An Experimentally Supported Model of Flaked Stone Analysis for Prehistoric Dart Point Technologies

Abstract

To better understand ancient hunter gatherer people this research magnifies the archaeological visibility of ancient stone chipping strategies and techniques within a behaviorally based model of analysis. Methodological studies in this research combine and leverage a study of the complex Andice dart point technology of the Southern Plains of North America (Early Middle Holocene) with an experimental study into five other North American complex dart point technologies (of the Holocene and Upper Paleolithic). The above 2 studies and related research literature furnish the required behavioral data and concepts to construct a comprehensive system of analyses. This system or architecture of thought and method constitute an applicable model capable of delving deeper into the primary behavioral modes and tasks within complex dart point industries. This constructed model of analysis is applied towards three unrelated and independent case studies: two dart point cache assemblages of the Early-Middle Holocene of the Southern Plains of North America, and one mixed assemblage from deeply buried deposits that predate the Clovis Paleoindian interval (Upper Paleolithic of North America) from the Gault site, Texas (41BL323). The two caches encapsulate separate, single manufacturing events at different periods of the early-middle Holocene, affording unique behavioral analysis of the ancient individual knappers behind these unique caches. The Upper Paleolithic mixed assemblage from the Gault site is analyzed for its complexity, size, composition of different chipped stone strategies and techniques, and its unique value toward current archaeological questions regarding the earliest human occupations in the Americas and what chipped stone behavioral patterns they exercised. This model and the surrounding research in this thesis demonstrate the potential in high resolution behavioral interpretations of prehistoric dart point assemblages through experimentally supported chipped stone analyses.