Lithic Technology

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Chaîne Opératoire and Reduction Sequence

Michael J. Shott

To cite this article: Michael J. Shott (2003) Chaîne�Opératoire and Reduction Sequence, Lithic
Technology, 28:2, 95-105, DOI: 10.1080/01977261.2003.11721005

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 CJL41NE OPERATOIREAND
REDUCTION SEQUENCE

by

Michael J. Shott

A!Jstmct

National traditions ofarchaeological thought are a popular subject today. This essay concerns an ap-
parent difference between interpretative concepts in two traditions oflithic analysis: the French chtzfm_
o.piratoire and the American reduction sequence. To speak ofFrench or American traditions ofthought
reifies the characteristic to the categorical, done to simplify not because the characterizations are accurate
to the last detail The American reduction sequence concept arose in the 1890s and matured around 1970.
The French chaine operatoire originated in the 1960s and came into common use in the 1990s. The intellec-
tual and historical contexts ofthe concepts differ. Yet the two are substantially the same thing. despite the
efforts especially ofchaine operatoire's advocates to claim originality.

INTRODUCTION reduction sequence concept, the considerable pains

For marketing purposes, advertisers portray sub-
stantially identical products as very different ones.
Examples are legion in the American economy: e.g.,
soft drinks, automobiles, presidential candidates.
Language serves these exaggerated distinctions, be-
cause different terms imply different referents.
This essay concerns one referent and two terms.
Lithic analysts, Americans and many others, have
long described and interpreted the patterned ways
that ancient people used to make stone tools as "re-
duction sequences." Audouze (1999) described
French thought on the chaine operatoire concept to
an already-receptive English-speaking audience, to
judge from recent British scholarship. My thesis is
that chaine operatoire and the concept of reduction
sequence are substantially the same thing in lithic
analysis, despite claims for originality made by the
former's advocates and, when acknowledging the
taken to distinguish it from chaine operatoire. In this
view, the enthusiasm for chaine operatoire reveals more
about archaeologists than it does about the stone
tools they study. I elaborate the argument with
source exegesis and a review of recent descriptions
of both concepts. At the same time I illustrate the
premise of Audouze's essay, an introduction to the
French literature for those who, like me, read it rarely
and poorly. Yet these failings cut two ways.
REDUCTION SEQUENCE
At least in the United States, 'William Henry
Holmes (1894) introduced the idea of the reduction
sequence more then a century ago. It endures to-
day as the concept around which most American
archaeologists organize their study of lithic assem-
blages. Alas, Holmes never defined "reduction se-
quence." Broadly, it signifies the culturally and physi-

