Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T01:27:16.546Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Projectile Point Provisioning Strategies and Human Land Use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2009

William Andrefsky, Jr
Affiliation:
Washington State University
Get access

Summary

Abstract

The classification of projectile points in North America often emphasizes the shape and size of the haft element and not of the blade element. Emphasis on the haft element in classification is an advisable strategy because the blade element morphology and size tend to change during the use life of the specimen. This is exactly why the characteristics of projectile point blade elements such as retouch amount, size, and shape are useful for inferring characteristics of technological organization. Variability in retouch amount and location on projectile point blade elements is shown to be directly associated with prehistoric hunter–gatherer land use patterns.

INTRODUCTION

Hafted biface provisioning strategies (production, consumption, discard) have been shown to be directly related to artifact function and processing requirements for various tasks (Ahler 1971; Churchill 1993; Ellis 1997; Frison 1991; Hester and Green 1972; Odell and Cowan 1986; Tomka 2001; Truncer 1988). However, others have shown that hafted biface provisioning strategies are also directly related to human land-use practices and raw material availability (Andrefsky 1994, 2005; Daniel 2001; Flenniken and Wilke 1989; Greaves 1997; Hoffman 1985; Kelly 1988; Sassaman 1994; Tankersley 1994). This is particularly true of hunting and gathering populations, which often leave residential base camps for extended periods of time to acquire resources outside of a one- or two-day spatial range. Such tool makers and users must be equipped with an adequate supply of hafted bifaces while on the move or they must have the ability to resupply their tool kits while away.

