The Appalachian Mountains: A Geological and Archaeological History

Abstract

The Appalachian Mountains are among the oldest and most geologically complex ranges on Earth, formed over a billion years through successive tectonic collisions, including the Grenville, Taconic, Acadian, and Alleghanian orogenies (Hatcher 2010; Tollo, Corriveau, McLelland, and Bartholomew 2004). These events produced a landscape of extraordinary structural diversity, featuring plateaus, ridges, valleys, and karst systems, profoundly shaping ecological systems and human history. This thesis examines the Appalachian Mountains as an interconnected system where geology, ecology, and culture are inseparably linked. The project integrates geological, archaeological, paleontological, and cultural perspectives, focusing on the unglaciated Appalachian Plateau and Ridge and Valley regions. Archaeological case studies, arranged chronologically from the late Pleistocene to the late prehistoric period, reveal how landforms such as rockshelters, salt licks, and river valleys structured patterns of human mobility, subsistence, and settlement (Cobb & Nassaney 2002; Cremeens, Whisonant, and Davis 2003). Paleoenvironmental reconstructions and site analyses demonstrate that caves and karst zones served as ecological refugia and cultural landscapes, preserving evidence of everyday lifeways and ritual activity. The central argument of this project is that the Appalachian landscape was a dynamic force, not a static backdrop. It actively shaped human migration and cultural development over nearly 20,000 years. By arranging sites chronologically, this study shows a direct cause-and-effect trajectory from early, mobile hunter-gatherers to increasingly sedentary and socially complex societies. The Appalachians were not a monolithic barrier. Instead, they formed a resource-rich mosaic of environments whose unique geology repeatedly catalyzed cultural transformation. In doing so, this thesis not only situates Appalachia within deep geological time but also foregrounds its role in shaping the long arc of human history in eastern North America.