MichaeiJ. Shott, Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, lA, 50614-0513
 LITHIC TECHNOLOGY. vol. zB -z
cally patterned way that people reduced pieces of sequence at Lindenmeier from careful study of flak-
stone to useful tools. Holmes developed the con- ing patterns and remnant flute platforms on broken
cept while working at Piney Branch quarry in the preforms. This incipient reduction sequence fore-
American capital of Washington. Then, advocates shadowed the full documentation of Folsom reduc-
'of an American Paleolithic championed the 'Ii-en- tion decades later. In North America, reduction
ton Gravels as evidence of great human antiquity sequence was restored and codified by the I970s
by reasoning that the crude tools found there must (Mu to 197I; Bradley 1975; Collins 1975). Collins (I975=
be old. But at Piney Branch, "roughly flaked stones 16) extended it to the act of resharpening tools dur-
are ... not implements at all but the refuse of imple- ing use, a point revisited below.
ment making ... " (Holmes I897:53); crude meant un-
fmished or rejected, not old. Holmes reached this The revived reduction sequence concept pos-
conclusion from the study of quarry debris arranged sessed important qualities - context and intent -
in a sequence from natural cobbles through reduc- relevant to its comparison with chaine operatoire. To
tion "stages" to finished products. Bradley (1975:8), cultural context must be known
before a reduction sequence can be reconstructed.
Figure I is Holmes's interpretation of reduction To Collins, reduction is performed by "an encul-
at Piney Branch, intended for reading from lower turated member of a group" (1975:24). At least in its
left to upper right. In modern thinking, early re--- modern form, then, cultural context is integral to
duction "stages" lie approximately in the first five the concept of reduction sequence. This does not
columns from the left, "preforms" (Holmes' "blades, mean that each culture followed a single character-
cache forms') in the zone bordered by C-D-G, and istic reduction sequence because chance, circum-
finished tools on the diagonal. Holmes considered stance and intended products also determined re-
most finished products as core tools but accommo- duction. The concept thus accommodates many
dated flake-tool production (Figure I, lower right). causes, culture as much as material constraints (e.g.,
He also viewed percussion and pressure as succes- size and form of cobbles, mechanical properties of
sive reduction techniques. Perhaps deliberately,, the chert. Intent can be inferred only from reduction
reduction "stages" between the left column and the by-products in context (Muto I97I:n5), although the
diagonal roughly symbolize relative abundances of problematics of inference are rarely acknowledged
unfmished or rejected specimens and debris versus by users of either reduction sequence or chaine
fmished tools. Foreshadowing modern archaeolo- operatoire. Context and intent seem integral to the
gists, Holmes (I897= I38-I43) also described reduc- reduction sequence concept.
tion's spatial dimension, as knappers acquired and
worked nodules, then often carried them elsewhere Since about 1970, reduction sequence has enjoyed
for progressive reduction to tools. wide currency in archaeology, not only in North
America. To speak of it as merely an American con-
Holmes' concept is a systematic way to compare cept thus is misleading. For instance, the reduction
assemblages for reduction segments represented and sequence concept arose independently in Japan
through time to reveal technological trends; it is a (Bleed 2001) and presumably elsewhere, because it
sufficient model for both synchronic and diachronic is a robust way to analyze the industrial process in
study. Indeed, it was the analytical principle around stone tools. But for more than a decade now, chiefly
which Holmes organized his opus on lithic indus- French archaeologists have championed the concept
tries of the Chesapeake region (1897). The reduc- of chaine operatoire as an original idea.
tion sequence was nearly complete in Holmes'
thought, yet the concept languished for decades in
an American archaeology preoccupied with chronol- CHAiNE OPERATO IRE
ogy. Johnson (I99P54) traced its uneven develop-
ment in North American studies through Leroi-Gourhan (1993, originally 1964) originated
midcentury; For instance, even during the era of the chaine operatoire concept. He may have been in-
chronological preoccupation, Roberts (1935: 18-19) fluenced in turn by Mauss, who argued (1979:no-
inferred details of the Folsom reduction and fluting 119, originally 1934) that actions like walking and spit-
Shott - Cbaine Operatoire and Reduction Sequence 97

":)

~
~ Pressare
-

DIAGRAM I.