Type
Chapter
Information
Lithic Technology
Measures of Production, Use and Curation
, pp. 195 - 215
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahler, Stanley A. 1971. Projectile Point Form and Function at Roger's Shelter, Missouri. College of Arts and Science, University of Missouri – Columbia and the Missouri Archaeological Society, Columbia, Missouri.
Andrefsky, William Jr. 1994. Raw Material Availability and the Organization of Technology. American Antiquity 59:21–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrefsky, William Jr. 2005. Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrefsky, William Jr. 2006. Experimental and Archaeological Verification of an Index of Retouch for Hafted Bifaces. American Antiquity 71:743–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrefsky, William Jr., Centola, Lisa, Cowan, Jason, and Wallace, Erin, eds. 2003. An Introduction to the Birch Creek Site: Six Seasons of Washington State University Archaeological Study. Center for Northwest Anthropology. Contributions in Cultural Resource Management. No. 69. Washington State University, Pullman.
Ballenger, Jesse. 1998. The McKellips Site: Contributions to Dalton Occupation, Technology, and Mobility from Eastern Oklahoma. Southeastern Archaeology 17:158–65.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1977. Forty-seven Trips. In Stone Tools as Cultural Markers, edited by Wright, R. S. V., pp. 24–36. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.Google Scholar
Blades, Brooke S. 2003. End Scraper Reduction and Hunter–Gatherer Mobility. American Antiquity 68:141–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Centola, Lisa. 2004. Deconstructing Lithic Technology: A Study from the Birch Creek Site (35ML181), Southeastern Oregon. M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman.
Churchill, Steven E. 1993. Weapon Technology, Prey Size Selection, and Hunting Methods in Modern Hunter–Gatherers: Implications for Hunting in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. In Hunting and Animal Exploitation in the Later Paleolithic and Mesolithic of Eurasia, edited by Peterkin, Gail Larson, Bricker, Harvey M., and Mellars, Paul, pp. 11–24. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Number 4, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Clarkson, Chris. 2002. An Index of Invasiveness for the Measurement of Unifacial and Bifacial Retouch: A Theoretical, Experimental and Archaeological Verification. Journal of Archaeological Science 29:65–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connolly, Thomas J. 1999. Newberry Crater: A Ten-Thousand Year Record of Human Occupation and Environmental Change in the Basin-Plateau Borderlands. University of Utah Anthropological Papers, No. 121. University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
Cowan, Jason. 2006. Grinding It Out: A Temporal Analysis of Ground Stone Assemblage Variation at the Birch Creek Site (35ML181) in Southeastern Oregon. M.A. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman.
Daniel, I. Randolph 2001. Stone Raw Material Availability and Early Archaic Settlement in the Southeastern United States. American Antiquity 66:237–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Z. J., and Shea, J. J.. 1998. Quantifying Lithic Curation: An Experimental Test of Dibble and Pelcin's Original Flake-Tool Mass Predictor. Journal of Archaeological Science 25:603–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dibble, Harold L. 1997. Platform Variability and Flake Morphology: A Comparison of Experimental and Archeological Data and Implications for Interpreting Prehistoric Lithic Technological Strategies. Lithic Technology 22:150–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dibble, Harold L., and Pelcin, Andrew. 1995. The Effect of Hammer Mass and Velocity on Flake Mass. Journal of Archaeological Science 22:429–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, E. James, Manley, William F., and Lee, Craig M.. 2005. The Emerging Archaeology of Glaciers and Ice Patches: Examples from Alaska's Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve. American Antiquity 70:129–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, Christopher J. 1997. Factors Influencing the Use of Stone Projectile Tips: An Ethnographic Perspective. In Projectile Technology, edited by Knecht, Heidi, pp. 37–78. Plenum Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elston, Robert G. 1986. Prehistory of the Western Area. In Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 11. Great Basin, edited by D'Azevedo, Warren L. (volume editor), pp. 135–48. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Eren, Metin I., Dominguez-Rodrigo, Manual, Kuhn, Steven L., Adler, Daniel S., Le, Ian, and Bar-Yosef, Ofer. 2005. Defining and Measuring Reduction in Unifacial Stone Tools. Journal of Archaeological Science 32:1190–1206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flenniken, J. Jeffrey, and Wilke, Philip J.. 1989. Typology, Technology, and Chronology of Great Basin Dart Points. American Anthropologist 91:149–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, Catherine S. 1982. Settlement Patterns and Subsistence Systems in the Great Basin: The Ethnographic Record. In Man and Environment in the Great Basin, edited by Madsen, D. B. and O'Connell, J. F., pp. 121–38. Society for American Archaeology Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Frison, George C. 1991. Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. 2nd ed. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Gramly, R. Michael. 1980. Raw Material Source Areas and “Curated” Tool Assemblages. American Antiquity 45:823–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greaves, Russel D. 1997. Hunting and Multifunctional Use of Bows and Arrows: Ethnoarchaeology of Technological Organization among Pume' Hunters of Venezuela. In Projectile Technology, edited by Knecht, Heidi, pp. 287–320. Plenum Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greiser, Sally T. 1977. Micro-Analysis of Wear Patterns on Projectile Points and Knives from the Jurgens Site, Kersey, Colorado. Plains Anthropologist 22:107–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, Sean C. 1999. Rocks, Range, Renfrew: Using Distance–Decay Effects to Study Late Pre-Mazama Period Obsidian Acquisition and Mobility in Oregon and Washington. Ph.D diss., Washington State University, Pullman.
Hester, Thomas R., and Green, L. M.. 1972. Functional Analysis of Large Bifaces from San Saba County, Texas. The Texas Journal of Science 24:343–50.Google Scholar
Hester, Thomas R., and Shafer, Harry J.. 1987. Observations on Ancient Maya Core Technology at Colha, Belize. In The Organization of Core Technology, edited by Johnson, J. K. and Morrow, C. A., pp. 239–58. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.Google Scholar
Hoffman, C. Marshall. 1985. Projectile Point Maintenance and Typology: Assessment with Factor Analysis and Canonical Correlation. In For Concordance in Archaeological Analysis: Bridging Data Structure, Quantitative Technique, and Theory, edited by Carr, C., pp. 566–612. Westport Press, Kansas City.Google Scholar
Kay, Marvin. 1996. Microwear Analysis of Some Clovis and Experimental Chipped Stone Tools. In Stone Tools: Theoretical Insights into Human Prehistory, edited by Odell, George, pp. 315–44. Plenum Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, Isabel T. 1964. Southern Paiute Ethnography. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 69. University of Utah, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Kelly, Isabel T., and Fowler, Catherine S.. 1986. Southern Paiute. In Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 11. Great Basin. Edited by D'Azevedo, Warren L. (volume editor), pp. 368–97. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Kelly, Robert L. 1988. The Three Sides of a Biface. American Antiquity 53:717–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Steven L. 1990. A Geometric Index of Reduction for Unifacial Stone Tools. Journal of Archaeological Science 17:585–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrow, Juliet. 1997. End Scraper Morphology and Use-Life: An Approach for Studying Paleoindian Lithic Technology and Mobility. Lithic Technology 22:70–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nowell, April, Park, Kyoungju, Mutaxas, Dimitris, and Park, Jinah. 2003. Deformation Modeling: A Methodology for the Analysis of Handaxe Morphology and Variability. In Multiple Approaches to the Study of Bifacial Technologies, edited by Soressi, Marie and Dibble, Harold L., pp. 193–208. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Odell, George H., and Cowan, Frank. 1986. Experiments with Spears and Arrows on Animal Targets. Journal of Field Archaeology 13(2):195–212.Google Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth E. 1994. Changing Strategies of Biface Production in the South Carolina Coastal Plain. In The Organization of North American Prehistoric Chipped Stone Tool Technologies, ed. Carr, P. J., pp. 99–117. International Monographs in Prehistory: Archaeological Series 7. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Shott, Michael J., Bradbury, Andrew P., Carr, Philip J., and Odell, George H.. 2000. Flake Size from Platform Attributes: Predictive and Empirical Approaches. Journal of Archaeological Science 27:877–94.CrossRef
Tankersley, Kenneth B. 2000. The Effects of Stone and Technology on Fluted-Point Morphometry. American Antiquity 59:498–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomka, Steve A. 2001. The Effect of Processing Requirements on Reduction Strategies and Tool Form: A New Perspective. In Lithic Debitage: Context, Form, Meaning. edited by Andrefsky, Jr. Wm., pp. 207–24. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Truncer, James J. 1988. Perkiomen Points: A Functional Analysis of a Terminal Archaic Point Type in the Middle Atlantic Region. Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology 4:61–70.Google Scholar
Truncer, James J. 1990. Perkiomen Points: A Study in Variability. In Experiments and Observations on the Terminal Archaic of the Middle Atlantic Region, edited by Moeller, R. W., pp. 1–62. Archaeological Services, Bethlehem, CT.Google Scholar
Wallace, Erin. 2004. Obsidian Projectile Points and Human Mobility around the Birch Creek Site (35ML181), Southeastern Oregon. M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman.
Witthoft, John. 1968. Flint Arrowpoints from the Eskimo of Northwestern Alaska. Expedition 10:1–37.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×