Odell2000-Stone Tools-Procurement and Technology PDF

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Journal of Archaeological Research [jar] PL144-228990 October 26, 2000 12:41 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999
Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol. 8, No. 4, 2000
Stone Tool Research at the End of the Millennium:

Procurement and Technology
George H. Odell1
The literature of stone tool procurement and technology published in the past
decade is reviewed in this article. The presentation attempts to be geographically
comprehensive but, because of where it was written, it provides fuller coverage of
New World publications, particularly those from North America, than of literature
from the rest of the world. Topics covered include raw materials and procure-
ment, flake experimentation, technology, and specific tool types. An article in a
subsequent issue of this journal will discuss issues of function, behavior, and clas-
sification in lithic analysis.
KEY WORDS: lithic analysis; technology; procurement; stone tools.
INTRODUCTION
This article documents trends in the prehistoric production of stone tools,

dividing the subject into raw materials and procurement, flake experimentation,
technology, and specific tool types. A subsequent article will discuss classifi-
cation, function, and behavioral studies, and will contain acknowledgments for
both.
The last systematic review of the lithic analysis literature of which I am aware,
by Yerkes and Kardulias (1993) in this journal, concentrated on two topics: replica-
tion and technological analysis of chipped stone artifacts, and microwear analysis.
The present reviews attempt to cover all principal subtopics in the field since the
early 1990s. They draw more heavily from the North and Central American lit-
erature than literature from any other part of the world, primarily because these
sources were the most accessible to me. I have not knowingly overlooked any
region, but inhabitants of most countries outside the United States will probably
not be very satisfied with my coverage of their area, a failing that I regret. The
1 Department of Anthropology, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104.
269
1059-0161/00/1200-0269$18.00/0
C 2000 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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270 Odell
alternative, however, would have taken considerably longer to produce, possibly

with negligible increase in information.
RAW MATERIALS AND PROCUREMENT
The nature of raw material should be an important consideration for lithic

analysts, but we actually spend very little time deliberating the essence of that
with which we do business. We leave that to geologists, but to our chagrin geol-
ogists have historically never been very intrigued by the types of rocksflints,
cherts, chalcedoniesthat interest us. Therefore, in the archaeological literature it
is difficult to locate much information on processes that impinge on stones either
before or after their deposition in the archaeological record.
I have run across few recent treatises on archaeologically relevant subjects
related to processes that act on stone. In one of these, Sheppard and Pavlish (1992)
studied weathering processes on cherts from Lapita sites on the Reefs/Santa Cruz
Islands in Oceania. The authors submitted thin-sectioned samples to neutron activa-
tion analysis, which allowed them to specify variables that contribute to weathering
of cherts in tropical conditions. They found that cherts with very different degrees
of weathering can be found on the same site; heating and mineralogy affect the
rate of weathering; and variation in soil composition and pH affect the elemental
composition of chert as weathering proceeds.
Studying the patination of cherts in fluvial condition, Howard (1999) argued
that river patina is caused primarily by chemical dissolution of chert surfaces. And
broaching the question of patination as a dating technique, Frederick et al. (1994)
found no correlation between white patina commonly observed on siliceous rocks
and soil pH. They concluded that the extent of patination on stone tools will never
become a reliable dating method.
Mining and Quarrying
Rock mining and quarrying in prehistoric Europe has been detailed in a series
of articles in Ramos-Millan and Bustillo (1997). Notable among these is a general
account of flint mining in Europe by Lech (1997), who has constructed a series of
useful distribution maps illustrating the occurrence of siliceous rocks on several
Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites. One of the most important exploitation ar-
eas discussed by Lech is the Neolithic flint mine at Jablines, France, a landscape
literally pockmarked with mine shafts (Bostyn and Lanchon, 1997). This is the
first flint mine in France to be investigated over a large surface area, albeit before a
new TGV railroad line is constructed. At the Den of Boddam, one of the few flint
sources in Scotland, Saville (1997) documented hollows of flint extraction pits
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Stone Tool Research at the End of the Millennium: Procurement and Technology 271
that have never been farmed. And in the most extensive of the projects reported
in Ramos-Millan and Bustillos volume (Ramos-Millan and Bustillo, 1997), five
papers on the Krzemionki mining complex in Poland describe various elements
of recent research into that remarkable place. They include descriptions of resis-
tivity surveys for the purpose of tracing mining units, faults, and shafts under the
landscape (Herbich, 1997), and reconstructions of commercial systems involving
organized groups of miners competing with each other for extraction of material
(Migal, 1997).
Interesting studies of North American quarries include Cobb and Webbs de-
scription (Cobb and Webb, 1994) of an Onondaga chert quarry in New York that
was most actively utilized in the Late Archaic period. The authors confirm our
suppositions that, near a resource area, bifaces were not subjected to extensive
reuse or rejuvenation. In another study in this genre, Gramly (1992) examined a
Mississippian period workshop of a Dover chert extraction area in Tennessee. He
excavated one household unit from which he estimated the duration of occupa-
tion from the number of ceramic vessels uncovered. From replicative knapping
experiments, he derived estimates of the quantities of various tool types found
on the site, which allowed him to calculate daily and yearly output and labor
investment, and to speculate that the site was the home of full-time lithic craft spe-
cialists. In contrast to the two primary chert resource areas described earlier, Buck
et al. (1994) investigated a dispersed procurement quarry in southern Nevada that
yielded cobbles of chalcedony, chert, siliceous tuff, siliceous claystone, basalt,
and small amounts of obsidian. They documented an opportunistic exploitation
strategy that was probably embedded in the seasonal rounds of the exploiting
peoples.
Not all lithic exploitation areas involved chert, as other kinds of rock sources
were also useful and intimately connected with the lives of the people who exploited
them. In several regions of Central America, for example, obsidian was as abundant
and frequently used as chert. In Mexico, open-pit obsidian quarries often appear as
a series of doughnut-shaped depressions inside an elevated ring of waste chippage
(Healan, 1997). Further north in Wisconsin, Hill (1994) discussed the extraction
of Hixton silicified sandstone used to fashion a collection of Paleoindian projectile
points. During this period, the quarry was probably visited regularly by generalized
foragers who came here in the course of their seasonal rounds to replenish their
tool kits.
Sandstone was also important to Aboriginal peoples in Australia, where the
material served distinct social functions. For instance, Mulvaney (1998) described
a sandstone quarry in northern Australia that contained evidence for the manu-
facture of four different types of implements associated with Dreaming and with
ceremonial exchange relations. A series of specular hematite mines has been re-
ported from Botswana from which the Khoisan and Bantu derived materials that
they smeared on their bodies and in their hair (Robbins et al., 1998).
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Sourcing Analyses
General Considerations
Stones discovered on archaeological sites contain a wealth of information,

some of which is inherent in their very place and nature of origin. Before this
information can be applied to prehistoric occupations, however, it helps to know
where the stones came from. An entire field of study, termed sourcing analysis,
has arisen around determining the origin of specific rocks. The most comprehensive
view of the field, including definitions, sampling considerations, and a massive
bibliography, can be found in Church (1994).
Until a few years ago, the sourcing of artifactual stones was conducted exclu-
sively by visual methods. This is still the method preferred by most archaeologists,
but a few refinements have been added. A recent discovery that some cherts flu-
oresce under ultraviolet light (Hofman et al., 1991) provided one property that
might successfully discriminate one chert type from another. Shockey (1994), in-
terested in the effects that heating might have on this fluorescence effect, tested
three chert types from Oklahoma and Texas. He found no quenching (i.e., effects on
fluorescence) in these cherts at temperatures up to 800 C. He continued his ex-
perimentation in light effects on contrasting cherts taken from primary versus
secondary context (Shockey, 1995). Using polarized light, he found that cherts
from primary context appear more anisotropic (polarized), whereas cherts from
secondary context appear more isotropic (depolarized).
Although some advances in visual discrimination have occurred, most visual
techniques are inevitably subject to a certain amount of inaccuracy, a point empha-
sized by Moholy-Nagy and Nelson (1990). Taking a sample of 29 obsidian artifacts
and 1 unworked nodule from Tikal, they sourced the stones first visually, and then
by X-ray fluorescence. Almost half the sample was classified incorrectly by visual
techniques, highlighting the unreliability of this method for distinguishing the
substantial within-source variability of gray Mesoamerican obsidian.
Shackley (1998) has provided a good synopsis and comparison of the most
commonly employed instrumental geochemical analyses, concentrating on neu-
tron activation analysis (NAA), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and proton-induced
X-ray emission/proton-induced gamma ray emission (PIXEPIGME) analysis. He
stressed that these techniques are not useful without a good understanding of ge-
ology, the chemical variability affecting source areas, and the nature of secondary
depositional processes in the region of study.
As an alternative to the instrumental geochemical techniques currently in
vogue, Larson (1994) advocated a relatively easy, heuristic way of measuring
variability within an assemblage. Originally proposed by Kelly (1985) and known
as minimum nodule analysis, this method is also discussed under piece refitting.
It is not applicable to widespread, homogeneous resources, but it may be helpful
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in situations where the visible attributes of exploited lithic resources are highly
variable. It has been applied extensively, for example, to the varied chert resources
of the Bighorn Mountains of north-central Wyoming (Kelly, 1985; Larson, 1994).
Obsidian
A large proportion of recent sourcing analyses has involved obsidian, a vol-