Figure 1. Holmes' (1894) reduction model


ting are determined as much by culture as by the
physical constraints of anatomy and mechanics. In
this way, "specific technique{s] of the body'' (1979:99)
are at once cultural and physical acts, and differences
in such acts owe in part to cultural traditions. Tech-
nique or action is both effective (practical) and tra-
ditional (cultural) (1979: 104). Mauss considered
action more than its material consequences, but
Leroi-Gourhan's extension of his concepts to the
products of action seems reasonable enough. Oth-
erwise, though, the joint "physio-psycho-sociologi-
cal" (1979: 12) determination of action amounts to
saying that how we do things is partly learned and
that the learning takes place in culture.
Everyone knows that Leroi-Gourhan introduced
chaine operatoire in Gesture and Speech (1993). His syn-
thesis of prehistory there has not worn well, peopled
as it was, if that word applies, by Archanthropians
and the like. Yet it required a delightful sensibility
at once poetic, scientific and technological to speak
of evolution as a long humanward gush sending off
sprays of oysters and jellyfish. Neither do Leroi-
Gourhan's (1993: Figure 64) empirical claims bear
scrutiny, for instance that cutting edge-to-mass ra-
tios in stone tools rose steadily through the Pale-
olithic (factikos, n.d.). None of his matters, though,
because Leroi-Gourhan's contribution - chaine
operatoire - was inspired, not empirical.
Whatever the quality of Mauss' thought, Leroi-
Gourhan extended the idea of culture-bound action
to its material expression in artifacts. Some terms
were ill-chosen ("secretion" of material culture), but
the idea was apt. Leroi-Gourhan also adumbrated
the concept of technological organization, devel-
oped at length in the United States by now unfash-
ionable archaeologists (e.g., Binford 1979) and still
poorly assimilated in Europe, in his view that the
length and technical elaboration of chaines owed
partly to cultural context (Odell 2001: 8o).
Leroi-Gourhan defined chaine operatoire no more
than Holmes defined reduction sequence, but sig-
nified by it action "sequentially organized by means
of a 'syntax' that imparts both fixity and flexibility
to the series of operations" (1993:114) by which tools,
among other things, are made. (fhis passage is vari-
ously translated by Sellet 1993: 107 and van der Leeuw
1993: 284). Graphically, chaine operatoire has evolved
LITHIC TECHNOLOGY. vol. 28 2
from Leroi-Gourhan's simple figures to Lemonnier's
(1992: Figure 4) detailed flowcharts. Lemonnier
6992: 26) did not confine chaine operatoire to tangible
things, but extended it to any material transforma-
tion. Neither did Leroi-Gourhan confine chaine
operatoire to stone tools, although they did provide
his first examples (1993: Figures 46-48). In archae-
ology however, chaine operatoire seems applied mostly
to lithic reduction. There, Leroi-Gourhan's defini-
tion seems vague, perhaps a useful quality for a con-
cept applied broadly and to suit many purposes.
Indeed, the French concept remains elusive (to Odell
{2001:8o] it is '~lmost mystical in its ramifica-
tions ... "). Practically, chaine operatoire signifies ki-
netics applied to cores to produce ideal forms (tem-
plates) and the tools and debris that result, all de-
termined by arbitrary cultural norms. This seems
little different from saying, "the culturally and physi-
cally patterned ways that people reduced pieces of
stone to useful tools."
Geneste (1985) popularized the concept of chaine
operatoire in archaeology, Lemonnier (1992) in eth-
nography. French and other archaeologists re-
sponded with great enthusiasm, heralding chaine
operatoire as a breakthrough in lithic studies (e.g.
Sellet 1993; Audouze 1999). Lemonnier (1992: 26)
translated chaine operatoire as "operational sequence;"
Anglophones are much fonder of the French origi-
nal. To Schlanger (1994: 143) chaine operatoire invested
the Bordes-Binford debate with new meaning by re-
casting it as "concern over the processes and not
merely the states" of tool assemblages, because pre-
viously no one imagined the process of tool produc-
tion. Yet reduction sequence is inconceivable if re-
duction is not a process, and at least North Ameri-
cans have for decades shown great interest in how
tools were made, hence reduced. Gradually, chaine
operatoire acquired a near-totemic status. By now it
deserves a careful evaluation of its origins, meaning
and interpretative value.
Chaine operatoire possesses several virtues. Essen-
tially, it is a descriptive concept for comparison
(Lemonnier 1992; Bleed 2001), whether of cultural
norms, behavior, or assemblage composition or com-
pleteness. As opposed to a purely typological ap-
proach, chaine operatoire apparently emphasizes pro-
cess and thereby embraces debris and failures, as
well as finished tools. Significantly, chafne operatoire
Shott - Chaine Operatoire and Reduction Sequence
explicitly extends to tool use and discard and is not
confined to production (Sellet 1993:109). The quali-
ties of context and intent reside in chaineoperatoire,
the one predetermined, and the other revealed, in
the course of its use.
Context of cbaine oplratoire
Starting from Breuil, French Paleolithic system-
atics adopted a paleontological paradigm involving
"vitalistic notions of technological evolution"
(Sackett 1991: 111), an ironic vitalism of the inani-
mate. Holmes' (1894) conception of reduction se-
quence invoked similar biological metaphors, en-
tirely abandoned in later American usage. Appar-
ently, the organic metaphor predisposed the French
prehistorians to identify tool industries with biologi-
cal taxa, "possessing a kind of life and logic unto
themselves" (Sackett 1991: 127). Tools are organisms,
industries taxa; everyone knows that this is false,
but nevertheless speaks and thinks as though it is
true. Such habits of thought encourage views like,
for instance, tools "retain{ing} in their constituent
parts the memory of their predecessors" (Audouze
1999: 172), a sort of lithic equivalent to the concept
of race memory. Similarly, Boeda sought the "inter-
nal evolutionary dynamics of technical systems"
(Audouze 1999: 174) in Levallois reduction, treating
technology as sufficient unto itself rather than what
people practiced, made and used.
Boeda is the most prominent advocate of chaine
