Researchers who analyze stone tools and their production debris have made significant progress in understanding the relationship between stone tools and human organizational strategies. Stone tools are understood to be morphologically dynamic throughout their use-lives; the ever-changing morphology of stone tools is intimately associated with the needs of tool users. It also has become apparent to researchers that interpretations of lithic analysis are more productive when the unique contexts and situations for which lithic artifacts were made, used, modified, and ultimately discarded are considered. This article reviews the recent literature on stone tool production with an emphasis on raw material procurement, manufacturing techniques, and tool maintenance processes as they relate to adaptive strategies of toolmakers and users.

The Analysis of Stone Tool Procurement, Production, and Maintenance

Cite this Record Perttula, Timothy K. (2018) \"8th Edition of The Archaeology, Bioarchaeology, Ethnography, Ethnohistory, and History of the Caddo Indian Peoples of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas,\" Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State: Vol. 2018, Article 1. https://doi.org/ 10.21112/ita.2018.1.1 ISSN: 2475-9333 Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ita/vol2018/iss1/1

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8th Edition of The Archaeology, Bioarchaeology, Ethnography, Ethnohistory, and History of the Caddo Indian Peoples of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas

More than 20 years ago, Wood et al. (Curr Anthropol 33:343–370, 1992) published “The Osteological Paradox: Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples,” in which they challenged bioarchaeologists to consider the effects of heterogeneous frailty and selective mortality on health inferences in past populations. Here, we review the paper’s impact on bioarchaeology and paleopathology, focusing on recent advancements in studies of ancient health. We find the paper is often cited but infrequently engaged in a meaningful way. Despite an initial decade of limited progress, numerous researchers are now addressing components of the Paradox in more informed ways. We identify four areas of fruitful research: (1) intrasite, contextual perspectives, (2) subadults, (3) associating stress markers with demographic phenomena, and (4) skeletal lesion-formation processes. Although often seen as a problematic assumption, understanding the sources of heterogeneous frailty within human populations is a worthy research question in and of itself, and one that clearly links past and present health research within a global framework.

The Osteological Paradox 20 Years Later: Past Perspectives, Future Directions

Rocks are heavy: transport costs and Paleoarchaic quarry behavior in the Great Basin

Spatial distribution characteristics and optimized reconstruction analysis of China’s rural settlements during the process of rapid urbanization

Paleoarchaic (11.5–8.0 ka) occupants of the Great Basin encountered numerous lithic sources as they moved across foraging territories. Source provenance and lithic technologic analyses applied to the tools manufactured from these source materials elucidate several aspects of mobility, including the geographic scale of material conveyance and extent and possible routes of population movement. This research indicates that central Great Basin groups traversed large subsistence territories, extending more than 400 km from north to south, with mobility tactics probably keyed to the distribution of resource-rich wetlands. Changes in source representation parallel warming and drying trends, suggesting that Paleoarchaic foraging ranges shifted as wetlands diminished after about 9.5–8.5 ka.

Lithic Source Use and Paleoarchaic Foraging Territories in the Great Basin

A multitude of factors, ranging from environmental to ideological, determine where human settlements are placed on the landscape. In archaeological contexts, finding the reasons behind settlement choice can be very difficult and often requires the use of ethnographic analogies and/or modeling in a geographic information system (GIS). Archaeologists have used one particular GIS-based method, viewshed analysis, to examine site features such as defensibility and control over economic hinterlands. I use viewshed analysis in this case study to determine how the natural and political landscapes affected the settlement location choices of the Late Woodland and early Historic Onondaga Iroquois. Proximity to critical resources and defensibility both factored into the decision of where communities would place villages. Although this study shows that resources, such as productive soils, had a more significant effect on settlement choice, Iroquois communities were also taking measures to maintain the defensibility of their villages. This examination displays how GIS analyses in archaeology can go beyond the statistical results and help us understand past behavior.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/40035363

Using Viewshed Analysis to Explore Settlement Choice: A Case Study of the Onondaga Iroquois

An analysis of factors influencing sixteenth and seventeenth century Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) settlement locations

Over the last 25 years, a significant amount of archaeological and ethnohistoric research has produced data on Native American population trends after European contact. These include the timing and severity of depopulation and specific Old World diseases, allowing for meta-analytical research on a variety of topics. These data have been used in studies to explore the severity of depopulation, but the spatial and temporal patterns of diseases have been studied less. This research employs spatial analysis methods—Mantel tests and kriging—to study the relationship between the location and timing of Old World disease events on continental and regional scales, with the goal of examining how diseases spread over time and space. The results show that the timing of disease-related depopulation closely correlated with location, indicating that disease events clustered with regard to time and space. This strongly suggests that individual disease events impacted local populations and did not spread long distances (> 300 km) until the late seventeenth century. The analysis also reveals variations in the speed with which diseases spread. Interpreting the results with respect to pathogen, host, and environmental factors suggests that population distributions and landscape may have played significant roles in where and how fast diseases spread.

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Old World Diseases in North America, A.D. 1519–1807

Much of the discussion about North American precontact and contact-period populations has focused on continent-wide estimates. Although the associated work has produced valuable information on the demographic and cultural history of the continent, it has failed to generate agreed-upon estimates, population trends, or detailed demographic knowledge of Native American cultures. Using archaeological settlement remains and methods developed in recent research on Iroquoian cultures, this study estimates and examines population trends for the Onondaga and Oneida cultures of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) from A.D. 1500 to 1700. Onondaga population appears to have increased until the mid-seventeenth century, when drastic declines in settlement area and population size occurred. This depopulation event is both several decades after first contact with Europeans and at least a decade after the first known depopulation event among the Haudenosaunee. Oneida populations show a much more complex history that suggests the need for more detailed analyses of contact-period Native American population data. In conjunction with archaeological evidence and ethnohistoric information, the population trends generated by this study create a model of two precontact Native American populations and display the effects of European contact on those populations.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/EFC07DC1982F321D69D70F58B3EDCDCA/S0002731600040014a.pdf/div-class-title-population-history-of-the-onondaga-and-oneida-iroquois-a-d-1500-1700-div.pdf

Eric E. Jones

Papers

Lithic Source Use and Paleoarchaic Foraging Territories in the Great Basin

Using Viewshed Analysis to Explore Settlement Choice: A Case Study of the Onondaga Iroquois

An analysis of factors influencing sixteenth and seventeenth century Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) settlement locations

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Old World Diseases in North America, A.D. 1519–1807

Population History of the Onondaga and Oneida Iroquois, A.D. 1500–1700