Michael Shott

Feathers addresses the dual challenges of inferring original vessel counts from sherds and inference to use life from reconstructed vessels. His solution assumes the validity of sherd assemblages as units of observation that considerable research invalidates and overlooks methods that estimate original vessels from sherds. Feathers also doubts that use life can be inferred for reconstructed vessels. Although not a focus of my article, the larger study from which it derived addresses this matter in detail that strongly warrants vessel size as use-life measure. Of course we must be pragmatic in quantifying pottery assemblages, but first we must identify valid units of observation, and only then attend to pragmatics.

AbstractOrdinarily we regard the litic reduction sequence as a series of stages, but it may instead be a continuum. Using the debris assemblage generated in producing a fluted biface broadly of Gainey affinity, in which each flake was numbered in order of removal, this study evaluates stage and continuous approaches as models of reduction. Stages are not evident, despite the use of several methods to identify them. Instead, a multiple regression model identifies dorsal scar count, flake weight, and plat-form width as significant predictors of removal order in the reduction continuum.

... or phases are ordered in time based on radiocarbon dates, ceramic seri-ation, and context ... constructed from radiocarbon dat-ing, typological cross-dating with seriated pottery assemblages, and ... Rim-height seriation also suggests earlier placement for Larson [Fishel 1995: 76 ...

Abstract Their abundance in the archaeological record makes assemblages of lithic debris popular subjects of analysis. Archaeologists study them to identify both kinds and stages of reduction, using approaches that range in scale from attribute analysis to typology and size distributions. Experiments demonstrate meaningful pattern in flake assemblages by both kind and stage. Yet empirical assemblages often are mixtures of flake debris from various reduction kinds and stages. Mixing confounds the patterns often found in controlled experimental data. To address this problem, we use Stahle and Dunn's (1982) data and a similar constrained-regression method, QUADPROG in R, to allocate hypothetical mixed assemblages of biface-reduction stages to their constituent stages. In combining their Stages 2 and 3, a measure that Stahle and Dunn themselves advocated, QUADPROG improves their allocation results. Methods like these deserve further testing on a wider range of flake assemblages to address the challenge that mixing poses.

How long points last is a performance attribute just as important as how well they fly and how deeply they penetrate targets. I analyze longevity data in a set of experimental North American Paleoindian Folsom spear-point replicas described by Hunzicker (Plains Anthropologist, 53:291–311, 2008) and previously analyzed for other purposes by Shott et al. (Lithic Technol, 32:203–217, 2007). My goal is to demonstrate the value, descriptively and analytically, of the evidence of longevity encoded in spear points and to consider how they can be estimated in archaeological assemblages. This is possible even though, unlike in experimental data, it cannot be observed or measured directly. At least dimly, results point the way toward the ability to estimate how long tools were used before they failed, how to estimate the distribution of this quantity for populations of points, and how to analyze such distributions.

Stone tools “age” by reduction during use. Like individuals, each tool “ages” (is reduced) to some particular degree; like populations, sets of tools “age” (are reduced) to varying degrees expressed as reduction distributions. I fit distributions of North American Paleoindian tools to mathematical models, both for ­efficient description and to identify processes that govern discard. Reduction ­analysis is the thoughtful

At present, the sequences we construct describe how the material record patterns in time. This is archaeography, not archaeology. Then we use anthropological theory of behavior and organization on short time scales to devise plausible accounts of the past consistent ...