canic glass that can often be traced to a specific volcanic flow. Because of the
expense of geochemical analyses and limited availability of suitable laboratories,
the origin of most of obsidian is still determined on visual criteria. In instances
where visual and geochemical determinations have been compared, visual tech-
niques have been shown to be considerably less than accurate (e.g., Jackson and
Love, 1991). However, Braswell et al. (1994) have achieved some success in
assigning geological sources on the basis of visual criteria accompanied by ab-
breviated NAA with short irradiation procedures, in which pieces that cannot be
assigned to a source with 95% accuracy are either not sourced or are submitted
to a more extensive NAA procedure. Tykot and Ammerman (1997, p. 1005) also
suggested that, for Mediterranean sources, a combination of visual sorting and
X-ray analysis, using an electron microprobe, can increase sample size to a level
suitable for accurate distributional analysis.
In regions of volcanic activity such as Mesoamerica, substantial sourcing
effort has been conducted using instrumental NAA. This research has provided
characterizations of obsidian sources and contact or exchange relationships for
several Mexican regions and sites (e.g., Joyce et al., 1995; Trombold et al., 1993).
At the San Martn Jilotepeque source in Guatemala, Braswell and Glascock (1998)
were able to distinguish seven distinct chemical fingerprints corresponding to
spatially discrete subsources within the principal source area. Such fine-grained
discrimination, that is, knowing exactly which quarry was employed in a particular
instance, may enable archaeologists to provide information on complex economic
or kin-based relations.
In South America, Ecuadorian sources east of Quito have been characterized
through NAA and XRF analyses, using the Berkeley Reactor Facility (Asaro et al.,
1994). Further south in Chile and Argentina, Seelenfreund et al. (1996) were able
to separate obsidian sources into six major groups by clustering the results of
PIXE/PIGME analyses.
In North America, the Middle Woodland period has always held special fas-
cination because of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere, a long-distance trading and
redistribution network. Most obsidian samples of this period that have been ana-
lyzed originated at Obsidian Bluff, Wyoming, and this was also true of the only
obsidian artifact ever found on a Kansas City Hopewell site (Hughes, 1995). Fur-
ther east, Hatch et al. (1990) submitted some Ohio Hopewell samples for obsidian
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274 Odell
hydration dating and for sourcing through NAA and atomic absorption spectropho-
tometry (AAS) analysis. They detected heterogeneity in the sample and concluded
that the obsidian originated both at Obsidian Bluff and at the Camas-Dry Creek
outcrop in Idaho. Their obsidian hydration dates were spread over several gen-
erations, indicating that not all the volcanic glass on Ohio sites had come from
one collecting trip, as Jimmy Griffin speculated several years ago. This point was
disputed by Hughes (1992), who disagreed with their conclusion that the artifacts
were of different ages.
Hughes cannot argue that all Midwestern Middle Woodland obsidian came
from a single source, however, because his own analysis of four rare pieces from the
American Bottom showed the presence of both Obsidian Bluff and Bear Gulch,
Idaho, sources (Hughes and Fortier, 1997). The Obsidian Bluff source may not
have been as prominent out on the Plains, as an analysis of a recent Lower Loup
phase site in Nebraska indicated a source in the Jemez volcanic field in northern
New Mexico (Hughes and Roper, 1999).
In the North American Southwest, it seems that previously unknown pre-
historic sources of obsidian are being discovered with increasing frequency. For
instance, gravel deposits in the Upper Gila drainage (Shackley, 1992) have now
been identified as important sources of prehistoric obsidian tools. And using in-
ductively coupled plasma (ICP)-atomic emission spectrometry, Stevenson and
McCurry (1990) have identified four regional obsidian sources in New Mexico.
Shackley (1995) has provided a recent synopsis of research in this region.
In addition to the methods mentioned earlier, new ones are continuously
being proposed and compared to the standard fare. In one of these, a technique
employing the magnetic susceptibility of southwestern obsidians was evaluated as
inexpensive and providing some degree of discrimination, but not robust enough
to be used as a sole sourcing measure (Church and Caraveo, 1996).
Most studies of this nature, of course, involve determining the locales or
geologic formations from which obsidian artifacts in archaeological contexts orig-
inated. Although my research for this article has been a little light on Old World
resources, it has been extensive enough to garner the impression that sourcing
analyses are being conducted wherever a few pieces of obsidian show up on ar-
chaeological sites. In many cases, this substance moved a long wayfor example,
from Gollu Dag in central Anatolia to the northern Negev during the Chalcolithic
period (Yellin et al., 1996).
Chert
Artifacts of chert or flint (the two terms are used here interchangeably) are
more common on archaeological sites than those of obsidian, but geochemical
methods for characterizing them have been slow in achieving widespread usage.
Even now, geochemical analyses are too costly to be practical for most situations,
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leaving room for more traditional methods. One of the most useful of these is
petrographic analysis, using thin sections, which has proven successful with data
from the northeastern United States (Lavin and Prothero, 1992) and for charac-
terizing material from Neolithic flint mines from Belgium and the Netherlands
(McDonnell et al., 1997).
Visual attributes of chert have also been characterized statistically with some
success. Such a method was developed by Ferguson and Warren (1992), who
collected visual data on 13 chert types from northern Illinois and eastern Iowa.
Submission to a discriminant function analysis yielded a mean classification accu-
racy of over 90%. From the most discriminatory variables, the authors constructed
a chert identification tree for use in classifying any new piece from among the
types tested.
Geochemical applications include characterization of bluegray cherts (e.g.,
Cobden, Dongola, Wyandotte) that achieved widespread distribution in the Mid-
dle Woodland period of North America. A neutron activation analysis of several
samples from the Clear Creek source area in Illinois yielded homogeneous re-
sults, which were successfully discriminated from Michigan samples supplied
by Luedtke (Morrow et al., 1992). NAA was also used to discriminate Flattop
Butte (Colorado) from South Dakota sources, as well as to characterize the White
River Group silicates from the western United States and distinguish them from
other sources (Hoard et al., 1992, 1993; though see Church, 1995, and Hoard
et al., 1995). Hess (1996) also employed NAA in an initial characterization of
chert sources in Oregons Columbia Plateau, where he established that three of
four pieces that were superficially similar to a local source did not originate
there.
Other Lithic Materials
Chert and obsidian may have been preferred for the manufacture of chipped
stone implements, but they were by no means the only lithic substances employed
by prehistoric people; research into the use and procurement of other materials has
not lagged far behind. This research is difficult to characterize, because work has
progressed on a number of different substances, using a wide variety of analytical
techniques.
Sometimes the simplest methods are the best; petrological techniques have
proven effective in several instances. For example, Cooney and Mandal (1995) have
contributed positively to the Irish Stone Axe Project, whose principal objective
was to determine the location of origin of the prehistoric axes unearthed in that
country. Petrological techniques allowed the authors to establish that porcellanite
was the dominant raw material in the manufacture of these axes, and that a large
proportion of them were manufactured in a limited number of production centers
that exploited a restricted range of resources. Also using conventional petrological
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276 Odell
techniques, Daniel and Butler (1996) characterized rhyolites in the Carolina Slate
Belt, identifying 27 separate quarries.
In other instances, petrological techniques have been used with geochemical
techniques to good effect. In a study that also was ultimately concerned with heavy
tools such as axes, Williams-Thorpe et al. (1999) employed both chemical and
petrological methods to determine the sources of glacial erratics from southern
England. Correlating these results with tools on archaeological sites provided
evidence for the movement of receding Pleistocene ice along established trails and
for human utilization of secondary deposits. Bakewell (1996) employed similar
methods for volcanics from Washington state, beginning with petrological analyses
and proceeding to inductively coupled plasma (ICP) studies of major elements,
trace elements, and rare earths.
Among geochemical techniques used on nonisotropic stones by sourcing
specialists, XRF analysis has enjoyed considerable popularity. Williams-Thorpe
et al. (1999) tested the technique on igneous rocks by comparing two types of XRF
(portable and wavelength-dispersive). They found that, when samples were taken
on fresh surfaces, the techniques compared well, but when they were taken on
weathered surfaces, they frequently yielded different results. Basalts are typically
porous, vesicular, and rough and have been troublesome to analyze by using X-ray
fluorescence. However, Latham et al. (1992) developed a nondestructive XRF tech-
nique that does not require smooth surfaces and seems well suited to archaeolog-
ical applications. Hermes and Ritchie (1997a,b) also developed a nondestructive,
energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) technique for characterizing trace
elements from felsitic rocks in New England.
Geochemical techniques other than XRF have also been used to character-
ize igneous and metamorphic rocks. For instance, Weinstein-Evron et al. (1995)
submitted basalts from two sites in the Levant to KAr dating and an AAS anal-
ysis. The latter established that the closest source to these sites was 60 km away,
suggesting long-distance exchange by 13,000 years ago. Some discrimination of
red ochre deposits from the western United States has been attained using PIXE
PIGME techniques, though between-source compositional variability may exceed
within-source variability in some cases (Erlandson et al., 1999).
Finally, some effort in North America has been expended on steatite and catli-
nite, substances that are noteworthy in the prehistoric production of ceremonial
pipes and other carved objects. Penman and Gunderson (1999) employed X-ray
powder diffractometry analysis on catlinite found on Oneota sites in Wisconsin,
concluding that the material came from the Pipestone Quarry in southwestern
Minnesota. Truncer et al. (1998) used NAA to discriminate samples from eight
steatite quarries in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Transition metals like
zinc, cobalt, and iron proved to be better discriminators than did rare earth elements.
And Hughes et al. (1998) attacked the conventional wisdom that all Hopewell plat-
form pipes, especially the concentration associated with Illinois Havana Hopewell
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sites, were quarried and manufactured in southern Ohio. Employing a suite of

techniques including XRF, petrological, and distributional analyses, the authors
established that all of the Havana Hopewell pipes were probably made from the
berthierine-rich flint clay deposits of northwestern Illinois. Likewise, it now ap-
pears that the famous pipes and figurines fabricated at Cahokia during the Missis-
sippian period were also made of local flint clays (Emerson and Hughes, 2000).
These findings have obvious ramifications for distribution studies, involving the
Hopewell Interaction Sphere and subsequent Mississippian trade networks.
Use of Raw Materials
Descriptions
Descriptions of specific raw materials are not infrequent in the literature. The
most extensive treatment of flint and chert, including characteristics, origins, and
chemical and mechanical properties, has been offered by Luedtke (1992). This is a
good general background with which to compare descriptions of individual source
areas.
Resource descriptions for specific areas have also been offered, especially in
western North America, and particularly Wyoming. For instance, Church (1996)
studied the Bearlodge Mountains of northeastern Wyoming, from which he tested
chalcedonies, cherts, and orthoquartzites by macro and micro descriptions, ul-
traviolet analysis, and X-ray fluorescence. From these he generated a model of
high-potential lithic resource procurement areas for the region. Also in Wyoming,
Smith (1999) reported on 179 obsidian artifacts from 18 excavated and dated sites,
tested through XRF techniques. He determined that huntergatherers employed
obsidian from different sources in different ways, depending largely on the dis-
tance of the site from the source of raw material.
Site/Area Comparisons
Several recent studies have contrasted contemporaneous sites or inhabited

areas where raw materials were abundant with those where they were rare to provide
a perspective on the usage of raw materials in different situations. Differential
occurrence of specific substances on different sites can be monitored through
raw material frequencies and through various typotechnological variables, and
compared with gravity models of falloff from source. In one study, Kuhn (1991)
compared Grotta Guattari, which possessed an abundance of pebble chert, with
Grotta di Sant Agostino, where stone raw material was not available locally. The
effects of raw material availability were evident in the higher proportion of tested
cobbles and casual cores at Guattari, but not in the frequency of retouched tools.
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278 Odell
These were less abundant at Sant Agostino despite the paucity of local toolstones,
suggesting that tool users were not compelled to conserve their material through
constant sharpening. They may have been stockpiling the resource. Cores found
in localities distant from sources were more completely consumed, a form of
economizing behavior (Kuhn, 1995).
Ricklis and Coxs analysis (Ricklis and Cox, 1993) of Late Prehistoric sites
along the Texas coast adds support for gravity models. One procurement site in their
sample lay near exposed Pliocene gravels, whereas the others were distant from
it. The further a site was from the source, the lower the flake : tool ratio, the greater
the percentage of bifacial thinning flakes, and the shorter the Perdiz points became.
The intensity of tool production at a particular locality was dependent not on trade,
but on organization of technology. This relationship has also been reported from
northern New Mexico, where Newman (1994) established that the mean volume
of flakes (L W T ) became smaller with distance from the source.
Other studies, however, have rejected such models. Henry (1992), for instance,
compared two Jordanian Middle Paleolithic sites where the availability of raw
materials differed greatly. Material abundance at the sites did not fit a gravity model
of falloff from the source, but could be best interpreted as having been caused
by differences in mobility organization. In another study, an analysis of three
contemporary Early Neolithic North African sites showed that, despite varying
distances from the lithic source, all had similarly sized debitage. The need for
bladelets and flakes of a certain size overrode transportation constraints to the
point that distancedecay models became inapplicable (Close, 1999). Distance
decay models also appear to have limited validity for southeastern Italian Late
Paleolithic sites (Milliken, 1998).
Comparing sites with differing relationships to a material source can provide a
perspective on regional organization of labor with respect to this technology. Work-
ing in the Maya region of Belize, Dockall and Shafer (1993) and Dockall (1994)
developed a producerconsumer model in which the principal producer site, Colha,
was compared to consumer occupations at Santa Rita Corozal, Pulltrouser Swamp,
and Nohmul. Studies of oval bifaces showed that, at the consumer sites, technology
was geared toward maintenance and recycling. Consequently, these assemblages
contain few broken or aborted bifaces and distal fragments and no evidence for
primary reduction; the length of their bifaces is considerably shorter than at the
producer site. Colha provided formal tools to be used in a restricted range of tasks.
A similar situation prevailed thousands of miles away in an entirely different
context: the northern Italian Copper and Early Bronze Ages, the same region
and period as Utzi, the recently discovered Alpine Ice Man (Spindler, 1994). At
a quarry/workshop in this region, Negrino (1998) documented the specialized
production of ogives similar to, though somewhat smaller than, the Colha oval
bifaces, which were mass-produced and transported around the region for the
manufacture of small daggers such as the one Utzi possessed.
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Use of Materials Within a Site or Component
Useful information can be gleaned from the distribution of raw materials

within a site, as Hayden et al. (1996) have shown for the Keatley Creek settlement in
interior British Columbia. At this large winter aggregation, the authors established
that each pithouse unit contained a different spectrum of the five major raw material
groups present on the site. From these data they concluded that (1) each house
constituted a corporate group; (2) these groups had practiced the same lifestyle for
a long time; and (3) the groups went to different areas during their spring dispersal.
Most other studies of this nature have employed typotechnological data for
their interpretations. An analysis of an assemblage from the Combe-Capelle Bas
site in France, for instance, established that nonlocal cores were smaller than local
ones were, having been reduced further. According to predictions, but in contrast
to the Sant Agostino example cited earlier, a higher percentage of nonlocal than
local material was retouched (Roth and Dibble, 1998).
Studies from western North America demonstrate that different raw materials
were employed for specific kinds of tools. At one upland locale in Oregon, formal
tools made of lowland cherts were transported there and replenished by local
andesites (MacDonald, 1995). The exotic cherts and obsidians were represented
primarily by finished tools and final-stage debris, whereas local andesites were
represented by early- and middle-stage bifaces and expedient tools. In another
study from western North America, local raw material dominated the expedient tool
category, whereas nonlocal materials dominated the formal tool types (Andrefsky,
1994). Exotic materials in this region were occasionally maximized by bipolar
reduction.
Working within the Paleoindian period, Amick (1999) established that Folsom
people were selective in their choice of raw materials for specific tool types. They
employed nonlocal materials disproportionately for weaponry and local materials
predominantly for nonprojectile types such as scrapers. Finally, continuing work
at the Hanson site in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming has shown that Phos-
phoria chert was brought into the site as preforms, which then were fashioned into
projectile points and endscrapers. The preponderance of bifacial thinning and edge
retouch flakes of Phosphoria chert in contrast to the abundance of core reduction
flakes of Morrison quartzite illustrates the different uses of these two substances
(Ingbar, 1992).
Use of Materials in Different Periods
Raw material use changed over time in most regions, though the mechanics
of this change have usually not been specified. But in one recent study of the
Estremadura region of Portugal, Thacker (1996) illustrated different exploitative
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280 Odell
strategies of Upper Paleolithic Gravettian and Magdalenian groups that sequen-

tially inhabited this region. Magdalenian people were more sparing of resources
than Gravettian folks were, moving their flint further, using smaller implements,
and engaging in a more expeditious use of quartzite. To the northeast, in the Polish
region around Krakov, Kozlowski (1998) also established that different procure-
ment strategies were practiced by the Gravettian, Epigravettian, and Magdalenian
groups.
Differences in raw material distribution may be attributable to differences
in their relative accessibility. Studying West New Britain obsidian sources that
have been utilized for the past 20,000 years, Torrence et al. (1996) found signifi-
cant differences in their patterns of exploitation. These differences were probably
caused, in part, by sea level changes and tectonic uplift that affected the Willaumez
Peninsula, where some of the most important sources were located. Changing rela-
tionships between land and water may have caused the inundation of some sources
and changed the overall accessibility of others.
Other investigations suggest that sociopolitical factors played an important
role in raw material distributions, and that these effects varied from one period to
another. In one recent study in northern New Mexico, Walsh (1998) related raw
material diversity to local competition for chert, obsidian, and basalt resources.
His results suggest that ready availability (high diversity) of resources in the Early
Coalition period gave way to constricted use of space and competition for resources
(low diversity) in the Late Coalition period. Diversity increased again in the Classic
period, as aggregated settlements established buffer zones that allowed people to
range freely within a territory.
Political, or at least social, considerations were also foremost in a study of
archaeological obsidian and chert on the Reefs/Santa Cruz Islands of Melanesia
(Sheppard, 1993). In these remote islands, in which all toolstone materials had
to be imported, the amount of obsidian transported to the sites decreased over
time. Because these tools were not utilized more thoroughly than other tools were
and their use was not specialized, reasons for the decline probably relate to the de-
creasing social or political value of the commodity. Likewise, lack of sociopolitical
import was a factor in a study of igneous rocks from central Arkansas that were
used as heavy-duty tools from the Middle Archaic through Poverty Point periods
(Rolingson and Howard, 1997). The widespread distribution of these materials
indicated that the dominant Toltec Mounds polity did not control access to these
materials or process them.
Artifact Distributions
The idea of a distribution can be understood in a variety of ways, of which I

