Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
Stone tools and technological behavior can be considered to lie along a continuum from curation to expediency. While the topic of tool curation has received substantial attention since introduced by Binford, the significance and interpretive potential of expedient technologies—often alternatively described as low-cost, informal, simple, or opportunistic technologies—have enjoyed less explicit discussion. Even so, expediency can be said to characterize an important portion—indeed, perhaps even most—of hominin technological behavior since the Oldowan. Expediency here refers to employing low-cost solutions to technological problems and it may characterize any stage of tool-related behaviors, from raw material procurement to tool manufacture, use, and discard. This session aims to bring together perspectives on expedient lithic technological behavior from a variety of chronological and geographic contexts to reach broader reflections on the theoretical and practical place of expediency in the archaeological interpretation of stone tool technological variability. Within this framework, certain underlying questions are proposed: How is expediency best defined? What sorts of questions can the study of technological expediency answer? What analytical tools should be used to study expedient technology? Does expediency largely “look the same” across contexts, or does expediency have different, culturally grounded manifestations?
Other Keywords
Lithic Analysis •
Paleolithic •
Material Culture and Technology •
Hunter-Gatherers/Foragers •
Late Stone Age •
Lithic Technology •
Use-Wear Analysis •
Bipolar Technology •
Craft Production •
Archaic
Geographic Keywords
Principality of Monaco (Country) •
Kingdom of Spain (Country) •
Principality of Andorra (Country) •
Gibraltar (Country) •
Portuguese Republic (Country) •
French Republic (Country) •
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Nort (Country) •
Ireland (Country) •
Isle of Man (Country) •
Kingdom of Belgium (Country)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-11 of 11)
- Documents (11)
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The Deconstruction of Technical Behavior: Assessing the Significance of Low-Cost Technologies in the Upper Paleolithic (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Expedient technologies are linked to low-cost behaviors, aimed at producing stone artifacts with low technical complexity and minimal temporal requirements. Traditionally, these have been associated with assemblages characterized by simple production systems mainly geared toward obtaining flakes. In recent...
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Expedient Lithic Procurement at the Katterfeld Quarry-Workshop of Central-West Patagonia (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of toolstone procurement in Patagonia is biased in favor of high-quality exotic materials—chiefly obsidian—often transported over large distances as heavily curated artifacts. Lesser-quality sources however may be important in the technological behavior at smaller scales (e.g., basin, subregion). The...
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Expedient Lithic Technology at the Terminal Gravettian of the Peña Capón Site (Central Spain) during Heinrich Stadial 2 (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Terminal Gravettian, first defined in Central Portugal, is a relative outlier concerning the exploitation of lithic raw materials during the Upper Paleolithic of southwest Europe, as especially shown by an intensive use of quartz. Although Terminal Gravettian assemblages often include the production of...
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Expedient Technological Behavior in the Aurignacian of Southern Italy (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The role of expedient behaviors in the Upper Paleolithic has often been overshadowed by the study of more elaborate technologies to produce bladelets. This disparity in research focus is particularly evident in the Aurignacian context. Little discussion exists surrounding the use of cost-effective methods to...
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Expedient Tools from a Functional Angle (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In almost every culture of the world, expedient tools are present. They are “tools of the moment.” These flakes were crafted quickly with semi-improvised techniques, then used for a short period of time and discarded. The use of flakes as tools may not only indicate reuse or recycling of debitage waste, but also...
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Low-Cost Centripetal Technology in the LSA of Southern Mozambique (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Centripetal lithic technology, including various forms of Levallois technique, is very common in the African MSA. This technology is commonly identified by prepared core technology, where striking platforms are fully prepared to produce a variety of blanks. In Mozambique, both Levallois and prepared discoidal...
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Perspectives on the Organization and Use of Lithic Technology: A Modern Ethnographic Case Study in East Turkana, Kenya (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Expedient technology has taken on several meanings within the study of stone tools. However, the range of behaviors associated with the term expedient and its manifestation in the archaeological record is dependent on the socio-ecological and functional contexts in which technology is used. Acquiring a deeper...
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Raw Material Selection and Technological Expediency in the Iberian Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Expediency, in the sense of applying low-cost, informal technological solutions, characterizes a great deal of hominin technological behavior over time. The degree to which expedient technological behaviors are culturally-laden versus culturally-void remains an open question—one with important implications for...
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Revisiting Bipolar Technology‘s African Distribution and Diversity (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bipolar reduction is a central strategy in Pleistocene archaeology, recognized as an archetypal “expedient” technology. It entails hammer and anvil flake production, suitable for stabilizing smaller cores during miniaturized flake production. Despite its widespread occurrence and decades of study, debates...
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Short Reduction Sequences at the First European Peopling: An Example of Expedient Technology? (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The early European peopling (about 1.5 Ma) is characterized by a low number of sites and lithic assemblages often consisting of a few hundred pieces. Despite these limitations, it is possible to define the technical behavior of these early Europeans with sufficient accuracy. The reduction sequences are always...
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Understanding Ancient Maya Expedient Lithic Technology: Raw Material, Production, and Use (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Expedient flaked stone tools, generally defined as those which are produced as needed, without standardization, and with little to no investment, are less often examined in the archaeological record than formal stone tools, those which require more skill and effort to produce following a prescribed method or...