Ecology
Ecology can be loosely defined as the relationship of organisms to their environment. Ecology is a critical component in understanding the life ways of Paleo-Indians because they were always in direct contact with it (much more than most of us are today).
Paleo-Indians arrived in New England during what is known as the Younger Dryas period, an interval of abrupt cooling which occurred during the shift from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epoch.
13,000 years ago, New England was quite different than it appears today. With much more of the worlds water locked up in ice (the "ice-age") sea levels were as much as 150 feet lower, exposing some of the Gulf of Maine (particularly the area off the coast of Massachusetts known as Georges Bank).
Not surprisingly, New England housed different plant and animal species during the Younger Dryas than we recognize today. These plants and animals were better suited to live in cold and more variable climates. It is useful to break down the Paleolithic into three periods in order to describe the different plant and animal species present.
13,000 years ago (cold and glacial)
Flora: Sedge, birch in the north (suggesting open landscape), and spruce in the south (suggesting more closed forest).
Fauna: Mastodons, mammoths, caribou, wolves, and bears.
12,000 years ago (warmer, temporary cold)
Flora: Mixed forest in southern New England (spruce, pine, birch, and alder) and an open Artic environment in the east.
Fauna: Caribou, beaver, and lynx.
11,000 years ago (warmer)
Flora: Pine and oak, with spruce and sedge in the north.
Fauna: Black bear, moose, deer, turkey, and bobcat.