consider only two. The first is the spatial distribution of artifacts within a region or
a site. Because this topic is more effectively discussed as a separate methodology
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than with lithic analysis, my discussion here is brief. Regionally, Takacs-Biros

analysis (Takacs-Biro, 1998) of raw material use in the Middle Neolithic through
Chalcolithic periods of Hungary is noteworthy. In this study, density maps were
presented for six raw material type groups for each of three periods, a procedure
that facilitated the detection of trends in raw material utilization in Central Europe.
Using lithic materials, a few intrasite spatial analyses have been conducted
recently. One such investigation involved a Gravettian habitation in Austria that
yielded distinct clustering of scrapers (Montet-White and Williams, 1994). A
second study synthesized spatial patterning for several Western European Pale-
olithic sites. Koetje (1994) detected three basic types of internal spatial patterning
hearth-focused, area-focused, and structure-focusedand produced some evi-
dence for similar general use of localities from the Lower Paleolithic through
Magdalenian periods.
The other type of distribution considered here is the differential occurrence
of raw materials and type groups within a region. For instance, using grid data
and analytical techniques employing dimensional analysis of variance, Ebert and
Camilli (1993) compared distributions from various sites from the Seedskadee
survey in Wyoming. Their goal was to derive quantitatively based impressions of
the degree of expedient or curated tool use in the region.
Concentrating on a specific raw material, Peterson et al. (1997) inspected ob-
sidian patterning on 11 Hohokam sites in the American Southwest. They detected
limited evidence for trade in finished products, a relatively even distribution of
obsidian across several large platform mound sites, and the occurrence of nonlocal
obsidian at smaller sites without public architecture. They concluded that a kin-
based reciprocity model best fit their data. In a similarly conceived investigation,
Tankersley (1994) monitored the distribution of several well-known chert types
on Clovis sites. He concluded that stylistically homogeneous and selective Clovis
artifacts moved large distances in a single directionrepresentative of what one
might predict from a colonizing population.
FLAKE EXPERIMENTATION
Some of the most important current work in the field is being accomplished
experimentally, in attempting to understand the mechanical processes that con-
tribute to the fracture of brittle solids. This research is different from replicative
experimentation in that, instead of recreating a particular object and the human
motor responses necessary to produce it, flake experimentation is primarily con-
cerned with the mechanical principles of fracture, it provides tight controls on
relevant variables, and it carefully measures specific attributes of the systems un-
der scrutiny. In my opinion, understanding the ways rocks break constitutes the
heart of lithic analysis, because this element is essential for comprehending pro-
cesses of reductionthe quintessential lithic imperativeas it governs the form
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282 Odell
of both manufacture and usewear. Without understanding this element, we cannot

understand the field. Some detail is necessary to explain what is going on here.
In one series of experiments, Bradbury and Carr (1999) compared soft- and
hard-hammer percussion and biface, uniface, bipolar, and core reduction, assert-
ing that there is room for both stage- and continuum-based approaches among
our standard techniques. Employing a continuum model, they developed a classi-
fication function enabling a researcher to distinguish biface from core reduction
flakes.
Apart from this, most of the recent work in this field has been accomplished
at the University of Pennsylvania, using a mechanical device that drops steel ball
bearings onto plate glass cores. The basis for most of the recent studies in this genre
is Dibble and Whittakers analysis (Dibble and Whittaker, 1981), which arrived
at two paramount conclusions: (1) for any platform angle, mass is a function of
platform thickness (PT) and (2) for any PT, larger exterior platform angles (EPA)
result in larger flakes. This study established PT and EPA as variables essential
for comprehending how rocks fracture. The good news is, these are not variables,
such as angle of blow or weight of indenter, that can no longer be measured on
archaeological specimens; they are measurable entities that appear in any collection
of chipped stone tools and are thus available to any interested prehistorian. To make
sure that this was the case, Dibble and Pelcins study (Dibble and Pelcin, 1995)
reestablished that both indenter mass and velocity are important, but that neither
has a major effect on determining flake mass; 81% of flake mass is accounted
for by EPA and PT. The essential concept here is flake mass, which controls other
variables; for example, an increase in a variable such as EPA necessitates a decrease
in other variables such as PT to render the same mass.
These relationships were reinforced by another set of experiments in which
Pelcin (1997c), using steel ball indenters and glass edge cores with a constant
blow angle of 70 , varied EPA at increments of 15 , 35 , 55 , and 75 . He found
that flake initiation is determined not by amount of force or indenter type, but by
PT and EPA. PT also affects terminations, for as this variable increases there is a
progression through six termination types. An unexpected result of this study was
that one can produce bending flakes with a hard hammer by increasing PT on a
core with a low EPA. Thus the indicators we have been using to distinguish hard-
from soft-hammer percussion should be reexamined.
These variables were also tested by Dibble (1997) on a sample of 12,000
complete flakes from Europe and the Near East. He demonstrated that both EPA
and striking platform area (PT PW or platform width) affect flake weight,
whereas scar morphology has little relation to the size of the flake. Striking platform
morphologies differ as a function of raw material, each raw material type having
its own curve for these relationships.
Another study (Pelcin, 1997b) determined the effect of indenter type, com-
paring ball bearing (hard) to antler (soft), at a 70 angle. Results showed that antler
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flakes were longer and thinner with no difference in width, but with less expansion.
No difference in mass was produced by the two indenter types. Antler-produced
flakes had thinner bulbs of percussion for small PT, though there was no signif-
icant difference for large PT. Perhaps most important for analysts, lipping of the
impacted area did not distinguish indenter type.
Pelcin (1997a) also investigated the role of core surface morphology on re-
sulting flakes, using steel balls and controlling two variables: edge versus face core
and 55 versus 75 angles of blow. As before, flake length and thickness increased
with increases in PT; more importantly, flakes from the edge core were longer than
those from the face core, although there was no difference between the average
mass of the flakes removed from the two core types. This experiment determined
that an increase in PT increases flake mass, but core morphology determines how
mass is distributed. Conversely, flake mass is unaffected by core morphology.
Of course, there has been a reaction to all these steel balls being dropped
onto cores with undifferentiated flat dorsal surfaces. Cores simply never look like
that, and at some point there is a need to relate these findings to the real world.
In an attempt to render these results useful for analysts, Davis and Shea (1998)
knapped 33 obsidian flakes, used (actually, abraded) them, and then sharpened
them. The authors confirmed the relationship between flake mass and platform
area, but an attempt to use Pelcins predictor equation of predicted mass : reduced
mass resulted in at least a 33% underestimation of original flake mass. As they
saw it, Pelcin failed to adequately incorporate platform width (PW) along with PT
and EPA in his calculations. The authors advocated the use of triangular-shaped
cores in experiments like this.
In his reply, Dibble (1998) agreed that the omission of PW in the calculations
probably led to a systematic error in the result. Pelcin (1998), however, did not
agree that PW was an important enough variable to be included, citing support
for this position from his dissertation and new data, suggesting that the accuracy
of estimating original flake mass can vary considerably depending on the type of
initiation. Thus we ought to separate conchoidal from bending flakesa pretty
difficult distinction to achieve in reality. He also defended the original experimen-
tal program, saying that these were laboratory-controlled conditions and are not
directly applicable to real-life conditions. But here we return to Davis and Sheas
reason for testing these propositions in the first place: If there is no relation, then
who cares?
TECHNOLOGY
By technology I mean the various processes that contribute to the production

of stone tools, including strategies of manipulation and sequencing, knapping
equipment, and knowledge of raw materials and operative forces. This is a large
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284 Odell
and complex subject, and I have created divisions somewhat arbitrarily, according
to where research efforts have been conducted.
Flintknapping
Times have changed for flintknappers. As depicted sympathetically in

Whittakers interview (Whittaker, 1996) with one of the last of the Cypriot knap-
pers, in most areas of the world this is a relict trade whose economic worth has been
superseded by other technologies. For 10 years, before such knappers became ob-
solete in the 1950s, Alphredos Andreou traveled from village to village, repairing
threshing sledges and making inserts for them for separating grain from chaff and
for breaking straw into small bits. Similar technologies are still being employed
for the manufacture of flint inserts for threshing sledges in Segovia, Spain (Benito
del Rey and Benito Alvarez, 1994). Theirs was a relatively simple technology but
only a few people were proficient in the craft, particularly in its later days.
Likewise, observations of flintknapping among Highland New Guinea natives
before the incursion of metals revealed a simple, hand-held, hammer-and-core
technology with no core preparation (Watson, 1995). Flintknapping is still being
practiced among the Lacandon Maya, though increasingly rarely. Clarks recent
study (Clark, 1991) demonstrated how blade workshops can be identified among
these people and suggested spatial relationships between dumps and workshops.
Today flintknapping has become popular once again but, as Mike Collins
has reminded me, both as an avocation and as an unscrupulous, market-oriented
activity. The pursuit of profit has recently spawned a huge controversy over the
origin of beautifully crafted Clovis and other Paleo points that began showing
up on antiquities markets in the late 1990s. Some nifty detective work by Ken
Tankersley pointed the finger at a modern knapper from Georgia, who ultimately
admitted the forgeries (Preston, 1999).
The practice has spawned at least three manuals designed both as profes-
sional sources and as how-to books for the novice (Baena Preysler, 1998; Patten,
1999; Whittaker, 1994), though Waldorfs The Art of Flintknapping (Waldorf,
1979) continues to be a strong influence, particularly on the avocational practi-
tioner. Inizan et al. (1992) have produced a competent compendium of common
techniques and terminology, particularly for European technologists. Studies of
the results of knapper behavior are of obvious import to archaeologistsas, for
example, Kvammes recent development of an exponential equation (Kvamme,
1997) for the distribution of debris around a standing knapper. Flintknapping also
serves as an effective hands-on tool for generating interest among students in the
more general subject of archaeology (Rosen and Clark, 1996).
In fact, it has become so popular that professionals are beginning to worry
about contamination of the prehistoric record by the remains of modern practi-
tioners (Dickson, 1996). The most recent even-handed analysis of this situation is
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by Whittaker and Stafford (1999), who documented the increasing destruction of

archaeological sites and the creation of bogus ones by modern flintknappers. The
authors appraisal of modern knapping by avocationists is not overwhelmingly
negative, however, because (1) professional archaeologists engaged in this pursuit
have also unwittingly created bogus sites; (2) many avocational knappers are very
protective of the archaeological resource; (3) knap-ins have provided a valuable
learning environment for lithic technologists; and (4) the interface between pro-
fessionals and avocationals engaged in this activity has provided one of the best
reality checks we have of the publics perception of archaeology.
One could ask, What sorts of people are pursuing this activity these days?
This was on Olaussons mind (Olausson, 1998) when she sent out two question-
naires: one to known knappers and a shorter version to novices in her beginning
classes at Lund University. Several qualities of a good knapper became apparent:
patience, competitiveness, handeye coordination, imagining three-dimensional
objects, and a creative or artistic bent. This exercise supported the contention that
this is a male-dominated activity, and that everybody can do it, but only a few can
do it well.
Technological Analyses
A bread-and-butter issue among lithic analysts is the synopsis of tool pro-

duction in an assemblage, that is, depicting the processes used within one cultural
group to bring a piece of stone from nodule or blank to usable implement. Although
they do not ignore by-products, these studies emphasize the end products, or the
tools themselves. These kinds of analyses are too numerous for complete coverage
here, but a few studies suffice to indicate what is being accomplished. I divide the
field into Old and New World applications and general technological issues.
Old World Data
In the literature that I have consulted on assemblage reconstruction, most at-

