Population studies should provide a context with which hypotheses concerning the complex and dynamic relationships between population, subsistence, settlement, and social organization may be formulated and tested. Associations between these variables are, however, innately complex, particularly among hunter-gatherers, and thus population accounts tend to be largely detached from those correlates. This article implements an approach grounded in population ecology and settlement demography to evaluate some longstanding impressions regarding the population history of the Middle Atlantic Archaic. It further provides an interpretive context that considers factors such as population density and growth, social organization, and patterns of mobility and land use.
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