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This study presents the results of an experimental assessment of Clovis projectile durability, or the ability of Clovis point forms and their hafts to withstand impact damage. This work is the seco...

A variety of flaked stone projectile point attributes can affect impact durability, which is the relationship between projectile impact force and point breakage. We examine the role of isometric sc...

In Late Pleistocene North America colonizing hunter-gatherers knapped and used Clovis fluted projectile points. During their expansion the size and shape of Clovis points changed significantly. Arc...

Despite decades of study of post-depositional surface modification by lithic use-wear analysts, the impact of heat remains underexplored. In this paper, we present the results of an experiment desi...

Robert J. Patten passed away suddenly on February 8, 2017. His influence on flintknapping, lithic technology, and archaeology, however, continues on. Here, we review Patten’s life and myriad contributions.

Flintknappers must successfully deploy specific physical techniques to make stone artifacts. Somewhat analogous to flintknapping, the successful performance of conjuring tricks also relies on effective deployment of physical actions and techniques to bring about desired outcomes. To prevent spectators detecting the cause–effect relationships between these physical actions, conjurors use various forms of “misdirection.” Recently, there has been intensified academic interest in misdirection by experimental psychologists and cognitive scientists. Here, we show that misdirection provides a valuable model for examining the cognitively challenging elements of learning to knap through observation. Several implications arise from conceiving of these issues in terms of their capacity for “misdirection.” This includes the possibility of connecting them with well-understood psychological mechanisms, especially those underpinning the cognition of accurate perception, attention, memory, and reasoning. This can open novel avenues of enquiry relating to social learning, the evolution of technological “complexity,” and for connecting archaeology with cognitive neuroscience.

Prehistoric humans occupied cold environments for more than one million years without the controlled use of fire. Processing frozen meat may have been a regular occurrence. In order to explore whether this behavior is present in the archaeological record, archaeologists must first understand whether the butchery of frozen meat leaves diagnostic traces of microwear on stone tools. We present an experiment that investigates what sorts of micro-traces are left on replica stone tools used for butchering frozen versus raw meat. Our results indicate that polish of similar brightness and texture forms on specimens used to slice both frozen and unfrozen meat, but that there are differences in the extent of polish formation away from the tool edge, damage frequency, and damage type. These experimental results can be used as a model to recognize frozen and unfrozen meat butchery on artifacts, which in turn has implications for interpreting archaeological sites.

The Mixter site (33-ME-4), Erie County, Ohio, is a multicomponent site first reported in 1967. We re-examined the Mixter site projectile point assemblage to understand which types were present, whe...

Paleo Crossing (33ME274), a Clovis site in Medina County, Northeast Ohio, USA, has played an important role in debates on the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas given its published, and assumed accurate, age of 10,980 ± 75 BP (12,717–13,020 calibrated BP, median age 12,854 cal BP). However, there are still questions surrounding the radiocarbon ages from the site. We aimed to bypass using the association of charcoal with features or artifacts, and instead date the Clovis artifacts directly via luminescence dating. The chronometric results of 9.14 ± 2.18 kya and 8.92 ± 3.03 kya suggest one of two possibilities: (1) there was a fire at Paleo Crossing sometime during the Early Archaic period or, more likely, (2) the inner parts of the lithics were partially bleached, reducing the signal, while they were exposed on the surface.

Recognized by archaeologists for over a century, and practiced by hominins in nearly every archaeological context in which flaked stone is used, bipolar technology involves the coordination of at least three components (hammer, anvil, and core). Archaeologists are increasingly aware of the variability within bipolar reduction, such that it can hardly be considered a single unified reduction strategy. Our experiments investigate the role of axial bipolar reduction versus freehand reduction as strategies for lithic miniaturization on flint. The results provide clear, probabilistic, and quantifiable methods for identifying bipolar reduction in archaeological assemblages. They also show the time and energetic benefits of bipolar reduction over freehand reduction in contexts involving small, elongated flake production. Our results have wide applicability for interpreting archaeological assemblages across Africa, Europe, North America, and Australia.

Levallois reduction was geographically widespread during the Middle Palaeolithic, being practiced by both Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and early Modern Humans (Homo sapiens). Here, we review and synthesize a range of recent work that we have undertaken on the issue of Levallois, with the aim of further considering its implications in terms of social learning during the Palaeolithic. Specifically, our recent experimental work has provided evidence that Levallois reduction supplied flakes that have predictable benefits from a functional perspective, and also supported an hypothesis that it has benefits relating to raw material economy. Geometric morphometric analyses of archaeological cores have, meanwhile, demonstrated that examples conforming to “classic” (lineal) Levallois form have certain geometric properties that display limited variation, even across wide geographic regions. Hence, replicating this morphology consistently may have demanded specific requirements on the part of individual knapp...

In this pilot study we explore the relationship between bipolar flake shape and stone raw material differences. We conducted a morphometric analysis of 40 quartzite and 40 basalt experimentally replicated specimens from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. We carried out two sets of statistical analyses to investigate the shapes of quartzite and basalt bipolar flakes. Our first set of analyses focused on statistical comparisons of five morphometric variables recorded on the two samples of bipolar flakes. For the second set of analyses we used principal components analysis (PCA) to investigate shape differences among the quartzite and basalt bipolar flakes. Our results suggested that there are no significant differences amongst the quartzite and basalt samples. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the close association between quartzite and bipolar reduction during the Lower Paleolithic at Olduvai Gorge is due to a single motivating factor, namely, expediency. However, we emphasize that more experimen...

Lohse, Collins, and Bradley ignore or misrepresent the arguments we have made concerning “controlled” overshot flaking and the purported Ice-Age Atlantic Crossing. Here, we summarize our previous work and explain again how it directly tests the explicit claims of Stanford and Bradley (2012; Bradley and Stanford 2004, 2006). We also correct the inaccuracies and false accusations of Lohse, Collins, and Bradley, and refute their belief that arguments should be rejected or accepted on the basis of majority consensus and authority rather than on empirical data and logical arguments.

There is a strong link between the study of hunter-gatherers and the study of lithic technologies. Not only did prehistoric foragers regularly make use of stone for tools, but those lithic implemen...

PALEOINDIAN LIFEWAYS OF THE CODY COMPLEX, edited by Edward J. Knell, and Mark P. Muniz. Salt Lake City, USA: The University of Utah Press, 2013, 340 pp. (Hardback), $60.00. ISBN-13: 9781607812302As...