tention has been paid to the Middle Paleolithic period. Technologists have gained
considerable ground in understanding the Levallois reduction strategy, work spear-
headed by Eric Boedas dissertation and his subsequent studies of French Mous-
terian industries (Boeda, 1986, 1995). Notable among additional analyses are dis-
tinctions between recurrent centripetal Levallois debitage and debitage from
non-Levallois discoidal techniques (Boeda, 1993; Lenoir and Turq, 1995).
Two studies of this period have emphasized non-Levalloisian techniques. In
one, Kuhn (1995) discussed the lithic industries of Grotta di Sant Agostino, Italy.
These do not fit most classical definitions of the Levallois technique, though core
types do not contradict recent definitions of the concept. Kuhn interpreted the
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286 Odell
lack of core preparation at the site as a result of raw material constraints, that is,
use of small cobble blanks. The selection of a cobble with an appropriate cross-
section would serve the same purpose as a prepared Levallois core, rendering the
distinction operationally meaningless in this case. In the second study, Pelegrin
(1995) investigated the incipient blade industries of the Chatelperronian layers
at Roc-de-Combe and La Cote, France. At these sites Neanderthals fabricated
short blades for use as Chatelperronian points. Pelegrin saw no influences from
industries produced by anatomically modern Homo sapiens, suggesting that the
two subspecies generally avoided each other.
Although many of the analyses of Middle Paleolithic material have been
conducted on European assemblages, Africa and the Middle East have not been
neglected. I have not concentrated on these areas, but I would be remiss if I
omitted the work of van Peer (1992) on Levallois strategies in the Nile Valley. His
reconstructions of reduction sequences have demonstrated Mousterian technical
efficiency and standardization in this region, and their determination of flake shape
by controlling the placement of dorsal ridges.
The often-cited BordesBinford debate has provided ample grist for dis-
cussion over the years, and remnants of that debate are still being felt. On the
Bordesian, or ethnic, side of the issue, several scholars have studied one Mous-
terian facies or another, trying to figure out what commonalities hold it together.
Recently Turq (1992) has determined that the Quina facies of southern France,
characterized by a limited degree of core preparation and scarcity of core mainte-
nance products but a high proportion of modified flakes, represented highly mobile
foragers. Primarily in rock shelters, Quina sites were frequently reoccupied and
exhibited a distinct lack of functional specificity.
Van Peer (1991) has been even more explicit in stating that the North African
lithic industries he depicts probably represented ethnic divisions. Based on typo-
logical and technological indices, he noted two very different groups of industries,
which he equated with specific peoples. One of these, an indigenous, riverine-
adapted Nile Valley population, evolved into the Upper Paleolithic inhabitants
of the region. Alongside these people he detected a desert/varied environment-
adapted Nubian population with complex cultural features (van Peer, 1998).
Many American researchers of the Middle Paleolithic have declared,
Nietzsche-like, that Bordes is deadmeaning that, although distinct differences
among Mousterian assemblages exist, variability within them was caused primar-
ily by technological and functional factors rather than by the stylistic elements that
induced Bordes to interpret the divisions along lines of ethnic difference. Freeman
(1992, p. 114) has remained unconvinced of the facies argument on ethnographic
grounds: No sociocultural groups I knew of from the ethnographic record dis-
tinguished themselves from their neighbors by making different proportions of
the same kinds of tools those neighbors made. The concept was also quantita-
tively problematic, as tool assemblages in different facies were rarely significantly
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different from one another in a statistical sense. Freemans latest salvo (Freeman,
1992) detailed a situation impossible to explain in Bordesian terms: large as-
semblages representing different Mousterian facies in a single, relatively short,
occupation level (Cueva Morin, level 16). Using several Middle Paleolithic as-
semblages from southern France, Dibble and Roland (1992) supported this argu-
ment by showing that Mousterian groups varied from one another on suites of
different attributes, each of which varied in continuous, not discrete, fashion. They
also demonstrated some correlation with climate, for example, Quina with cold,
denticulate with warm.
The Middle Paleolithic was not the only period in which tool shapes were
transformed from one type to another, of course. In Upper Paleolithic Dabba in-
dustries at Haua Fteah, for example, Hiscock (1996) showed how scrapers were
modified into burins and vice versa, sometimes repeatedly. This somewhat unique
structuring of an Upper Paleolithic assemblage complicates any attempt to demon-
strate how any type is the end product in a sequence of reduction.
Finally, Chazan (1995) tested the proposition that the Middle/Upper Pale-
olithic transition was the result of language development. He found no significant
differences in cutting-edge efficiency, tool standardization, or assemblage struc-
ture, distinctions that might be linked to linguistic capabilities. Instead, he found
technofunctional differences such as the Upper Paleolithic use of soft hammers,
concentration of retouch on the proximal and distal ends, and inclusion of light
projectile points or blades functioning as barbs.
New World Data
The New World discussed here is mostly North America, though some of
the following is probably generalizable to Central and South America as well.
Because a large proportion of New World assemblages has a bifacial component,
technological discussion tends to emphasize bifacial trajectories. And because
hafted bifaces, often called projectile points, constitute the most specific and labor
intensive of these, they have received the most attention.
In the literature of American lithic technology, there is no more popular
object than the Paleoindian point, primarily because of the distinctive basal fluting
on many of them. Several scholars have tried to establish technological parameters
for these artifacts, such as reduction sequences (Morrow, 1995) and failure rates
(Ellis and Payne, 1995). A technological continuum between North and South
American fluted points suggests their common origin, but specific differences are
also apparent. Morrow and Morrows comparison (Morrow and Morrow, 1999) of
fluted points from North, Central, and South America demonstrated a continuum
of change from one continent to another within three shape indices. The most
striking of these was a gradual increase of the lateral indentation index from
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288 Odell
north to south (indicating increasing fishtailness toward the south). They argued
that fluting developed in the interior of North America and spread north and south
from there, individual attributes eventually diverging through processes of stylistic
drift. Gnecco (1994) showed that, in South America, fluting technology was also
associated with projectile point styles from other periods, impairing its use as a
chronological marker.
An example of this type of study applied to a later cultural group is Keyser
and Fagans analysis (Keyser and Fagan, 1993) of a McKean Culture component
at the Lightning Spring site, South Dakota. The debris was characterized by small
bifacial sharpening and rejuvenation flakes; an analysis of the bifaces revealed a
sequence of flake removals and a legacy of knapping errors. The resulting impres-
sion was that the knappers had a standard template, probably for the manufacture
of Duncan points. In another assemblage from the Great Plains, Ahler (1992) pre-
sented a conceptual system, derived from Schiffers model of systemic context, for
interpreting the reduction sequence of Plains Village arrowheads. Data from 57
fractured and refitted arrowheads resulted in a classification of fracture types and
an assessment of systemic categories. Points might progress through seven stages,
from blank procurement through recycling. Refitting techniques highlighted fail-
ures that arrested an object in a particular portion of the sequence.
Technological analyses have been conducted not just on prehistoric habita-
tions, but on a variety of sites. For instance, refitting and experimentation allowed
Petraglia (1994) to interpret a quartzite quarry on the Potomac River in Virginia.
In several excavation blocks within the quarry, he was able to distinguish specific
activities, from biface production to anvil and hard-hammer percussion of flake
blanks.
Analyses of other sites demonstrate where these blanks and preforms usually
ended up. In one of these small Late Classic sites in Guatemala, Aldenderfer (1991)
was able to specify areas of relatively intense biface production and specialized
unifacial tools, though the initial shaping of cores and the production of tools used
in extractive tasks occurred elsewhere. Deller and Ellis (1992) also determined that
primary reduction at Thedford II, a Parkhill Complex camp in Ontario, occurred
at the quarry, with finished tools and preforms sent to the camp. Despite the lack
of primary reduction, the analysts were able to depict two reduction strategies
for flake blanks and bifacially worked cores. Strategies were characterized by
their differential orientation to the banding within the tabular chert that was being
exploited. In yet another type of site, a protohistoric cache in Oklahoma, Wyckoff
(1992) employed refitting techniques to model knapping strategies.
General Issues
For years lithic analysis has remained without a general how-to guide of
the sort that has proliferated among other material classes, but at long last we have
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one: Andrefskys Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis (Andrefsky, 1998).

Its principal focus is technological, and it should simplify planning for college
courses in this subject.
With respect to new technologies that can be applied to technological analy-
ses, image digitization may provide a solution for a multitude of problems. This
equipment is explained and applied to scraper retouch and biface orientation in
McPherron and Dibble (1999).
Archaeological techniques for understanding prehistoric technology continue
to include experimentation. For example, Sahnouni et al. (1997) were concerned
about the formation of limestone spheroids at Ain Hanech and other Early Pale-
olithic sites in East Africa. One possibility for the formation of these forms was
their employment as cores, so the authors embarked on an experimental program
of making flakes from 150 pieces of limestone. The results revealed a progression
from one known core type through another, all present at the site. The experi-
menters established that spheroids may represent an extreme end of a reduction
continuum for limestone cores.
Not only do techniques like experimentation recur from time to time, but so do
our research questions. One of these is the old eolith controversy, that is, how does
one distinguish artifacts from geofacts? Peacock (1991) was interested in whether
or not some questionable artifacts from a Hoxnian deposit at Kirmington in
southern England were really produced by human beings. He compared artifacts
from known archaeological sites with nonartifactual stones, arriving at eight vari-
ables that were helpful in discriminating between natural and artifactual flakes. The
Kirmington flakes were not a perfect fit for either group, but were closer to the arti-
factual than to the natural side; therefore, some of these flakes are probably genuine.
Debitage Analyses
Marois (1993) has advocated the creation of an archaeological multilanguage

dictionary that would clarify the meanings of commonly used terms in one lan-
guage for users who speak another. A major impetus for such an idea was the
confusion caused by the term debitage, which in French means the action that
consists of the intentional fracture of a block of stone, either to give it a particular
shape or to use the products resulting from that fracture (Marois, 1993, p. 47). In
typical American usage, the term means chipping debris, though Near Eastern
archaeologists employ it to denote blanks that could be made into tools. Because
my research has primarily involved the American literature, the term is used here
to mean chipping debris.
The goal of debitage analysis is to understand the processes of tool production
in a prehistoric society by studying the debris that results from lithic reduction.
In some cases these flakes constitute by-products; in others, they were usable
tools in their own right. Shott (1994) has produced a useful synopsis of recent
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290 Odell
developments in debitage analysis, and Andrefsky (1998) has provided an outline

of the various approaches to the subject.
Testing Types of Analysis
Debitage analysis has always been a difficult endeavor, because the mean-
ing of seemingly undifferentiated flakes is not immediately obvious. A substantial
amount of labor has been expended in finding variables that correlate with specific
parameters in which we are interested. This situation has caused some frustra-
tion among analysts, which explains why Sullivan and Rozens analytical system
(Sullivan and Rozen, 1985) took the field by storm. Discriminating flakes on the
basis of breakage types, it offered a decision key that simplified the process for
even the most inexperienced of analysts. The problem is, what do these breakage
types tell you? The main concern among many analysts has been the very popu-
larity of the system, that is, if everybody decides to analyze their rocks in this way,
and if the results do not provide much useful information, then we will be left with
a huge quantity of analyses that are essentially meaningless.
Needless to say, this fear has spawned an impressive backlash that has con-
tinued well into the 1990s. In one of the latest salvos, Prentiss (1998) produced a
series of experimental debitage assemblages in obsidian, using hard and soft ham-
mers and pressure flakers. He then assigned them to SullivanRozen categories and
sifted the flakes through a 1/4-inch mesh screen. Based on principal components
analysis, the results indicated that the SullivanRozen system is highly reliable in
the sense that it produces consistent results. However, its validity is suspect, as
the variability produced among the five assemblages was so great that distinctive
assemblages could not be identified.
Austin (1999) also replicated debitage assemblages, assigned categories,
screened the flakes, and subjected the data to multivariate analysis (this time,
discriminant function). He achieved high accuracy rates, but only on pure assem-
blages. When he simulated mixed assemblages of patterned tool : core reduction,
bivariate plots of the first two functions yielded centroids intermediate between
centroids of the pure assemblages. Thus he could tell, using these methods,
whether or not a debitage assemblage was mixed and in which direction. In an at-
tempt to isolate factors responsible for assemblage variability, Amick and Maulden
(1997) conducted knapping experiments with cores and bifaces/tools to study the
effects of raw materials on breakage patterns. Using SullivanRozen categories,
they achieved greatest discrimination with split flakes in basalt and quartzite. They
concluded, Breakage patterns fail to behave consistently with any variables other
than raw material (Amick and Maulden, 1997, p. 25) and would not recommend
use of this system for interpreting debitage types.
Morrow (1997) included the SullivanRozen breakage typology in a com-
parison with mass analysis, striking platform attributes, and metric attributes in
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another series of replicated debitage experiments. He found that the only category
that possessed technological discriminatory power in this system was shatter. The
other systems were appropriate for discriminating some parameters, but ineffectual
for others. His principal point was that it is most effective to employ more than
one type of debitage analysis on an assemblage. Indeed, Bradbury (1998) applied
this concept, combining mass and individual flake analyses to establish that an
Early Archaic Kirk-component site in Kentucky functioned as a production center
for bifaces that were transported and used elsewhere. Root (1997) also combined
these two analytical types to estimate tool production at the Benz site in North
Dakota. He found evidence of production for exchange (i.e., production of more
tools than would have been needed for a household) during Late Paleoindian Cody
Complex and Late Archaic times.
Considering debitage analysis from a different perspective, Steffen et al.
(1998, p. 145) have suggested that to treat assemblages as representative of com-
plete reduction trajectories might be counterproductive. Rather, we should consider
tool production as core reduction and treat individual pieces as representative of the
core at the point in the production process when removal occurred; thus, debitage
represents the manufacture process by representing the state of the core. At this
point it is unclear what practical benefit might accrue from this shift in emphasis,
and the idea has not yet been independently evaluated.
Testing Variables
One of the elements that has made debitage analysis so difficult is that analysts
have not been certain which variables were most valuable in discriminating pa-
rameters of interest such as reduction stage or trajectory. At least two studies have
made some headway on this problem. The first (Bradbury and Carr, 1995) involved
a series of 11 reduction experiments in Ft. Payne chert, submitting 8 variables to
cluster and factor analyses. The authors found that lipping was exclusively limited
to soft-hammer reduction, but many soft-hammer flakes do not show this attribute.
Cortex cover varied a lot and should not be employed as a primary defining at-
tribute. The best discriminating variable among platform remnant-bearing (PRB)
flakes was platform facet count; among non-PRBs, it was dorsal facet count. The
use of additional variables increased the probability of success in predicting the
reduction stage.
It is interesting that Bradbury and Carrs study supported Ahlers mass anal-
ysis system, using nested screens, but only for unmixed assemblages. Another
study that employed nested screens involved archaeological debitage from Tula,
Mexico. Under the assumption that secondary refuse areas would contain larger
debris than primary reduction locales would, Healan (1995) used factor analysis
to distinguish refuse dumps from reduction loci. Significantly, primary reduction
occurred between the houses and pits, not within the houses.
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292 Odell
In another experimental assay, Shott (1996b) recorded the replication of a

