Journal ArticleDOI
Technological Efficiency and Tool Curation
TLDR
It is argued that the nature and distribution of lithic resources critically affect technological efficiency and two aspects of curation, maintenance and recycling are discussed, asserting that they are responses to raw material shortages.Abstract:
Archaeologists frequently explain tool curation by its efficiency. Such explanations ignore the fact that curation is a complex activity and that its component parts are efficient in different ways. I argue that the nature and distribution of lithic resources critically affect technological efficiency and I discuss two aspects of curation, maintenance and recycling, asserting that they are responses to raw material shortages. Shortages result from regional geological conditions and from behavior patterns that restrict access to raw material in certain contexts. Ethnographic and archaeological examples support this hypothesis and highlight the relationship between subsistence-settlement organization, raw material distribution, and technology.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Raw-Material Availability and the Organization of Technology
TL;DR: Andrefsky, Jr., William. as mentioned in this paper, et al. 1994 Raw Material Availability and the Organization of Technology. American Antiquity 59:21-35.1].
Journal ArticleDOI
Mobility/Sedentism: Concepts, Archaeological Measures, and Effects
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify different forms and levels of mobility in hunter-gatherers and detect sedentism in the context of the Man the Hunter (MTH) conference.
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The Three Sides of a Biface
TL;DR: In this paper, three types of bifacial tools byproducts of the shaping process, cores, and long use-life tools are used to consider the role mobility plays in producing variability in hunter-gatherer lithic technologies.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Formal Approach to the Design and Assembly of Mobile Toolkits
TL;DR: This study approaches the problem analytically, making a few simple assumptions about artifact geometry and the relations between utility and artifact size, and finds situations in which artifact functionality is more closely constrained by overall size or mass.
Journal ArticleDOI
Behavioral Ecology and Archaeology
TL;DR: Behavioral ecology is the study of adaptive behavior in relation to social and environmental circumstances and holds that the reproductive strategies and decision-making capacities of all living organisms—including humans—are shaped by natural selection.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Willow Smoke and Dogs’ Tails: Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems and Archaeological Site Formation
TL;DR: In this paper, a theory of adaptation is proposed to anticipate both differences in settlement-subsistence strategies and patterning in the archaeological record through a more detailed knowledge of the distribution of environmental variables.
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Organization and Formation Processes: Looking at Curated Technologies
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw upon ethnographic experiences among the Nunamiut Eskimo for insights into the effects of technological organization on interassemblage variability Varying situationally conditioned strategies of raw material procurement, tool design and manufacture, and disposal are described as clues to site function or "placement" in a subsistence-settlement system.
Book
Prehistoric hunters of the High Plains
TL;DR: The Northwestern Plains and the Adjacent Mountain Ranges: An Ecological Area for Prehistoric Hunters and Gatherers as mentioned in this paper, an area for prehistoric hunters and gatherers.
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Statistical reasoning in sociology
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Hafting and retooling: effects on the archaeological record
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of hafting and retooling on the archaeological record have been virtually ignored, and some methods of analysis are suggested that will allow the typological and distributional effects to be taken into account by lithic analysts.