Reviewing the Role of Experimentation in Reconstructing Paleoamerican Lithic Technologies

ABSTRACT

Experimental archaeology is a key component of research for reconstructing past human behaviors, and this approach has been a cornerstone for interpreting the earliest archaeological record in the Americas. In this paper, we survey the work of scholars who have used experimental archaeology to investigate the Paleoamerican stone tool record. We focus primarily on research published in the most recent decade. We organize our review according to four prevailing research themes: identifying objects intentionally made or modified by humans, measuring production efficiency, understanding projectile technologies, and reconstructing how tools were used. In each of these sections, we describe research questions and experimental designs and concisely summarize original investigators’ experimental results. Our hope is that this review will be a useful resource and inspire new experimental research.

KEYWORDS:

• Experimental archaeology
• efficiency
• projectile
• taphonomy
• usewear

Acknowledgements

An early version of this paper was presented at the 11th International Symposium on Knappable Materials, and we thank Daniel Amick for inviting us to participate in his organized session. We thank Ted Goebel, Mike O’Brien, Metin Eren, and one anonymous reviewer for their comments which greatly improved this paper. In addition to substantive comments, bringing papers we missed to our attention was extremely helpful. An impressive amount of Paleoamerican experimental literature is out there in a diversity of publication outlets, and we apologize if we missed your study in this review.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Thomas A. Jennings earned his PhD in 2012 at Texas A&M University, and he is now Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Louisville. He is an archaeologist researching the colonization of North America and early hunter-gatherers in the Great Plains and Southeast, specializing in geoarchaeology and lithic technological organization. As Director of the Center for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, he is also engaged in developing curation, public archaeology, and museum exhibit projects with local, state, and federal partners.

Ashley M. Smallwood earned her PhD in 2011 at Texas A&M University, and she is now Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Louisville. Her research interests include the prehistory of the American Southeast, Paleoindian and Archaic hunter-gatherer adaptations, flaked-stone artifact analysis, technological change through time, technological organization, and human-environment interactions.

Charlotte D. Pevny earned her PhD in 2009 at Texas A&M University. She is a Project Manager with SEARCH in New Orleans, Louisiana; she has over 25 years of experience in cultural resources management. Her research interests include lithic technology and microwear analysis, hunter-gatherer subsistence and settlement, and site formation processes.