Gainey fluted point of Wyandotte chert. He found no evidence of discrete stages
in any of the attributes tested; instead, the average log-weight of flakes decreased
and log-scar density increased continuously with the amount of reduction. Like
Bradbury and Carr, he was skeptical about the use of cortex cover to define stages,
as there was no simple decline in this attribute with flake removal number.
Analytical Techniques
Efficiency Experiments
I have already alluded to several techniques that archaeologists have been

using to interpret lithic assemblages. Two that have been relatively popular are
efficiency experiments and piece refitting. Efficiency experiments have been as
varied as the questions archaeologists are required to answer.
Several experiments in primitive agriculture, though not necessarily involving
stone implements, are reported in Anderson (1992b). A popular subject of exper-
imentation in this field is the sickle. Skakun has experimented liberally with this
implement in Bulgaria; in one series she established that sickles of the Karanovo
type, that is, in which the blades are slightly offset from one another, are more effi-
cient than straight-bladed sickles are (Skakun, 1993a). Quintero et al. (1997) also
conducted an extensive series of sickle experiments, establishing important param-
eters with regard to raw material hafting, serration, moisture content, and damage.
Another common subject of experimentation concerns the efficacy of spe-
cific flintknapping techniques. For example, to understand how early hominids
made tools, Schick and Toth (1993) conducted a suite of replicative experiments.
Fontana and Nenzioni (1998) pursued a similar tactic for comprehending the peb-
ble industry practiced prehistorically in the vicinity of Bologna, Italy. Likewise,
Patterson (1995) pursued an experimental trajectory for determining the efficacy
of chert flakes as pressure flaking tools.
Finally, the efficiency of several specific tools has been investigated by these
methods. One of these tools, though most of its apparatus does not involve stone, is
the atlatl and dart (Baugh, 1998; Couch et al., 1999). Another is the stone axe, which
Mathieu and Meyer (1997) compared with bronze and steel axes. They concluded
that all materials were effective for tree trunks of small diameter, but with larger
diameter trunks, the thickness of stone axes became a barrier to penetration.
Piece Refitting
Conjoining flakes or fragments in an assemblage has been a beneficial way to

infer qualities that otherwise would remain conjectural. One of its principal uses
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has been to acquire a detailed understanding of lithic technologies. This goal was
achieved at Tourville-la-Riviere, France, a 200,000-year-old Saalian siteone of
the earliest camps to have yielded this sort of information (Guilbaud and Carpentier,
1995). It has also been employed to establish a diversity of reduction stages and
methods at Acheulean sites in the Somme region of France (Lamotte, 1999).
Another use of refitting analysis is to ascertain the integrity of occupation
surfaces. Jodry (1992), for example, used this technique to infer that the five stone
artifact concentrations at Stewarts Cattle Guard site in Colorado were deposited
on the same surface. Similarly, Grimm and Koetje (1992) documented several
distinct knapping events in the same area of the Solvieux site in France, an un-
likely occurrence if the level was disturbed. In a slightly different vein, Hofman
(1992a) used refitting to demonstrate that a single occupation surface of a site on
a river terrace in Tennessee was represented by material dispersed vertically more
than 50 cm.
Another issue that refitting has helped resolve is whether or not retooling and
curation (in this case, transporting artifacts from one locale to another) occurred.
This was important to Conard and Adler (1997) at Wallertheim D in the Rhineland
because they were dealing with a Middle Paleolithic occupation. Refitting of red
brown rhyolite artifacts in the western concentration at the site supported a retooling
and recycling episode, which strongly suggested advance planning. Of course, the
further one retreats in time, the more conjectural this concept becomes, so evidence
of advance planning at early hominid sites such as Koobi Fora in Kenya can be
quite important in reconstructing the lives of these remote ancestors. Even for this
period, Schick (1991) was able to establish transport distances of 35 km and
frequently more than 10 km. Even if the transport occurred in small increments,
this is considerably more than comparable behavior among modern chimpanzees.
The issue of intersite transport was also of concern at the Early Archaic
Twin Ditch site in the lower Illinois Valley. Morrow (1996) identified several
ghosts (holes in refitted cores from artifacts that were removed from the site)
and orphans (transported-in artifacts that do not refit to anything). These not
only indicated the extent of intersite transport, but also that the sites duration of
occupation was not longer than the use-life of a formal bifacial tool. Similarly,
Closes conjoining analysis (Close, 1996) of sand ripple occupations in the Sahara
of southern Egypt established connections among these settlements that suggested
recycling and a circuitous pattern of movement. These people used pack animals
to haul large stone nodules, and they stockpiled the stone.
Refitting of pieces from one household group to another within a site has been
established most effectively at the Late Pleistocene camp of Pincevent south of
Paris. Here flakes, bone, and rough stone were conjoined not only within major ar-
tifact concentrations, but between them, constituting evidence for contemporaneity
and a communal lifestyle (Bodu, 1991). Occupants spread red ochre liberally on
their cores, perhaps to provide better purchase for the percusser (Baffier et al.,
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294 Odell
1991). And they reduced their nodules within two trajectories: large cores for
large, standardized blades; smaller cores of lesser quality for tools used in more
expedient tasks. Refitting of heated stones allowed the recognition of evolution in
hearth forms (Julien et al., 1992).
Finally, there is the issue of what to do if piece refitting does not work. In
one instance, Durbet (1993) experienced very low proportions of conjoining at an
undisturbed Mousterian site, a situation that suggested complex explanations such
as cleaning around the hearth, and so forth. If there is sufficient variability in raw
material, one could try a minimum analytical nodule (MAN) analysis (see Kelly,
1985). That is, if a piece does not refit to another but one can be reasonably certain
that the two pieces came from the same nodule, this information can be employed
for many of the same purposes as conjoining analyses. MAN analysis has been
successfully applied to sites with chert from the variegated Madison Formation of
the Bighorn Mountains (Larson and Kornfeld, 1997).
Prehistoric Techniques
Bipolar Reduction
Most lithic reduction in prehistory, like today, was probably accomplished

through freehand techniques, so reduction mode is not stated in most reports.
Where this aspect is discussed, it must be notable in its own right. Such a situation
occurs with bipolar reduction, a crude core- or nodule-smashing technique that
would not be worthy of mention except for what it implies about the availability of
raw materials. That is, nobody would normally engage in such uncontrolled knap-
ping behavior unless they wished to conserve material by making use of every last
fragment at their disposal. For example, at the Upper Mississippian Washington
Irving site in Illinois, Jeske (1992) noticed the seemingly degenerate lithic tech-
nology, generally poor raw material, and humpback bifaces present on the site.
The people who fashioned these pieces were not dim-witted or handicapped, they
simply had a lousy toolstone to work with; thus, they were forced to beat it into
submission, resulting in a degenerate-looking lithic assemblage.
One way of regarding bipolar reduction is as a recycling of cores into flakes by
total exhaustion of the cores. Root et al. (1999) have noted this phenomenon among
retouched tools in the Knife River flint quarry area of North Dakota. These they call
radial break tools, produced by smashing the flat side of modified implements
such as ultrathin bifaces. The resulting break edges were then employed as gravers
and straight-edged planes.
Techniques for ascertaining a bipolar technology are varied. Faced with the
availability of only small obsidian clasts in the Mojave Desert, Torres (1998) ex-
perimented with the material to see what could be accomplished. He was able to
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produce an average of three to four flakes per clast that were capable of generating
a small arrowhead. Indeed, this source was important only for small arrowheads in
the later prehistory of the region. Working with trachydacite, or vitreous basalt, in
British Columbia, Kuijt et al. (1995) attempted to ascertain the existence of a bipo-
lar technology not through core forms but through debris. Classifying flakes into
the SullivanRozen system, they found experimentally that bipolar reduction was
characterized by a high proportion of nonorientable and medial/distal fragments,
as well as small size and a high percentage of flakes with cortex cover. The authors
could then apply this information to archaeological assemblages. Similar exper-
imental research designs were applied to Italian lithic assemblages by Milliken
et al. (1998) and Fontana and Nenzioni (1998).
Of course, even using tested debitage characteristics, it is still difficult to know
whether or not an analyst is making correct attributions. This problem bothered
Jeske and Lurie (1993) to the extent that they conducted a blind test. On unmixed
samples, the analyst was 100% accurate for the collection; however, when assessing
a mixed bag of individual pieces, the analysts accuracy rate was only 51.2%.
These results suggest that it is easy to assess the situation when an assemblage
is dominated by either a bipolar or freehand technique, but is considerably more
difficult when assessing mixed collections flake by flake.
As many of these authors have noted, most attributions of bipolar technologies
up to the 1990s were made not on the basis of debitage but on the basis of cores.
This occasioned a spirited debate that has continued into this decade. On one side is
Goodyear (1993), who argued from the vantage of Debert and similar, primarily Pa-
leoindian, sites in the Eastern Woodlands. Noting a correlation between retouched
flakes and bipolar cores at Debert, reanalysis established that the retouched flakes
were made from the bipolar cores. Goodyear also noted that sites containing few
or no bipolar cores, wedges, or pièces esquillees were located near a source of raw
material. These considerations suggested that in eastern North America all items
classified as pieces esquillees or wedges were really bipolar cores.
Reacting to a similar argument advanced by Shott (1989), LeBlanc (1992)
argued that functional wedges existed in prehistory, and that they look a lot like
pièces esquillees (and like some bipolar cores). He interpreted many of these
pièces esquillees as wedges used to work antler and noted that most of Shotts
ethnographic evidence was of bone and antler wedges used for splitting wood.
Shotts subsequent proposal (Shott, 1999) for use of the term splintered piece
the English equivalent of pièce esquilleeis a recognition that value-laden terms
may be counterproductive in a controversy of this nature.
Thus the debate continues. Through usewear analyses that I have conducted,
I know that functional wedges existed, but so did bipolar cores. I suspect that both
sides grasp part of the truth, and that the only resolution for this problem will be
on a case-by-case basis, employing the most relevant type of analytical technique
for the problem.
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296 Odell
Heat Treatment
Ever since the 1960s, when modern scholars realized that heating silicates
under certain conditions enhanced their knappability, they have been attempting
to ascertain whether or not specific collections evince this technology. The de-
velopment of methods to do so has continued into this decade, as illustrated in
Borradaile et al. (1993). Working in iron-rich deposits in Thunder Bay, Ontario,
these researchers tried magnetic methods of discriminationthat is, magnetic
susceptibility, saturation isothermal remnant magnetization (SIRM), and natural
remnant magnetization (NRM). They found that, with heat, changes in suscep-
tibility versus SIRM are dramatic, enabling them to determine the possibility of
prehistoric heat alteration. These researchers have since attempted to expand rock-
magnetic techniques to characterizing the materials themselves, that is, sourcing
(Borradaile et al., 1998).
Dunnell et al. (1994), working with less ferruginous cherts in the American
Midwest, were able to detect heat alteration, using electron spin resonance. Ap-
plying their technique to Dover and Mill Creek cherts, they established that the
hoes into which these tough cherts were made were rarely thermally altered when
used as hoes, but were heated when recycled into something else.
New methods have been applied to materials other than chert, though with
mixed results. For instance, Rowney and White (1997) tested the possible heat alter-
ation of silcrete with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and paleomagnetism.
They found the SEM unreliable and paleomagnetism sporadic in its effectiveness,
concluding that it would be best to employ more than one technique to resolve this
problem.
New methods have also been applied to those ubiquitous broken stones that
everybody suspects are present because of their thermal conductivity, that is, fire-
cracked rocks (FCRs). These are particularly troublesome for interpretation if they
show no visible evidence of having been burned. It turns out that both heat-sensitive
techniques such as thermoluminescence (TL) and light-sensitive techniques such
as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) are capable of detecting previous
heating of rocks. The advantage of OSL is that it is a lot cheaper. Rapp et al. (1999)
established good agreement between the two techniques and although the authors
are favorably inclined toward TL, OSL has proven to be a viable alternative. The
effects of reheating FCRs were studied by Pagoulatos (1992). He found that optical
characteristics of thermal alteration such as reddening, cracking, and spalling all
increased with reheating, suggesting that these indices could be used to identify
incendiary features that were reused frequently.
A basic question concerning the heat treatment of chert is why it works. That
is, what exactly is happening inside the chert that renders it easier to knap when
heated? Domanski and Webb (1992) found that compressive and tensile strength
did not show consistent changes, but that change depended on the type of raw
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material. However, Youngs modulus of elasticity showed a consistent increase

with heat (the rock became stiffer and easier to flake), and the fracture toughness
decreased. In their opinion, the most likely explanation for the effect on knap-
ping quality is the recrystallization of siliceous material, which results in reduced
crystal size. Using wavelength dispersive spectroscopy and SEM, McCutcheon
and Kuener (1997) affirmed a decrease in toughness and weight loss with heat, but
witnessed no fusing of adjacent grain surfaces, suggesting that recrystallization did
not take place. This issue is far from resolved and will continue to be considered
for years to come.
Handedness
Only a few short studies of prehistoric handedness have been undertaken re-
cently. As part of a larger investigation of Acheulian handaxes from Kariandusi,
Kenya, Phillipson (1997) tested the fit of 54 of them in the hand. Although admit-
tedly subjective, 11% of them were considered made for left-handed use, a pretty
close agreement with the proportion of left-handed people in modern populations.
A more specific study tested Toths investigation (Toth, 1985) of patterns of
cortex on flakes that, according to him, were produced differentially by right- and
left-handed knappers as they rotated the core in different directions. Pobiners study
(Pobiner, 1999) of flakes manufactured by seven right-handed students resulted in
only 60% of the flakes being judged as right-handed, following Toths criteria.
Among these tool makers, at least, raw material shape and individual knapping
style were more important considerations than the way the core was rotated.
SPECIFIC TOOL TYPES
Projectile Points
Some artifacts are so instructive that they deserve to be discussed separately.

