Measuring Mobility by Proxy: Use and Maintenance of Lithic Tools in Pennsylvania from Paleoindian to Middle Archaic Times

Summary

Archaic peoples in Pennsylvania were less mobile than their Paleoindian predecessors. One form of evidence supporting this argument is the increased use of local lithic raw materials in the Early and Middle Archaic. The utilization and retouch of unifaces and bifaces is a second form of evidence of mobility. The production of tools designed for long-term use and maintenance is associated with highly mobile groups where maximizing tool use-life reduces transport cost and reduces risk when moving into areas with little or only poor quality lithic raw material. This study reports on the examination of changes in biface and uniface resharpening using Andrefsky’s Hafted Biface Retouch Index (2006), Kuhn’s geometric index for the reduction of unifaces (1990) and a new index for the utilization of unretouched flakes in an effort to examine the relationship between changing levels of use and mobility over time. The materials included in analysis are from 11 lithic assemblages previously excavated from well stratified sites in Pennsylvania dating from the Paleoindian to Middle Archaic periods.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22012