There is a widespread perception that Rangifer tarandus (caribou) constitutes a critical resource for Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene hunter-gatherers inhabiting the lower Great Lakes region. However, this perception has not been formally tested using the regional archaeological record. To this end, this dissertation constitutes a formal test of the caribou hunting hypothesis utilizing archeological data from lower Great Lakes Paleoindian (ca. 11,500-10,000 14C BP) sites. To formally test the hypothesis that caribou were the organizational focus of lower Great Lakes Paleoindian subsistence economies a heuristic model for a residentially mobile caribou hunting society is constructed from ethnographic and comparative archaeological data. Archaeological data from lower Great Lakes Paleoindians are compared against expected patterning derived from the residentially mobile caribou hunting model to evaluate the extent to which patterned variability in the Paleoindian archaeological record reflects an intensive caribou hunting society.This formal evaluation of the caribou hunting hypothesis indicates that certain aspects of the Paleoindian archaeological record support the idea that caribou were an important resource. In particular, there is some evidence to suggest that more standardized extractive implements and larger, multi-locus, Lake Algonquian coastal sites support an interpretation of intercept caribou hunting. Likewise assemblage level data and regional scale data support the interpretation that Paleoindian inhabitants of the lower Great Lakes region practiced a high rate of residential mobility across large territories (>20,000 km2). Residential mobility, the large size of these territories, and the likelihood for low population density are all characteristics consistent with those modeled for intensive caribou hunting societies. However, and in contradiction with expected patterns, there is less evidence to support the interpretation that Paleoindian bands practiced herd-following, where groups would spatially relocate themselves between the winter and summer ranges of caribou herds. Instead, standardization data and site level data suggest an interior/coastal focus, as opposed to a north/south focus, within the overall organization of the economic system. This realization raises the possibility that caribou herds may have been intercepted during autumn near the coastal zone with the exploitation of other interior resources at other times of the year. In this regard, lower Great Lakes Paleoindian archaeological data conform more closely with central European Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian economies. This pattern contrasts with the classic barren-ground herd following pattern exemplified by ethnographic and archaeological data from the Ethen-edeli Chipewyan.
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