The most popular among these, at least on this side of the Atlantic, is the projectile
point.
Ethnography and Experimentation
Studies of projectile weaponry have benefited from two common means of

deriving information: ethnography and experimentation. With respect to the for-
mer, inexorable forces of modern life have curtailed most of the hunting activities
that traditionally sustained less technologically advanced cultural groups, thus
diminishing opportunities for ethnographic study. However, three ethnographic
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298 Odell
accounts of hunting practices have recently been published in Knechts Projectile

Technology (Knecht, 1997c). One of these, Griffins investigation (Griffin, 1997)
of arrow design among three groups of Agta in the Philippines, illustrates tremen-
dous variability of arrow size and shape. In these cultures, type of arrow is largely
dependent on the type of hunting and the eventual target anticipated.
Likewise, Greaves (1997) studied multifunctionality of hunting equipment
among the Pume of southwestern Venezuela, arriving at some surprising conclu-
sions. Analyzing the activities in which one individuals toolkit was employed on
each of 20 hunting trips, he found that the quantity of tools taken on a trip did
not correlate with distance traveled. Even more surprisingly, the tool used for the
greatest number of different activities was the bow (employed for digging, pok-
ing, etc.), followed by the arrow. Implements such as knives and machetes, which
are considered multifunctional in our western, industrialized societies, were more
specialized among the Pume.
Finally, Ellis survey (Ellis, 1997) of the ethnographic literature uncovered
little support for the differential use of stone points for any specific type of game.
Rather, stone-tipped projectiles were used exclusively on large game; smaller game
was taken with throwing sticks, slings, snares, traps, etc. In addition, stone arrow-
heads were employed extensively in warfare, because stone, being brittle, often
breaks within a moving, writhing target, causing a more lethal wound. Ellis find-
ings, like those of the other ethnographers discussed, are crucial for interpretation,
because they emphasize the multifaceted aspect of culture and force us to examine
our conventions and prejudices.
As a source for information and method of examining our conventions, ex-
perimentation has also played an important role. An entire subliterature has grown
up around spear and spearthrower performance, to which recent contributions in-
clude articles by Rozoy (1992), Hutchings and Bruchert (1997), and Baugh (1998).
These studies do not get hung up on the projectile tip, as archaeologists frequently
do, but involve the entire delivery system.
Use of Different Point Types
Prehistoric lithic projectile point types have traditionally been conceived as

discrete entities. But, like the geographic clinal variation in fluted points discussed
previously (Morrow and Morrow, 1999), Shott (1996a) demonstrated that several
point attributes vary in continuous fashion. For instance, continuous metric reduc-
tion through time occurred in haft attributes on Woodland points in the American
Bottom, which he attributed to a gradual transition from dart to bow-and-arrow
weaponry.
The functional significance of attributes on a projectile point is not always
intuitively obvious. Consider notches, for example. Among Plains Village arrow-
heads, Ahler (1992) found significantly more impact fractures on notched than
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on unnotched points, suggesting that notched ones were employed more often in
hunting. But if that is the case, then what were the unnotched ones used for? I have
fantasized that Indians pinned them on their walls in the configuration of a cow-
boy. (This is more than just a facetious comment, as I have never seen these Plains
arrowheads, notched or unnotched, being consistently used for anything else but
as arrowheads.) Indeed, Christensen (1997) investigated the same issue through
historic arrow wounds and Great Basin historical collections, and concluded that
there was no significant difference between notched and unnotched arrowheads in
function, hafting, type of animals hunted, temporal change, or cultural affiliation.
Perhaps just as significantly, Ahlers study recorded impact fractures on points at
various stages of manufacture. If one considers the notch to have been the last
stage, then these points were used to tip arrows in both notched and unnotched
stages.
Meanwhile, a debate over the function of Levallois points has been raging.
On one side of the issue is Holdaway (1989), who, with data from replication ex-
periments and American Paleoindian assemblages, argued that these objects were
not employed as projectiles. More specifically, breakage patterns of Mousterian
points did not conform to those of his dataset (notably, he did not find a domi-
nance of proximal ends on habitation sites); therefore, these objects should more
accurately be classified as convergent scrapers than as points. Plisson and Beyries
(1998) have supported this position. Arguing from a usewear perspective, their
analysis of Levallois points from two sites in the Levant revealed multiple traces
of usewear on the points, but none attributable to projectile use.
The other camp, led by John Shea, maintains that Levallois points were indeed
used to tip projectiles. His position has been buttressed by the discovery of what
was interpreted as the middle portion of a Levallois point embedded in a neck
vertebra of a wild ass at a Mousterian site in Syria (Boeda et al., 1999). Shea,
whose earlier usewear work documented projectile use for these kinds of points
(summarized in Shea, 1993), has recently been engaged in applying this finding to
Middle Paleolithic hunting strategies. His research suggests that Levallois points
were part of a toolkit that emphasized reliability because it was employed in hunting
large, dangerous mammals in marginal zones such as the steppic interior of the
Levant. The Levallois point : core ratio is much higher for Neanderthal sites than
for those of modern Homo sapiens. Shea reasoned that Neanderthals employed
Levallois points primarily for intercept hunting of large mammals in the interior
of the Levant, whereas modern Homo sapiens had less need for them in the richer,
more wooded, northern and coastal areas (Shea, 1995, 1998).
Raw Material Comparisons
For a long time it appeared that scholars had forgotten that both prehistoric
and ethnographically studied modern people frequently tipped their projectiles not
P1: FNN
300 Odell
with stone but with wood, bone, or antler. Now some scholars are beginning to em-
phasize these differences. Comparing stone- with antler-tipped points shot experi-
mentally into a dead goat and a cow, Knecht (1997b) computed that antler points are
30% more flexible than stone, are tougher, and have the ability to penetrate deeply
into long bones without sustaining damage. Pokines (1998) reported similar results,
specifically that antler points are more durable than stone and have longer use-lives.
On the other hand, stone tips damage more tissue than antler tips do and constitute
more lethal weaponspretty sound reasons for the durability of their appeal.
Spear versus Bow-and-Arrow Comparisons
In many parts of the world, weaponry progressed from spear to dart to arrow,
and it is certainly tempting to make connections between temporally contiguous
weapons systems. Farmer (1994) saw a direct progression, even stating that the
arrow was a miniaturization of the dart; Hughes (1998) interpreted the process in
evolutionary terms.
The chronology of weapons development has frequently occasioned lively de-
bate. Except for synopses of the general situation (e.g., Knecht, 1997a; Peterkin,
1993), I am not aware of much recent debate in the Old World, though an inter-
esting find in Europe may have some bearing on the subject. A broken (probably
microlithic) point was discovered in the right ilium of an adult female hominid
from Grotta di San Teodoro 4, Italy (Bachechi et al., 1997). The point achieved
deep penetration and was either a dart projected by a spearthrower, or an arrow
more likely the latter, judging from its size and form. Dating is a bit tenuous, but
it underlay the final Gravettian layer at the site, making it one of the earliest such
points known.
Substantial effort has been expended in North America in discriminating
spear/dart from arrow points. Several years ago, Thomas (1978) conducted a study
of hafted arrows and darts found in museums in the United States, from which he
derived a function for the classification of individual projectile points discovered
without their hafts. Subsequently, Shott (1993, 1997) added to Thomas hafted dart
sample and tested it on Late Woodland nonhafted samples; Bradbury (1997) refined
the classification function. Like Thomas, Shott (1997) found shoulder width to be
the most discriminating variable, though Fawcett (1998) had good luck with neck
width for points from southern Idaho.
Several authors have concluded that the atlatl/dart and bow-and-arrow sys-
tems coexisted for a long time (Bradbury, 1997; Fawcett, 1998; Shott, 1993),
though the inception of the bow and arrow in the New World is hotly contested. As
I have explained elsewhere (Odell, 1996, p. 226), a late-comer camp interprets
the situation from formal projectile points, which entered the prehistoric record
sometime between A.D. 100 and A.D. 700, depending on the region. Recent advo-
cates of this position are Blitz (1988), Seeman (1992), and Shott (1993). The other,
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early bird, camp entertains the possibility that the earliest arrowheads had not
been standardized into formal shapes, but existed as unmodified flakes and simple
unifacially retouched tools. Early bird partisans (Bradbury, 1997; Nassaney and
Pyle, 1999; Odell, 1988; Patterson, 1992) push the date for the earliest bow and ar-
rows on the North American continent back to the Late Archaic, that is, 2000 B.C.
At the moment, the late-comer camp still has the upper hand because no piece of
stone attached to an undisputed arrow shaft from such an early date has ever been
uncovered. If and when that happens, the debate will shift to developmental and
diffusionist issues.
Utilization
Dockall (1997) has summarized the types of damage that can be expected
from projectile usage. Several researchers have now reported observing impact
damage on projectile points from archaeological sites. For instance, Ballenger
(1999) compared breakage patterns on Late Paleoindian Plainview and Frederick-
Allen type points from Southern Plains sites. In the Old World, some attention
has been paid to Upper Paleolithic shouldered points. For instance, Geneste and
Plisson (1993) conducted a usewear analysis of Solutrean shouldered points from
Combe Sauniere and related French assemblages; Broglio et al. (1993) compared
Epigravettian shouldered points with impact damage from two settlements in Italy.
And in Belgium, Caspar and DeBie (1996) found that 28% of the laterally modi-
fied Federmesser points from the late Upper Paleolithic site of Rekem had impact
damage, though larger pieces appeared to have been butchering tools, not projec-
tiles. The authors reported that spatial analysis conducted with functional types
was substantially more informative than similar analyses conducted with standard
formal types, an experience becoming more common among functional analysts.
Other analysts have documented the use of formal points in ways other than
as projectiles. For example, Kimball (1994) found a multiplicity of wear types
on Late Archaic points from a Pennsylvania site. It appeared that these points
were used first as projectile tips, then as butchering tools. Shen (1995) observed
an even greater disjuncture from a large sample of points taken from three sites
of the Princess Point Complex of Ontario. He concluded that most points with
wear did not have impact damage, and many of those that possessed wear were
woodworking tools. Across the Atlantic, Finlayson and Mithen (1997) reported
that, among Mesolithic microliths from Gleann Mor in the Southern Hebrides, a
projectile function may not even have been very important. Although the authors
are certainly correct in attacking the prevailing typological approach to projectile
point variation, their results neither jibe with other functional studies of microliths
of which I am aware (e.g., Odell, 1978) or other considered opinions on the matter
by knowledgeable prehistorians (e.g., Clark, 1936), nor do they cite any of these
people in their article.
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302 Odell
Behavioral Studies
Detailed knowledge of certain regions or periods has increased the need

to explain commonly recurring patterns of projectile use in the archaeological
record, resulting in behaviorally oriented studies. In one of these, Seeman et al.
(1994) attempted to define Early Paleoindian site types by using variables related to
projectile points, for example, percentages of finished and unfinished points, heat
treatment, raw material, metrics. Some of their assumptions are speculative, such
as postulating that an abundance of heat-treated, finished fluted points indicates a
cold-season occupation, because during this season artifacts are in closer proximity
to fires than they are during other seasons. The argument is provocative, if not very
compelling.
Assemblage variability has been an issue for all prehistoric periods, but espe-
cially so for makers of nicely made, diagnostic artifacts like Folsom points. Edge
grinding on these tools is a diagnostic characteristic, but this attribute is not totally
explainable with respect to the most popular explanation for the phenomenon, that
is, providing a duller edge so as not to sever its binding. If this were the case, then
why would the basal notch be just as ground and polished as the sides? Experimen-
tation by Titmus and Woods (1991) suggests a functional reason that a toolmaker
might have ground and smoothed the edges under the haft, that is, to remove small
irregularities that might otherwise cause basal fracture.
To explain variations in mode and condition of Folsom points from different
sites, Hofman (1992b) created an interesting use/discard model. In the model,
assemblages from human groups that have recently visited a quarry will contain
a preponderance of classic, bifacially fluted Folsom points, whereas assemblages
from Indians who have been through a number of kill and processing events since
visiting a quarry will contain a dominance of unfluted, heavily reworked points.
In this model, it is the number of retooling events rather than distance from source
of raw material that directly influences the appearance of a Folsom assemblage.
A similar model was employed at the Cooper bison kill in Oklahoma by Bement
(1999), who reported three kills in different years but in the same season. Folsom
tools associated with the kills were at very different stages of retooling, suggesting
that the three hunting groups had traveled different routes to arrive at this place.
The creation of models like this constitutes an important step in understanding the
processes of interaction of the cultural groups that manufactured and used the
points we find so fascinating.
Prismatic Blades
Old World Studies
The development of blade technologies has long been a topic of interest, and
it now appears that this technology began in the Middle Paleolithic (MP), earlier
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than our traditional textbooks would lead us to believe (e.g., Ameloot-van der
Heijden, 1993; Vishnyatsky, 1994). Although it is difficult to derive chronological
regularities from the occurrence of various types of laminar industries (Revillion,
1995), there exists some support for a development from an MP tortoise Levallois,
to an MP pointed Levallois, to an Upper Paleolithic (UP) bidirectional pointed
Levallois blade technique. There is evidence that the lame a` crete technique, for
taking the first blade off a rounded nodule, has been known since the MP and
may be associated with the manufacture of convergent flake points (Demikendo
and Usik, 1993). A good recent synopsis of early Old World blade technolo-
gies and their association with hominid types can be found in Bar-Yosef and
Kuhn (1999).
Research on later blade technologies from all over the world has also con-
tinued apace. Examples include Ploux et al. (1991), who have provided a good
synopsis of blade techniques practiced at the late Upper Paleolithic encampment
of Pincevent, France. Bleed (1996) has compared two microblade knapping tech-
niques from late Paleolithic Japan, suggesting that disparities in failure rate were
caused by differences in the availability of raw material. And Skakun (1993b) has
attempted to clarify why a new industry of long, thin blades appeared suddenly in
the Chalcolithic period of Bulgaria. These blades possessed very rounded edges,
which the author tried to replicate experimentally. Through judicious use of exper-
imentation and folk ethnography, she established that one of these blades would
be placed in the middle of a curved wooden handle and used for scraping hides,
similar to metal blades in use today by Bulgarian furriers.
In the Near East, Quintero and Wilke (1995) have investigated the devel-
opment of Prepottery Neolithic B naviform blade cores from earlier triangular
and occasionally opposed-platform cores. During this period, a society based in-
creasingly on intensive agricultural systems created a demand for regularly shaped
blades for use in sickles and weapons. And working with blade industries located
further east, experimentation with a holding device for pressure-flaking blades,
consisting of slotted blocks of bone, allowed Wilke (1996) to replicate northwest
Iranian-type bullet-shaped cores.
New World Studies
Blade industries from Central America have been recognized for a long time,
though the antiquity of this industry has only recently been established. Early
preceramic macroblade industries, accompanied by massive cores, flakes, and
constricted unifaces, have now been discovered in off-mound strata from Colha,
Belize, an industry that has been dated to 13001000 B.C. at nearby Pulltrouser
Swamp. This date accords well with similar early blade/macroblade complexes
from the Caribbean, supporting the position that these islands were settled through
the Greater Antilles from Yucatan (Wilson et al., 1998). Further east in the Lesser
Antilles, an Archaic blade industry has been recognized on the island of Antigua. In
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an assemblage lacking formal tools, the best way to understand prehistoric cultures
through stone tools is not through typologies but through technology (Davis, 1993).
Recent technological research in Mesoamerica has emphasized the develop-
ment of blade from flake industries, starting in the early Middle Formative and
progressing through the Classic period, notably in Belize (Awe and Healy, 1994)
and the Gulf Coast of Mexico (Stark et al., 1992). In some regions, these industries
were affected by an eventual shortage of obsidian, inducing various forms of econ-
omizing behavior. Such a situation was detected in the blade industry from four
subphases of a Middle preclassic Guatemala settlement. Through time, blades be-
came smaller and more fragmentary, wear became more pronounced, and use of a
bipolar technique for rejuvenating lateral edges increased (Nance and Kirk, 1991).
Improving the study of blade technologies through replicative experimenta-
tion has been a focus for Clark and Bryant (1997), who proposed a technological
typology of blades and blade refuse for the area around Chiapas, Mexico. The
authors applied this system to a narrow band of secondarily deposited blade refuse
in a Mayan chultun (storage pit) at the site of Ojo de Agua. Clark (1997) also
employed technological variables, knapping errors, and other parameters to es-
tablish the level of craftsmanship and quantity of blade production at the site.
He established that better knappers existed at Kaminaljuyu, but part-time craft
specialization in obsidian blade production probably occurred at this village.
In the New World, blades were manufactured by Late Pleistocene Clovis
peoples, and future research may establish even greater antiquity for them. Clovis
blade technologies have never been studied very intensely, but this failing has now
been rectified by Collins (1999), who has produced a comprehensive description
of Clovis blade technology. He used this background to describe a unique cache
of 14 blades recently recovered from a plowed field in northeastern Texas.
Taking a look at New World blade technologies in general, Parry (1994)
discussed nine blade industries that existed at various intervals in the North and
Central American prehistoric sequence. He recognized neither direct historical
connections among these industries, nor any one specific factor that could explain
the appearance of them all. Although he saw a trend toward craft specialization,
this point is disputed for many of the industries discussed. For example, 45% of
the Mississippian microdrills used in bead manufacture at Cahokia were made on
blade blanks. Although this may appear to have been a specialized craft, Holley
(1995) deemphasized this aspect because areas of the site excavated so far are
more accurately considered as workshops than as microdrill factories.
A large portion of North American blade research has concentrated on Middle
Woodland cultures of the American Midwest. In Ohio, Yerkes (1994) performed a
usewear analysis of prismatic blades from a small Hopewell encampment. Blades
were employed for a variety of tasks, and he found no evidence for craft specializa-
tion. Another usewear analysis of a similar Hopewell camp, also in Ohio (Lemons
and Church, 1998), came to the same conclusion. These findings are consistent with
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usewear studies conducted further west, where Odell (1994) found a multiplicity
of activities represented in the blades at the Smiling Dan Hopewell habitation in
Illinois. He compared this base camp with two nearby components at the Napoleon
Hollow site that were directly associated with mortuary activities. In these special-
ized contexts, blade usage was very specifically oriented toward scraping hides and
cutting soft materials. In the Middle Woodland of Illinois, then, blades were em-
ployed in specific ceremonial activities associated with burial; when found outside
this context, they were used for a large variety of activities just as flakes were.
Agricultural Tools
Andersons Prehistoire de lagriculture (Anderson, 1992b) provides insight

