Journal ArticleDOI
The Three Sides of a Biface
TLDR
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.Abstract:
Three different sorts of bifacial tools-by-products 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. The relations among tool roles, raw-material distribution, and mobility as well as the archaeological consequences of the different roles are key factors. An examination of temporal trends in the use of bifacial implements in the Carson Sink of western Nevada shows how the proposed perspective on lithic technology can help to elucidate change in mobility strategies. A shift from the use of bifaces as cores to an infrequent use of bifaces as tools suggests a shift from logistical to short-term residential use of the raw-material-poor Carson Sink; a later shift to the use of small, frequently unifacial, nonresharpenable points may indicate a shift to target-specific hunting strategies.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.
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
The Big Deal about Blades: Laminar Technologies and Human Evolution
Ofer Bar-Yosef,Steven L. Kuhn +1 more
TL;DR: A review of the evidence for the production of early blade technologies in Eurasia and Africa dating to the late Lower and the Middle Paleolithic can be found in this article, where the basic techniques for blade production appeared thousands of years before the Upper Paleolithic, and there is no justification for linking blades per se to any particular aspect of hominid anatomy or to any major change in the behavioral capacities of humans.
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.
Journal ArticleDOI
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
Experimental Determination of Stone Tool Uses: A Microwear Analysis
TL;DR: Keeley et al. as mentioned in this paper found that there was a high correlation between the detailed appearance of microwear polishes formed on tool edges and the general category of material worked by that edge.
Journal ArticleDOI
Technological Efficiency and Tool Curation
TL;DR: 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.
Journal ArticleDOI
Hunter-Gatherer Mobility Strategies
TL;DR: In this article, the nature of hunter-gatherer mobility strategies using ethnographic data is discussed, and the extent to which a group of hunters emphasizes residential or logistical mobility is closely related to the structure of resources in their environment.