Technological organization refers to the manner in which material technologies are integrated into cultural systems. It is based on the recognition that objective functional requirements of technologies can be met in a variety of ways, and that variability in the form and content of technologies is related to aspects of cultural systems in addition to those requirements. Models of these relationships permit us to infer the latter from direct observation of technological remains. Thus, material technology can inform us of nonmaterial aspects of past cultural systems. This study involves the relationship between settlement mobility and technology in Great Lakes Paleo-Indian societies. "Settlement mobility" denotes the manner in which foragers systematically move across their l and scape. Mobility consists of several variables, including frequency, and magnitude. The ecological basis of settlement mobility, are considered. Environmental parameters are shown to relate in specific ways to the mobility variables frequency and magnitude. Technological variables used in the model include diversity, the number of tool classes, and versatility and flexibility, aspects of how tasks are distributed among tool classes. A model relating forager mobility to technology is formulated. Ethnographic data on the mobility components are compiled. These data are compared to data on forager technologies, and important relationships between mobility and technology are identified. In particular, technological diversity declines as mobility frequency increases. Concern then shifts to the cases selected for analysis: Paleo-Indian societies in the Great Lakes region. A series of Paleo-Indian cultures is recognized in the archaeological record between 11,000-10,000 B.P. Environmental conditions are treated and the mobility parameters characterizing successive Paleo-Indian societies are inferred. Assemblages from two sites are chosen for detailed treatment. Expectations of the model of technological organization are used to structure analysis of the archaeological data. First, the various processes which formed the assemblages are defined, and differences between assemblages in the role of these process are identified. Archaeological measures of technological variables are devised, and changes in the measures are related to the differt mobility parameters of the successive Paleo-Indian phases. Analysis of tool frequencies and metric data suports most expectations of the model. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)Ph.D.ArchaeologyNative American studiesUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161165/1/8621376.pd

In the American midcontinent, first millenium A.D. point types show a Single continuum of metric variation, not a time-series of distinct forms. This view changes our understanding of the technological transition from dart to arrow, which may have begun earlier and unfolded over a longer time than commonly believed, and involved for some time simultaneous use of both weapon types. Reduction in point size may have persisted even after the arrow was adopted, possibly in response to broader subsistence changes. The Diet Breadth model suggests one explanation for the continuous decline in arrow-point size. Whatever its cause, this time-dependent trend can improve our ability to measure time as the continuum it is.

The original research papers in the volume provide a broad review of current approaches to the study of lithic technology from the Palaeolithic to the present. The contributions address both with analytical techniques and interpretive issues. Collectively, they increase our understanding of issues such as tool function, means of production, raw material sourcing and exchange systems, and the evolution of human cognition, social organization and symbolic behavior

ABSTRACTChipped-stone projectile points are used to mark the passage of time and cultures in the record. Archaeologists often recover points in surface survey, yet we do not know how many were found by private collectors before or after professional work. In a 1975–1977 Michigan probabilistic survey, professional archaeologists documented 30 private collections from 20 sample units. In those units, points found by private collectors outnumber professionally recovered ones by a factor of about 32. The survey region's point population estimated separately from the professional and private-collection samples differs by nearly an order of magnitude in favor of private collections, despite highly conservative assumptions about the latter. The number of points found in professional survey is inversely correlated with the number found in private collections, and the professional sample is more sparsely and randomly distributed. However, proportions of several common types are similar b...

The Central Ohio Archaeological Digitization Survey (COADS) documented large samples of prehistoric artifacts, notably points, held by private collectors in southcentral Ohio, USA. COADS captured two-dimensional images of over 10,000 points and several hundred three-dimensional images. Many were processed for landmarkbased geometric morphometric (LGM) analysis using two standard protocols, for entire points and for stems only. This case study tests for resharpening allometrythe possibility that preferential resharpening of blades caused change in shape with change in size of points-and related LGM concepts of modularity and integration. It justifies allometric tests as logical preconditions to typological and other studies of original design. To date, most LGM studies of this nature in North America involve Paleoindian fluted points. We test for allometry in COADS Kirk points, an Archaic type, using LGM and complementary reduction measures. MorphoJ and limited gmshiny analysis suggest a strong allometric signal with fairly high modularity; blade shape much more than stem shape varies with size, corroborated by independent measures. Separate analysis of stems alone indicates no allometry, as expected since stems vary little in resharpening. Allometry must be considered before attributing variation in whole-object shape to adaptation, drift, or other mechanisms.

Harold Dibble demonstrated the systematic effects of reduction by retouch upon the size and shape of Middle Paleolithic tools. The result was the reduction thesis, with its far-reaching implications for the understanding of Middle Paleolithic assemblage variation that even now are incompletely assimilated. But Dibble's influence extended beyond the European Paleolithic. Others identified additional reduction methods and measures that complement Dibble's reduction thesis, and applied analytical concepts and methods consistent with it to industries and assemblages around the world. These developments facilitated comprehensive reduction analysis of archaeological tools and assemblages and their comparison in the abstract despite the great diversity of their time-space contexts. Dibble argued that many assemblages are time-averaged accumulations. In cases from New Zealand to North America, methods he pioneered and that others extended reveal the complex processes by which behavior, tool use, curation, and time interacted to yield those accumulations. We are coming to understand that the record is no mere collection of ethnographic vignettes, instead a body of data that requires macroarchaeological approaches. Archaeology's pending conceptual revolution in part is a legacy of Dibble's thought.