into recent experimentation in several aspects of farming, including biological.
For our purposes, one of the more interesting studies concerned the most efficient
manner of dehusking glume wheats, as might have been practiced in the Early
Neolithic of the Rhineland. Meurers-Balke and Luning (1992) found that such
wheats can be dehusked on Linearbandkeramik saddle querns, but concluded that
processing in a wooden mortar was superior to use of the quern in almost every
respect. Thus, even though an artifact such as the quern may have been present in
a particular cultures material repertoire, it was not necessarily the most efficient
method, or even the most popular, because the vagaries of preservation play such
an important role in our perceptions.
Another recent study investigated different methods of reaping cereals, this
time through ethnographic observations of Bedul Bedouin living near Petra,
Jordan. Simms and Russell (1997) timed people picking grain by hand. Com-
paring these times with figures for harvesting grain with stone and metal sickles,
the authors established that hand picking was just as efficient as reapingeven
more efficient on sandy soils with grains in low-density stands, though sickles
had an advantage in dense soils with dense stands of wheat. From these consid-
erations, it follows that the presence of sickles on an archaeological site indicates
agricultural intensification, not initial cultivation.
Most other recent studies of prehistoric agriculture have employed tools pri-
marily to investigate usewear on those parts that contact a worked material. Of
these, most involved reaping grain with sickles, as might have been practiced in
the Near Eastern or European Neolithic (e.g., Korobkova, 1993). Experimental
cereal growing and cutting programs have been initiated in Great Britain, France,
Russia, and other European countries. These experiments have allowed researchers
to identify differences in usewear between tools used close to the ground, which
produce many striations, and those that sliced the stalk at some distance up from
the roots (Anderson, 1992a). Unger-Hamilton (1992) found that domestic cereals
are most efficiently cut close to the ground; thus, finding a large proportion of
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306 Odell
sickle blades impacted by soil particles would imply the reaping of domesticated
grain. The most efficient sickle blades for grain are not retouched, whereas ser-
rated edges are best for harvesting the tough stems of reeds and sedges, which
would have been easier to gather using stone tools than by uprooting the plants
(Anderson, 1992a). And wear on the end of sickle blades, which contacts the soil,
is different from that in the middle, which contacts the plant stems (Clemente and
Gibaja, 1998).
Another agricultural tool, the threshing sledge, has been the subject of several
recent studies. Threshing sledges (also called doukani or tribuli) have been in use
until the mid-20th century in countries bordering the Mediterranean and Black
Seas. The flint teeth inserted in the bottom of these wooden boards, which are
likely to show up in archaeological assemblages, have been objects of usewear
research in Cyprus (Kardulias and Yerkes, 1996), Bulgaria (Skakun, 1992), and
Turkey (Ataman, 1992). These authors agree that edges are typically characterized
by severe rounding and well-developed plant polish, edge damage, and striations
parallel to the edge.
Two other usewear studies are relevant to research on agricultural equipment.
One concerns crescent-shaped Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age flint tools that
have traditionally been classified as sickles because of the gloss on them, but the
extreme rounding of their edges have made them too blunt to effectively cut plant
stems. Such implements have been discovered in marshy areas of the Netherlands.
Having conducted a series of replicative experiments on a variety of substances,
van Gijn (1992) concluded that these were sod-cutting tools employed for house
construction in a landscape with few trees. The other study involved the processing
of roots and tubers, many of which do not require stone tools for processing.
Sievert (1992) conducted several experiments with tubers such as manioc, jicama,
potatoes, and carrots. She concluded that most roots needed to be processed for
2 h or more to produce interpretable usewear.
Miscellaneous Chipped Stone Tool Types
Archaeologists these days are less likely than they used to be to accept ty-
pological classifications at face value. Some never did, of course, but a healthy
skepticism currently prevails. This process has resulted in a reevaluation of several
regional types, often in functional terms, providing considerable insight into the
people who made these tools. A case in point is a type of graver possessing two
or three projections, found on sites in Ontario (Tomenchuk and Storck, 1997).
Microscopic observations of the graving spurs demonstrated different kinds of
wear on the projections, suggesting that the user rotated the tool on one spur and
dragged the other. In other words, these implements were employed for scribing
circles in wood, bone, or antler and were given the names compass gravers and
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coring gravers. More conventional drilling was conducted by inhabitants of a

Mississippi site belonging to the Poverty Point culture to make slate beads, but it
was done using quartz crystals as drill tips (Johnson, 1993).
Another pointed tool, the burin, has also come under scrutiny. Barton et al.
(1996) recorded technological variables and macroscopically observed the edges
of burins from three Middle Eastern sites, concluding that burins were multifunc-
tional tools. If this was the case, then archaeologists should not regard them as
graving tools. My reactions to this thesis are twofold: (1) macroscopic analysis is
pretty weak support for any functional inference, and some of the authors other
arguments are rather contrived; and (2) the burin is a typotechnological type and,
in any case, should never be regarded on face value as a graving tool unless
specifically established through appropriate analytical techniques. The burin is
defined by the characteristic of a blow delivered at right angles to the plane of the
piece or to a specific edge; any other definition misses the point of what techno-
logical classification is all about. So Barton and his colleagues are surely correct
in bewailing the practice of regarding this tool type in functional terms without
establishing the case with appropriate analyses, but they do so with a decidedly
vapid methodology.
Another study involving burins compared them to laterally retouched blades
from the Federmesser site of Rekem, Belgium (De Bie and Caspar, 1997). For this
cultural group, burins are seen as flexible, expediently employed tools, whereas the
form of laterally retouched blades was conditioned by their hafting and eventual
use predominantly as projectile points.
Recent work on scrapers has also illuminated aspects of the cultural groups
in which these tools were used. For instance, the historic Chickasaw employed
thumbnail scrapers for processing hides in the bison trade with the English. Johnson
(1997) has demonstrated that this tool formed the basis of a very consistent and
regularized toolkit; during this period the spread of this artifact is related to the
migration of bison into the upper Midwest. Another diminutive scraper type, the
microscraper, has been found in Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic levels of at least one
Andorran site. Universally stained with red ochre, usewear analysis established
that the scraper and ochre were employed not in the tanning process but later, for
preparing dry or tanned skin (Philibert, 1993). And analysis of a Belgian Neolithic
settlement established that scrapers at this locale were not used on hides at all, but
as adzes on wood (Caspar and Burnez-Lanotte, 1996).
Finally, several kinds of edge tools from very different contexts have been
distinguished by the differential wear on them. In Central America, the Maya
grass axe or corn sickle was an elongated biface depicted in the Dresden Codex.
It usually has sickle sheen on one edge only, the opposite edge having been under
a hafting device (Clark, 1995). Further north, the Early Archaic Dalton adze has
long been considered a woodworking tool, but this had never been substantiated
until Gaertners study (Gaertner, 1994). In Europe, the Belgian frits has proven
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308 Odell
difficult to understand. Thick, orange peel-like blades, they possess a double polish:
one side, bright; the other, matte and rough. They were probably employed in
scraping hides, though the exact way the hides were scraped remains uncertain
(Sliva and Keeley, 1994). Finally, Runnels (1994) investigated historic tinderflints.
Exhibiting splintering, crushing, and macroflaking on multiple edges, it is no
wonder that most of them have been classified as pièces esquillees.
Grinding and Pounding Tools
Manufacture
Several studies have contributed to understanding the production of grinding

tools. In a preliminary experiment, Osborne (1998) replicated the manufacture of a
mortar, pecking a sizeable concavity in a granitic slab in 8 h. In another experiment,
Wilke and Quintero (1996) wished to understand Near Eastern millstones through
models derived from the American Southwest, to which end they replicated pestles
in andesite first by flaking and then by pecking. From data transcribed at each stage
in the process, they formulated a technological sequence that they can apply to the
Near Eastern situation.
Pritchard-Parker and Torres (1998) approached the issue from a different
perspective. Instead of making and examining a finished ground stone product,
they analyzed the hammers and hammer debris from the manufacture of ground
stone tools to ascertain whether or not the debris from roughening a milling stone
could be distinguished from the debris generated by other activities such as core
reduction. Their investigation resulted in a series of blind tests that were successful
in most cases, from which they concluded that debris can be used to distinguish
these two activities. A manual for technological analyses of ground stone has been
produced by Adams (1997).
Function
A suite of usewear experiments on grinding tools was performed by Adams

