red abalone shells with red abalone middens on the other Channel Islands, doing so is justified because of the discrete period of time during which they occur. They also feel that I should have expanded the scope of my paper to include consideration of relationship between sea otters and red abalone, but this was beyond the intent of my report. Nonetheless, I point out that more explication is needed of the nature of sea otter hunting if its effects on red abalone availability are to be understood.