operatoire in lithic studies. Evidently, his "crucial
concepts" (Audouze 1999: 172) included: 1) "techni-
cal structures which control ... function," constant
through the evolutionary history of technologies; 2)
subdivision of tools into functionally distinct
"technofunctional units"; and 3) a general evolution-
ary trend toward greater integration of such units,
culminating in hyperspecialized ("hypertrophied'')
forms incapable of further change. As earlier French
prehistorians borrowed from paleontology, an or-
ganic theme is clear in these ideas. Boeda's first con-
cept resembles biological concepts of functional
anatomy, his second the useful reductionism in bi-
ology and other fields since the Enlightenment, and
particularly his third, the phylogenetic perspective
of evolutionary biology. This is not to criticize the
concepts intrinsically, but to recognize in them the
paleontological pedigree that gave earlier prehisto-
99
rians the now-discredited concept of index fossils.
Modern French archaeologists speak of
"technophyletic gradualism" (Audouze 1999: 173), if
they dislike it, much as paleontologists speak of
phylogenetic trends. Both can be saltationists, just
in different media.
To Audouze (1999: 173), Boeda's concept ofbiface
"family" illustrates the originality and value of the
phylogenetic thought embedded in chaine operatoire.
By this concept, bifaces consist of the
technofunctional units noted above, which reveal
variation not before seen or understood. But
Audouze asserted more than demonstrated the value
of "biface families," nor did she explain what the
concept uniquely reveals. Perhaps such criticism is
unfair of an essay, yet the notion that bifaces can be
subdivided into parts functionally or technologically
scarcely is new to American archaeologists (e.g.
Ahler 1970: Figure 4). Similarly, Boeda's distinction
between retouching to shape and resharpening to,
well, resharpen is a commonplace that approaches
the banal. Apparently, it distinguishes intended form
from its subsequent modification by circumstance.
The opposition defies the continuity of reduction
between first and later uses (see below), a process
perhaps unassimilated in French thought. Finally,
through Boeda we understand a biface as a "struc-
tured matrix equivalent to a core" (Audouze 1999:
173), a view formed some time ago in North America
without benefit of the chaine operatoire concept (e.g.
Keeley 198o:I61; Kelly 1988). From an American
perspective, Boeda's concept of biface "families"
seems more a collection of unobjectionable truisms
than an original insight.
Boeda's (1995) own account of his thought is less
abstract than Audouze's. Perhaps French archae-
ologists should not be understood literally when
using words like "culture" (Sackett 1991: 137), but
Boeda (1995:43, 63) plainly attributed technological
variation in chaines operatoires to culture; different
chaines signified different cultures. Failing to recog-
nize this "would implicitly deny these people ... di-
versity of expression" (Boeda 1995: 63). Audouze
(1999: 170) also linked chaine operatoire to cultures
via the concept of"strategic stages" of presumed cul-
turally specific character. To argue that these ar-
chaeologists mean by "culture" something different
than do others (Sackett 1991: 129, 137) elides the equal
100
anthropological, not just archaeological, currency of
chaine operatoire in France.
Boeda started from the commonplace observa-
tion that typology does not reduce to technology;
that various technological means can yield identical
typological results. This is a form of equifmality
argument that explains why typologically Levallois
tools need not betoken Levallois technology (as well
as the pitfalls of typology based solely on form).
French archaeologists can best judge whether this
observation is profound or original in France, but
others learned it long ago. No one familiar with the
manifold technological ways to produce, say; typo-
logical Folsom bifaces would doubt that American
archaeologists have long understood the contingent
relationship between typology and technology. To
Boeda, it is not enough to seek fossi/es directeurs like
Levallois tools to identify practices and behavior
diagnostic of particular cultures. Instead, we must
find chaines directeurs, culturally diagnostic reduction
sequences. Apparently, Japanese archaeologists rea-
son in the same way (Bleed 2001: 104). By under-
standing these chaines, we reveal the intent residing
in makers' minds. Chai'nes describe reduction but also
reveal the intent behind it, which is culture-bound
and therefore contextual. As above, exposing in-
tent and highlighting context are crucial qualities
of chaincs operatoires, and presumably original to it.
Contemporary archaeologists champion culture-
specific reduction sequences of chaine operatoire, re-
jecting Bordes' culture-specific assemblage types just
as Bordes rejected an earlier generation's culture-
specific tool types. If the latter were invalid index
fossils, then Bordes' concept reduced to index com-
munities in a biological sense, Boeda's to index tech-
nologies (or ontogenies, to pursue the biological
metaphor). French Paleolithic archaeology pro-
gressed from essential tools to essential ways to make
tools. All have invoked the index concept of essences
bounded in time and space that mark traditions,
whether they be phylogenies or cultures.
Whatever the descriptive value of chaine
operatoire, it is unpersuasive when insisting that
members of a culture always and everywhere reduced
cores and flakes in the same way. Material quality
and abundance, relations of production, and sheer
circumstance cause great variation in reduction prac-
LITHIC TECHNOLOGY, vol. 28 -2
tices within cultures. It is no more necessary to
confine a culture to some diagnostic proportions of
various tools in assemblages than to confine its tech-
nological practices to a single mode. Some celebrate
chaine operatoire for its flexibility; but the concept
seems curiously inflexible because it is wedded to
the idea that each culture possessed an unchanging
essence in its industrial processes.
PARTIALLY EQUATING THE
CONCEPTS
Chai'ne operatoire entered archaeology's lexicon
in the 198os, yet at least a decade earlier many
American archaeologists understood "reduction se-