The Central Ohio Archaeological Digitization Survey (COADS) documented large samples of prehistoric artifacts, notably points, held by private collectors in south-central Ohio, USA. COADS captured two-dimensional images of several thousand points, and several hundred three-dimensional images. Subjects were processed for landmarked-based geometric morphometric (LGM) analysis, as entire points and as stems only. Among other things, analysis can test for resharpening allometry-the possibility that preferential resharpening of blades caused change in shape with change in size of points-and related LGM concepts of modularity and integration. This study reports analysis for allometry in early Holocene COADS Thebes and St. Charles points. A clear allometric signal with fairly high modularity resides in the data; blade shape much more than stem shape varies with size, corroborated by independent reduction measures. Separate analysis of stems alone indicated no allometry, as expected since stems vary little in resharpening. Allometry must be considered before attributing variation in midcontinental whole-point shape to adaptation, drift, or other mechanisms.

Archaeologists see the value, if not the allure, of formation theory. Before inferring what happened in the past and why, we must know how the material record formed. Pottery is abundant and informative, therefore a common analytical subject. Understanding size and composition of ceramics assemblages requires formation theory, including knowledge of vessel use life. This fundamental quantity has two salient properties. The first—central tendency measured by mean or median—is widely acknowledged. Use life's second, equally important, property is the distribution of failure-age by specimen across assemblages. This article considers how and why both use-life properties affect size and composition of pottery assemblages. From a longitudinal ethnoarchaeology of household pottery in Michoacán, Mexico, it identifies vessel-size measures that correlate with use-life mean, and it demonstrates archaeologically innovative ways to characterize distributions that improve both analysis of ass...

Like any scientific technique, radiocarbon dating has limitations, and its results cannot be interpreted uncritically. The archaeological record of Childers, a Late Woodland site in eastern North America, and inferences concerning its occupational history are evaluated here against radiocarbon dates from the site. The record suggests a single, relatively brief, occupation, but radiocarbon-dating results suggest either a much longer continuous occupation or a long series of shorter ones. The apparent conflict between the archaeological record and radiocarbon results is resolved by considering context and integrity of radiocarbon samples, as well as the probabilistic character of the radiocarbon method itself. Considerable dispersion in dating results can occur even in relatively brief occupations, casting doubt on the uncritical interpretation of raw radiocarbon results. Childers's occupational history and chronological placement have important implications for regional culture p...

Significant parts of the archaeological record are in private hands, including those of responsible and responsive stewards (RRS). This is not necessarily a bad thing. The Central Ohio Archaeological Digitization Survey (COADS) engages RRS in collaborative study of central Ohio prehistory. COADS leverages the mass of RRS data constructively to add depth and breadth to a regional archaeological record. We recorded over 12,000 diagnostic points and about 5,000 other stone tools from 32 RRS collections. All were scanned as two-dimensional (2D) images, and a sample as three-dimensional (3D) models for landmark-based geometric morphometric (LGM) analysis and GIS analysis of prehistoric land use. The resulting dataset is >4.7 times the number of diagnostics recorded in the Ohio SHPO database for the region, shedding new light on land use and tool use over millennia. In addition to academic research, COADS creates an accessible collection of 3D models available to RRS colleagues and to ...

Pottery Ethnoarchaeology in the Michoacán Sierra (Univ. of Utah, 2018) is a study of pottery-vessel use-life and the factors that determine this quantity. The study sought to explain and justify the importance of use-life to a range of common inferences from ceramic assemblages, then to collect data to estimate the use-life of a range of vessels defined by function, form and size for a region in which more-or-less traditional use of pottery persisted. Finally, it was intended to illustrate methods of survivorship analysis not previously applied to ceramic ethnoarchaeological data and to note their archaeological implications. Readers of the book must judge its success in aspiring to these goals, but fair judgments won't be helped by Phil Arnold's unprofessional "review" in American Antiquity.