John C. Whittaker

Evaluating consistency in typology and classification

Typological systems are essential for communication between anthropologists as well as for interpretive purposes. For both communication and interpretation, it is important to know that different individuals using the same typology classify artifacts in similar ways, but the consistency with which typologies are used is rarely evaluated or explicitly tested. There are theoretical, practical, and cultural reasons for this failure. Disagreements among archaeologists using the same typology may originate in the typology itself (i.e., imprecise type definitions, confusing structure) or in the classification process, because of observer errors, differences in perception and interpretation, and biases. We review previous attempts to evaluate consistency in typology and classification, and use consensus analysis to examine one well-established typology. Both consensus and disparity are apparent among the typologists in our case study, and this allows us to explore the kinds of forces that shape agreement and diversity in the use of all typological systems. We argue that issues of typological consistency are theoretically and methodologically important. Typological consistency can be explicitly tested, and must be if we hope to use typologies confidently.

Primitive weapons and modern sport : Atlatl capabilities, learning, gender, and age

Abstract Even uncontrolled “experimentation” such as sporting use of early hunting gear can provide insights into archaeological questions. Analyzing the records of a standardized atlatl competition over eight years offers some insights into spear thrower capabilities, learning curves, and the use of weapons by women and children. The sample is now large enough to provide a plausible analog to prehistoric atlat capabilities, allowing us to judge ethnographic accounts and archaeological expectations. Atlatl skills can be acquired fairly rapidly by any adult or older youths. The atlatl should reduce the importance of body size and strength, and all but the youngest members of a society should be biologically capable of atlatl use where sociaL rules allow it.

Replicas, fakes And Art: the Twentieth Century Stone Age and its effects on Archaeology

In addition to archaeologists who make stone tools for experimental purposes, there is a growing number of flintknappers who make lithic artifacts for fun and for profit. The scale of non-academic knapping is little known to archaeologists, and is connected to a flourishing market for antiquities, fakes, replicas, and modern lithic art. Modern stone tools are being produced in vast numbers, and are inevitably muddling the prehistoric record. Modern knappers exploit some material sources heavily, and their debitage creates new sites and contaminates old quarry areas. Modern knapping is, however, a potential source of archaeological insights, and a bridge between the professional community and the interested public. Modern knapping also is creating a “twentieth-century stone age,” and archaeologists working with lithic artifacts need to be aware of the problems and potentials.

How Atlatl Darts Behave: Beveled Points and the Relevance of Controlled Experiments

Beveled retouch on stone projectile points has often been considered as a device to spin and stabilize a projectile. A recent paper showed that a beveled point will spin a small shaft under tightly controlled laboratory conditions. However, this experiment has little relevance for real projectiles such as atlatl darts, which flex dramatically and spin unevenly inflight, quite independent of point form. The spinning is related to the flexibility of the dart, which is necessary for spearthrower functión. A beveled point cannot spin a dart in the air, but is likely to cause some rotation when encountering a solid target like flesh. Beveled points are probably not related to spinning either darts or arrows inflight and present a good example of why we need to have both theoretical understanding and experimental observations of details of projectile behavior before interpreting artifacts. Spinning in a carcass could make beveled points more lethal, but the suggestion that beveling mostly results from sharpening and other modification of stone points remains the best explanation.

Comparing Atlatls and Bows: Accuracy and Learning Curve

Abstract It is difficult to compare two different technologies that serve similar purposes, especially when the skills of experimenters must also be considered. I conducted experiments to show that bows should be more consistent and accurate than atlatls, and that proficiency with a bow is more easily attained. However, competition between weapon systems and the choice of one over the other in any real world situation is far more complex than such general measures.

Alonia and Dhoukanes: The Ethnoarchaeology of Threshing in Cyprus

An ancient feature of Mediteranean agriculture was the threshing floor, used with flint-toothed sledges. Information about Cypriot threshing and details of some threshing floors reveal both variation and common features that reflect functional, social, and economic contexts.

Making Arrowpoints in a Prehistoric Pueblo

AbstractTwo deposits of workshop debris from Grasshopper Pueblo provide information on the manufacture of small, pressure flaked arrowpoints. A number of indications are interpreted to suggest that although some specialized lithic work areas exist and stone tools were economically important, their makers were unlikely to have been highly specialized craftsmen.

Lizard Man Village: A Small Site Perspective on Northern Sinagua Social Organization

ABSTRACTA preliminary assessment of results from the excavation of Lizard Man Village, a small Sinagua pueblo and pit house site near Flagstaff, Arizona, suggests that the Sinagua were less hierarchically organized than some recent work has argued. Small sites like Lizard Man have a wider range of goods, facilities, and burials, and thus evidence of a greater participation in economic, ritual, and social systems than might be expected in a strongly centralized system.

Cushing's Key Marco Atlatls

Abstract Two forms of prehistoric atlatl or spear thrower were recovered from a Florida swamp in 1895 by Frank Hamilton Cushing. Modern research on spear throwers requires a more useful detailed description of these artifacts, and leads to attempts to replicate and test them. In this case, replicative experiments provide some subjective evaluations of the atlatls, and several possible interpretive directions. As in many replicative experiments, physical tests of some aspects of the atlatls, such as possible length, are relatively easy, but do not fully solve the problem of choosing among different plausible reconstructions of the original specimens.

Athkiajas: A Cypriot Flintknapper and the Threshing Sledge Industry

ABSTRACTThe Cypriot threshing sledge supported one of the last flintknapping Industries around the Mediteranean. Interviews with a former athkiajas (knapper) and others depict a simple, efficient, and highly specialized knapping technology, which was part of a complex of traditional agricultural practices. Within this Industry can be seen temporal, regional, and individual Variation, which is now difficult to document. The knapping and other crafts involved were also performed at several levels of specialization.