The role of plant foods during the fluted-point period (FPP) of North America is contested. Central to this debate is whether the scarcity of FPP macrobotanical materials stems from poor preservation of archaeological features and the macrobotanical remains they might contain or from the limited use of plants during the FPP. Employing summed probability distributions of radiocarbon date frequencies in northeastern North America, we find that FPP hearths are as common as expected, given the small number of well-dated FPP sites in the region. A second comparison shows that northeastern FPP hearths contain macrobotanical remains at a higher frequency than hearths from a region with better preservation and where small seeds formed a part of the diet. The macrobotanical materials so far recovered from FPP hearths in the Northeast show that plant foods contributed to diets during the FPP but that the plant diet breadth was relatively narrow, consistent with a specialized caribou hunting lifeway.

植物性食物在北美的凹槽期（FPP）中的作用是有争议的。这场争论的核心是 FPP 大型植物材料的稀缺性是由于考古特征和它们可能包含的大型植物遗骸保存不善，还是源于 FPP 期间植物的有限使用。使用北美东北部放射性碳日期频率的总概率分布，我们发现 FPP 炉膛与预期的一样普遍，因为该地区的 FPP 地点数量很少。第二个比较表明，东北部的 FPP 炉床含有大型植物遗骸的频率高于保存较好且小种子构成饮食一部分的地区的炉床。