quence" to mean substantially the same thing (e.g.,
Bradley 1975; Collins 1975). Thus Geneste's six-stage
sequence was anticipated in great detail across the
Atlantic (e.g., Callahan 1979). Analytically; chaine
operatoire and reduction sequence are equally descrip-
tive, processual rather than typological in empha-
sizing both the production process and resulting
tools (and thus inclusive of all lithic specimens), and
determined by context (including culture) while they
may reveal the makers' intent. That is, analytically
they are the same thing. Yet the reduction sequence
concept is not committed to the rigid identification
of one essential production technique with a par-
ticular culture. Practically; it is ecumenical in a way
that chaine operatoire is not, but could be. Reduc-
tion sequence also boasts a much longer pedigree
(Holmes 1894). In short, reduction sequence signi-
fies and accomplishes all that is useful in chaine
operatoire, and has for many years.
Indeed, the concept's equivalence is apparent to
some archaeologists (e.g., Villa 1991:29; Van Peer
1992: 131; Dibble 1995: 93; Bleed 2001; c£ Odell2oo1:
80-81). Thus, "The ultimate purpose of the French
chaine operatoire is the recognition and description
of the different stages in a reduction sequence"
(Grimaldi 1998: 19). Even Gamble (1999:82) who
criticized the identification, could describe chaines
as "models of reduction sequences" (1999:323). To
Odell, chaine operatoire is broader than reduction
sequence, even if in practice it often yields only
"warmed-over lithic reduction sequences" (2001: 81),
because it encompasses procurement at the start and
tool use and discard at the end. But procurement
 Shott - Chaine Operatoire and Reduction Sequence
and how the size or quality of cobbles constrain re-
duction sequences long have been integral to North
American thought and practice (e.g., Wttthoft 1952:
473-376, Figure 2). Similarly, tool reduction during
use is as integral to the American reduction sequence
approach (e.g., Goodyear 1974) as tochaineoperatoire.
Indeed, reduction in use is arguably better assimi-
lated in American thought, considering the resis-
tance that many European archaeologists display to
demonstrations of reduction effects in Paleolithic
assemblages (e.g., Dibble 1987).
Advocates of chaine operatoire also argue that the
concept is intrinsically cognitive in orientation, con-
cerned with ancient patterns of thought and mean-
ingfully determined action that reduction sequence,
as mere description, ignores. To some extent this is
a matter of emphasis, and the rhetoric of chaine
operatoire's champions surely pays greater tribute to
cognition. Yet cognition- how norms fuc ideas and
thus determine patterns of reduction- is as integral
to reduction sequence, as it is to the chaine. No one
can make sense of a reduction sequence without
reaching inferences about makers' intents and, there-
fore, cognition. The lament (van der Leeuw 1993:
284) that Anglophone archaeologists do not know
chaine operatoire is arguable. The advice (Seller 1993:
xu) that they must adopt it is moot because they
long since have, under a different name that needs
no replacement. by a nouveau term.
Why, then, the fuss that surrounds chaine
operatoire? Agnostics might be forgiven their perplex-
ity over the sometimes breathless enthusiasm of
chaine operatoire's advocates. Its biological connota-
tions removed, the concept is at once as valuable
and original as would be the introduction of pain
tranche to those already familiar with sliced bread.
None would deny its value, merely its originality.
The fuss may owe in part to uncritical esteem for
French terms, a condition expressed otherwise in
North America by the use if terms like piece esquillie
("scaled pieces") for what often are likelier to be cores
(Shott 1999). Also, chaine operatoire's celebration may
reflect its recent origin, in opposition to the typo-
logical tradition that long dominated French archae-
ology (Bleed 2001). Were typology the only, even
the dominant, analytical approach elsewhere, then
chaine operatoire would be a legitimate innovation.
However, typology does not hold this status and pro-
IOI
moting chaine operatoire against it is like champion-
ing mainframes over pocket calculators in an age of
personal computers. Moreover, chaine operatoire it-
self is a typological concept, essentially an exten-
sion of typology to the reduction process. In this
respect, its currency may owe to the Levallois con-
cept and its corollary that not just tools, but also
reduction practices, are diagnostic of particular cul-
tures. Considering how vis used by its advocates, it
is difficult to imagine how it could accommodate
the situational reduction of, for instance, scaled
pieces (Goodyear 1993) or Meadowood bifaces to
any of several stemmed and notched final forms
(Granger 1988).
Chaine operatoire encompasses tool use and
resharpening. So, too, does reduction sequence
(Collins 1975: 17), which is easily extended to tools
(Dibble 1987) and debris (Shott 1994). Chaine
operatoire is celebrated for this ability - an ironic
development , considering the concept's devotion,
in the hands of its principal advocates, to fixed tool
types. "Fixity," after all, appeared in Leroi-Gourhan's
(1993) original statement, and advocates today use
the concept to reveal "fixed, unchangeable techni-
cal rules" (Grimaldi 1998: 20) of reduction. H in-
deed finished tools are fixed in size and form, then
they are no longer subject to "operational" sequences
or reduction, which cannot be extended to use and
discard, as advocates claim. In chaine operatoire's un-
deniable but not unique virtue, therefore, lurks an
unresolved contradiction.
STAGE VERSUS CONTINUUM
IN REDUCTION
Whatever we call the reduction sequence and its
process, the prevailing orthodoxy among nineteenth-
century American archaeologists was progressive
cultural evolution in stages. Fashioned in this intel-
lectual climate, Holmes' reduction sequence concept
implied stages through which tools pass en route to
their finished form. Stages may exist, but their va-
lidity must be demonstrated, not assumed.
Yet even the question of stages and the nature of
reduction reveals Holmes' sophistication and the
modern concept's ability to accommodate changing
views. "Stage" was an analytical convenience, not
102 LITHIC TECHNOLOGY, vol. 28 -2

