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Energetic Efficiency and Lithic Technology: An Upper Mississippian Example

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert J. Jeske
Robert J. Jeske*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Indiana-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, IN 46805
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Abstract

Optimal-foraging theory and the concept of energetic efficiency have been used in archaeology for over a decade, usually to explore subsistence behavior. People, however, made choices for energy expenditure in other areas of culture, including lithic technology. It is suggested that a shift in the allocation of energy as an adaptive response to changes in social organization caused the widely noted decline in formal tool types and stone-tool refinement in the late prehistoric periods in eastern North America. Data from an Upper Mississippian village are used to demonstrate the economic use of poor-quality lithic raw material. A bipolar technique was used to produce flake blanks for triangular projectile points as well as a peculiar but common Upper Mississippian tool, the humpback biface. It is suggested that bipolar reduction and other lithic efficiency and economizing strategies are indicators of stress on the energy budgets of human populations.

Resumen

Resumen

Durante más de diez años la teoria deforrajeo óptima y el concepto de eficiencia energética han sido empleados en arqueología, normalmente para explorar la conducta relacionada a la subsistencia. Sin embargo, laspersonas toman decisiones relacionadas con gastos de energía en otras áreas de la cultura, incluyendo la tecnología lítica. Se propone que un cambio en la distribución de la energía, como respuesta adaptativa a cambios en la organizatión social, provocó la ampliamente reconocida decadencia de tipos de herramientas formalizadas y del refinamiento en la tecnología lítica en los períodos prehistóricos tardíos del este de Norteamérica. Datos procedentes de una aldea "Upper Mississippi" se utilizan para demostrar el uso económico de materiales líticos de baja calidad. La técnica bipolar fue usada en la producción de lascas para la manufactura de puntas de proyectil triangulares así como una herramienta peculiar pero común en Upper Mississippi, los bifaces con "joroba." Se sugiere que la reductión bipolar, así como otras estrategias empleadas para aumentar la eficiencia y economía de las industrias líticas, indican tensiones en el presupuesto energético de las poblaciones humanas

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 467 - 481
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1992 

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