(1989) with the help of Earthwatch volunteers. Discrimination of corn, wood,
bone, and shell grinding was not absolute, but these assays lent hope that some
differentiation would eventually be possible. Experimentation was continued by
Wright (1993), who replicated the trough metate and two-hand mano of a typical
Pueblo I hamlet. Recording tool stone loss, length of time spent, and vegetative
dispersal, she calculated rates of wear, which can be translated into estimates of
tool use-life.
Other experiments have been performed to register grinding efficiency. Test-
ing differences between basin, trough, and flat metates, Adams (1993) concluded
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that grinding efficiency is related to grinding surface area and user fatigue. His-
torically, she noted that a need for greater grinding intensity in Puebloan societies
stimulated development toward flat metates, which contain greater surface area
and cause less user fatigue than other designs do. However, additional experi-
ments suggested that seeds or grains were probably ground into flour while dry
because the results spoiled rapidly when ground wet. For dry grinding, the trough
metate, while inducing more user fatigue, was actually the most efficient grinding
tool (Adams, 1999).
A large portion of this research has examined relationships between grinding
equipment and specific foodstuffs. In one such study, Morris (1990) noted that,
in the American Southwest, the one-hand mano was replaced by the two-hand
mano. This was interpreted as a result of a dietary dependence on maize and
its accompanying sedentary lifestyle, for which larger grinding tools enabled a
quicker and more efficient processing of maize. Hard et al. (1996) tested this
relationship further, calculating degrees of maize dependence from macrobotanical
and coprolite remains and stable carbon isotopes. Correlating these with average
mano grinding surface area suggested substantial maize dependence by 500 B.C.
in southern Arizona, though the timing of the transition to maize agriculture varied
from region to region.
In the Hohokam region, the operative functional model for grinding tools
is that basin metates and small manos were utilized primarily for seed grinding,
whereas trough or slab metates and long manos were used for corn. Testing this
model, Stone (1994) found that it does not adequately account for the availabil-
ity of the raw material used to manufacture the implements. For example, corn-
grinding metates tended to be trough shaped and made of a vesicular material, but
because of transport costs, metates of nonlocal material were invariably smaller
and had a much higher intensity of use. Nonlocal manos were more formally
shaped and smaller. These considerations suggest that the efficiency model for
grinding equipment in the American Southwest should be reexamined to include
raw material availability. In addition, Nelson and Lippmeier (1993) have demon-
strated a contrast between permanent-use sites with architecture and fortuitously
(intermittently) occupied sites. At architectural sites, grinding tools are made from
more durable materials, metates are often shaped, and manos are longer and more
standardized. Surprisingly, the expected pattern that the permanent sites would
contain thinner and more expended grinding tools was not supported, suggesting
that modification and use intensity are not sensitive indicators of site permanence.
In other areas of the world, research into grinding implements has been pur-
sued along similar lines. For example, in Natufian sites of the Near East, Wright
(1994) has demonstrated an association between the presence of grinding tools
and camps where seeds were heavily consumed. Grinding technology is seen as a
response to pressures of growing population and reduced territory, in which wild
cereals, a sort of low-order junk food during times of abundance, became decidedly
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310 Odell
more attractive. In Australia, where grinding technology goes back 30,000 years,
it has also been associated with environmental stress (aridity), in which lower-
ranked resources such as seeds supplanted declining higher-ranked resources such
as megafauna (Fullagar and Field, 1997).
Although most archaeological studies of this type of implement have con-
cerned slab and basin abrasion, grinding technologies are by no means limited to
this functional group. Another type of American Southwestern implement whose
dominant function has elicited interest is the cylindrical basalt tool. Kamps recent
experiments (Kamp, 1995) in working wood, removing corn kernels, and so forth,
with such objects have concluded that the most probable task in which they were
engaged was in smoothing the surfaces of clay pots. Likewise, Attenbrow et al.
(1998) have investigated the sandstone files used to fabricate aboriginal Australian
shell fishhooks. And Mackie (1995) has analyzed ground stone celts from the
Northwest Coast of North America. He found that, being extremely laborious to
manufacture but highly durable, they were utilized and sharpened continuously
until exhausted, a process that constantly changed their form and lent formal vari-
ability to the entire tool class.
PERSPECTIVES
The length of this review and depth of its bibliography are good indicators
of the amount of progress into the prehistoric procurement and production of
archaeological stone tools that has been accomplished during the past decade. I
summarize the principal directions this research has taken.
Fracture Mechanics and Technology
Experimental research into the fracture mechanics of brittle solids has af-
firmed the importance of the concept of flake mass, and of platform thickness and
exterior platform angle, as major contributors to flake variability. The good news
is that the most important variables can be measured directly on flakes. The bad
news is that dropping steel balls on glass with an undifferentiated dorsal surface,
though experimentally justifiable, does not tell us all we need to know about flakes
in the real world. More work needs to be done to bring the pure experimental data
in line with real-world situations.
Technological analysis of whole assemblages has been a backbone of lithic
analysis for years. Recently, considerable energy has been expended on the lithic
technology of the Middle Paleolithic, in the Old World, and of Folsom peoples, in
the New World. Research into other periods of prehistory has been more sporadic
but is needed to achieve a thorough understanding of technological development
in different regions.
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Among techniques commonly employed, replicative flintknapping has re-

mained a useful way to gain insight into the nature of lithic assemblages. Piece re-
fitting has attained almost as much popularity in North America as it has in Europe,
providing information on such issues as the integrity of occupation surfaces, post-
depositional artifact movement, and retooling. Minimum analytical nodule analy-
sis has been proposed as an alternative to conjoining analysis for assemblages in
which the refitting of individual pieces is difficult.
Meanwhile, debitage studies are still working their way through the Sullivan
Rozen typology. Most tests of this system have affirmed its utility for questions
involving breakage, but its lack of discriminating power for most other questions.
Given its ease of application, many analysts will continue to use it, but it is rec-
ommended that they use at least one other analytical system along with it. Other
debitage studies have shown that cortex is not a very good indicator of reduction
stage. Also, lipping of the ventral surface just under the striking platform is pro-
duced exclusively through soft-hammer percussion, but many soft-hammer flakes
do not show this characteristic. A good discriminating variable for flakes with
extant striking platforms is platform facet count and for flakes without platforms
is dorsal facet count. It is possible that, in the future, discrimination of shape,
retouch, and other morphotechnological variables may be accomplished with the
aid of image digitizers.
More people than ever have been recognizing bipolar reduction in their as-
semblages and interpreting those assemblages in light of its ramifications. Blind
tests have revealed that distinguishing bipolar reduction is easy for pure assem-
blages, but difficult for individual pieces from mixed assemblages. The controversy
over whether the pieces designated as wedges and pièces esquillees in archaeo-
logical collections are really bipolar cores is currently unresolvable, except on a
case-by-case basis.
The internal change that occurs during the heating of silicates constitutes a
subject of continuing controversy. The application of heat decreases a rocks tough-
ness and increases Youngs modulus of elasticity, but the question of whether or not
recrystallization occurs is currently being debated. Heat alteration of iron-rich sil-
icates has been investigated through magnetic techniques. Despite some promise,
analysts should use this technique in conjunction with others. For nonsilicate
heat-conducting stones (fire-cracked rocks), the question of whether or not they
have ever been heated is often an important issue. For this question, the optically
stimulated luminescence technique has been shown to be a viable, and cheaper,
alternative to thermoluminescence.
Individual Tool Types
Specific tool forms have provided fertile ground for spurring productive re-
search, and in no case is this more true, particularly in the Americas, than with
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312 Odell
projectile points. Even well into the 1990s, this category of artifact continues to
benefit from the application of ethnographic and experimental analyses.
Usewear studies on points throughout the world have revealed tremendous
variability; some collections contain a preponderance of impact damage signifying
utilization in a projectile mode, whereas other collections show wear from nonpro-
jectile activities, but almost no impact damage. In other words, these objects were
perceived differently by the people who made and used them. The effectiveness
of stone projectile tips has been compared with points of bone and antler, often
through experimental methods. Results show that organic tips penetrate better and
are more durable, whereas stone tips often break inside the body of the prey, destroy
more tissue, and are usually more effective killing devices. Several debates con-
cerning projectile points are currently raging. In the Middle Paleolithic of Europe
and the Near East, a significant question is whether or not Levallois points were
really used to tip projectiles? And in North America, whether the bow and arrow
entered the cultural repertoire late (e.g., Middle Woodland) or early (e.g., Late
Archaic)? For answers, tune in next decade.
Prismatic blades have interested archaeologists for a long time because their
presence has traditionally suggested progress and rationality in a less than totally
comprehensible world. Now that more and more lithic analyses in Europe and
the Near East have extended blade technologies well into the Middle Paleolithic,
the connotation of incipient modernization applied to blade technologies must be
rethought. In the New World, early blade industries have recently been discovered
in Central America and the Caribbean. What little evidence there is suggests that
blades in later prehistory were not produced by a specialized class of people.
However, in the Middle Woodland period of the North American midcontinent,
blades appear to have possessed highly specialized uses when associated with
mortuary contexts; when found in everyday habitation context, they were employed
just like flakes in a variety of tasks.
A considerable amount of particularistic research into other specific tool types
has also been conducted during the past decade. Agricultural implements such as
sickle blades and threshing sledge inserts have benefited from large experimental
programs. Also notable have been studies into the functions and contexts of thumb
scrapers, microscrapers, compass gravers, the Dalton adze, and the Maya grass
axe. After a long period of quiescence, archaeologists have finally decided that
grinding and pounding tools are worthy of investigation, as numerous experimental
programs have inspected issues of tool use-life, waste products, grinding efficiency,
and maize dependency. The state of functional research into rough stone tools is
at the stage that research into chipped stone tools was at about 20 years ago.
Raw Materials
Research has continued into Neolithic and Copper Age flint mining in Europe.
Including large projects such as Krzemionki in Poland and El Malagon and La
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Venta in Spain, this research involves quarries, mines, and workshops. Work has
also progressed on mines for other substances such as sandstone and specular
hematite.
Recent sourcing of lithic raw material has involved rhyolite, basalt, ortho-
quartzite, steatite, and catlinite, but most effort has been put into obsidian and
chert. Obsidian sourcing in the New World has concentrated on materials from
Mesoamerica, Ecuador, Chile, northwest and southwest North America, and ma-
terials traveling in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. Most obsidian sourcing stud-
ies have employed geochemical analyses, particularly instrumental NAA. Tests
comparing visual with geochemical assays on the same individual pieces have
demonstrated that visual methods are only about 50% accurate, lending support
for spending the extra time and money required to hire machines and technicians
to do the job if the results are crucial for interpreting past remains. Geochemical
analyses of chert have progressed, but are not yet as frequent as with obsidian.
A new sourcing technique involving magnetic susceptibility has proven helpful,
but is not yet robust enough to be the sole measure of this parameter. For visual
analyses of Illinois materials, a newly developed chert identification tree has been
evaluated and proven to be quite accurate.
With respect to the distribution of raw materials on archaeological sites, sev-
eral studies have demonstrated that specific materials were preferred for specific
tool forms. The relationship of tool materials found on archaeological sites to their
sources has caused gravity models to be tested under various conditions. Archaeo-
logical cases follow the model closely in some situations but not in others, perhaps
because of the influence of mobility organization on these latter populations, or the
stockpiling of raw materials. Producerconsumer models of material distribution,
invoked at the Mayan village of Colha, have elucidated some of the distributive
relationships between this major chert workshop and other centers in the region.
Other studies have concentrated on changes in raw material usage over time, con-
siderations influenced by the accessibility of raw material or by sociopolitical
factors.
A Parting Note
Despite the prodigious amount of work that has been conducted during the
past decadeor perhaps because of itthe field of lithic analysis offers several
areas in which meaningful contributions would be welcome. Advancement will
come through making judicious decisions, pursuing certain promising areas while
letting go of some trajectories that have proven less advantageous or that may be
difficult to pursue in the future.
Among the latter I would include the SullivanRozen typological system,
which has now been refuted so many times that I am amazed that anybody is
still paying attention. The system may be helpful for a researcher who desires
information on breakage patterns, but for other questions it is pretty worthless. The
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314 Odell
role of knapping is also an area that I think will diminishnot because it should,
but because knappers are depleting good material at a rapid rate, and continued
exploitation will not be possible at this level. And other analytical trajectories will
soon be played out. For instance, how many times can one discuss the functional
import of a pièce esquillee, or a Levallois point, when it has become painfully
obvious that objects in either category must be considered on a case-by-case basis?
Other fields will continue to blossom as researchers reap their benefits. Among
these I count flake experimentation and the effects of heat alteration. We cannot
hope to advance unless we achieve a greater understanding of fracture mechanics,
as this element governs how stones are made and used; the same is true for heat
alteration because this variable helps to determine the nature of the substance
being worked. Research on debitage and ground stone will also increase, but
for different reasons. Debitage is a powerful dataset because it is ubiquitous on
archaeological sites and its discard location is probably not often far removed
from its location of manufacture or use or both. Likewise, ground or rough stone
can provide crucial information on a number of questions, but so far it has been
dramatically underutilized.
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Adams, J. L. (1999). Refocusing the role of food-grinding tools as correlates for subsistence strategies
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Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol. 8, No. 4, 2000

Stone Tool Research at the End of the Millennium:

This article documents trends in the prehistoric production of stone tools,

alternative, however, would have taken considerably longer to produce, possibly

RAW MATERIALS AND PROCUREMENT

The nature of raw material should be an important consideration for lithic

Mining and Quarrying

Stones discovered on archaeological sites contain a wealth of information,

A large proportion of recent sourcing analyses has involved obsidian, a vol-

Other Lithic Materials

sites, were quarried and manufactured in southern Ohio. Employing a suite of

Use of Raw Materials

Several recent studies have contrasted contemporaneous sites or inhabited

Use of Materials Within a Site or Component

Useful information can be gleaned from the distribution of raw materials

Use of Materials in Different Periods

strategies of Upper Paleolithic Gravettian and Magdalenian groups that sequen-

The idea of a distribution can be understood in a variety of ways, of which I

than with lithic analysis, my discussion here is brief. Regionally, Takacs-Biros

of both manufacture and usewear. Without understanding this element, we cannot

By technology I mean the various processes that contribute to the production

Times have changed for flintknappers. As depicted sympathetically in

by Whittaker and Stafford (1999), who documented the increasing destruction of

A bread-and-butter issue among lithic analysts is the synopsis of tool pro-

Old World Data

In the literature that I have consulted on assemblage reconstruction, most at-

New World Data

one: Andrefskys Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis (Andrefsky, 1998).

Marois (1993) has advocated the creation of an archaeological multilanguage

developments in debitage analysis, and Andrefsky (1998) has provided an outline

Testing Types of Analysis

In another experimental assay, Shott (1996b) recorded the replication of a

I have already alluded to several techniques that archaeologists have been

Conjoining flakes or fragments in an assemblage has been a beneficial way to

Most lithic reduction in prehistory, like today, was probably accomplished

material. However, Youngs modulus of elasticity showed a consistent increase

SPECIFIC TOOL TYPES

Some artifacts are so instructive that they deserve to be discussed separately.

Ethnography and Experimentation

Studies of projectile weaponry have benefited from two common means of

accounts of hunting practices have recently been published in Knechts Projectile

Use of Different Point Types

Prehistoric lithic projectile point types have traditionally been conceived as

Raw Material Comparisons

Spear versus Bow-and-Arrow Comparisons

Detailed knowledge of certain regions or periods has increased the need

Old World Studies

New World Studies

Andersons Prehistoire de lagriculture (Anderson, 1992b) provides insight

Miscellaneous Chipped Stone Tool Types

coring gravers. More conventional drilling was conducted by inhabitants of a

Grinding and Pounding Tools

Several studies have contributed to understanding the production of grinding

A suite of usewear experiments on grinding tools was performed by Adams

Fracture Mechanics and Technology

Among techniques commonly employed, replicative flintknapping has re-

Individual Tool Types

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RECENT LITERATURE

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