an empirical reality: ''There can really be no line of
demarcation separating the phenomena of one stage
from those of another and there is a danger of the
change being thought of as a definite and restricted
episode, as marking a complete ending of one phase
of existence, and as being a datum point from which
to begin the study of the succeeding phase" (1892:
248-249, cited in Meltzer and Dunnell 1992:xxix).
Stages as analytical concepts merely revealed the
processes of technological evolution that Holmes
perceived (Meltzer and Dunnell 1992:xxx).
So, too, lithic analysts increasingly acknowledge
that reduction stages sometimes are contrivances,
not empirical things (e.g., Collins 1975: r6; Flenniken
1985: 266; Shott 1994: 81-83), although some seem
to argue both sides of this question (e.g. Callahan
1979:33). Yet even now we commonly place tools
and flake debris into stages of manufacture and re-
duction. This practice may be reasonable, although
the validity of the stage concept and the identifica-
tion of particular stages are more often assumed
than demonstrated in analysis. Read and Russell
(1996: 664) spoke of"the arbitrary division of lithic-
reduction sequences into stages." At Boxgrove, for
instance, "No division between thinning and finish-
ing as separate stages of reduction ..... can be distin-
guished in the archaeological record. The three
stages of manufacture ... are totally arbitrary and not
attested in the archaeological record" (Austin 1994:
125). There is no doubt that qualitative changes may
occur in reduction (e.g., with a change in hammer
or a shift from core to flake reduction), nor that
stages may exist. Probably they do in some cases.
Bit we must prove their existence, not assume it.
As the starting point in any reduction analysis, we
should entertain the null hypothesis (Shott 1994: 83)
that reduction is continuous.
Lithic analysts often perceive stages in both flake
debris and tools. Yet three recent studies of debris
produced in replication experiments, differing in
some analytical details, identified flake size and num-
ber of facets as correlates of removal order and mod-
eled reduction in continuous terms, not as discrete
stages (fable r). Because reduction can be under-
stood in continuous terms does not make it "teleo-
logical" (c£ Bleed 2001:121) as opposed to situational
or evolutionary; "situational" reduction can be as
continuous as directed reduction. Thus, Holmes'
concept can be assimilated to an understanding of
reduction in continuous, not discrete, terms. The
concept is powerful, yet capable of accommodating
different views of the nature of reduction. Because
it is substantially the same thing, chaine operatoire
should be equally capable of accommodating reduc-
tion as a continuous process.
Whether reduction is continuous or a series of
discrete stages, all of us must work to improve the
reduction sequence concept as a model for analysis.
We can continue to dispute the nature of the pro-
cess, and certainly we often dispute the particulars
of inferred sequences. This lack of agreement owes
not to ineptitude, but sometimes to poor standards
of documentation an.d generally to the absence of
analytical criteria by which to gauge the validity of
inferences. Whether as sequences or continua,
greater rigor is the chief challenge in reduction stud-
Ies.

'Thble 1. Regression models of the reduction continuum in flakes.

EQUATION r Source

removal order= (-12.14•Jogoorhickness) + (I.J.os•Jogooscar density) (A•lodel4) ·94 lngbar et al. 11.)0'):126
removal order= (-63-75*log,othickness + (18.24*logooscar density)+ (29.62*log,oarea) (Models) ·94 Ingbar et al. 1989:126

removal order= (12.1* scar count)- (15.s*log. weight)+ (4.9• platform width) . 82 Shott 1996:17
removal order= (w.o• scar count)- (15.3*log. weight)+ (17.0• platform width) . 78 Shott 1996:17

% removal= (.09* platform facets) + (.07* log. weight)+ (.16*log. scaregrams) . 86 Bradbury&Carr 1999:n

1 Scargrams = exterior facets/weight

 Shott - Chaine Operatoire and Reduction Sequence
CONCLUSION
If Anglophones "know very little of French ar-
chaeology" (Graves 1994:38), a corollary seems as
true of French and possibly other European archae-
ologists, many of whom seem oblivious both to the
origin and current status of the reduction sequence
concept in American practice. Anglophone archae-
ologists have also embraced chai~ operatoire , often
enthusiastically. But this repetition seems tactical
rather than analytical, a way to register intellectual
pedigree more than an operational method. There
is nothing in their use of chaine operatoire that could
not be accomplished as easily and plainly with re-
duction sequence (e.g., Edmonds 1990; Gamble
1999: Tables 4.8, 5.9, 5-JO, Figure 6.17). It understates
the situation to say that French and American sys-
tematics differ fundamentally (Sackett 1991). But
due respect for other intellectual traditions for-
swears extravagant claims about the originality and
unique value of concepts new to one's own.
My purpose is not to claim reduction sequence
and, by extension, chaine operatoire, as American first
in a sterile game of intellectual scorekeeping. Ameri-
can, French and other archaeologists arrived at the
same reduction concept by different routes and at
different times (Bleed 2000). None of us has a mo-
nopoly on original thought nor on productive use
of valid analytical models. Instead, my narrowest
purpose is to equate concepts that differ in seman-
tics but not in substance and so to clarify common
usage in the literature of lithic analysis. Mostly, how-
ever, my purpose is to argue against intellectual pro-
vincialism and to urge instead that archaeologists
read and think as broadly as the linguistic barriers
that separate us allow. My knowledge of North
American practice and admittedly much poorer
knowledge of western European practice suggest
that, substantially, we ignore one another. Perhaps
modern cultural differences and geopolitical con-
cerns partly explain the estrangement, Among other
things, this has led to the use of two-terms - "re-
duction sequence" and "chaine operatoire" - for the
same referent. Apart from the tiresome claims for
chaine operatoire's originality, by itself that use a small
matter. But it betrays a blithe disregard for other
intellectual traditions that beggars us all.
103
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks go to Michael Lenoir, James Sackett,
George Odell and an anonymous reviewer, who of-
fered helpful comments .. I am responsible for any
errors or omissions.
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