Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T21:04:11.056Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Optimal Design of Hunting Weapons: Maintainability or Reliability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Peter Bleed
Peter Bleed*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NB 68588-0368
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Design engineers share archaeologists' interest in material culture, but unlike archaeologists, engineers have developed concepts for determining the suitability of technical systems to perform specific tasks. Given the difficulty archaeologists face in developing theories of material culture, I suggest that guiding principles of engineering design offer potentially useful insights.

In this article I discuss two design alternatives for optimizing the availability of any technical system - reliability and maintainability. Reliable systems are made so that they can be counted on to work when needed. Maintainable ones can easily be made to function if they are broken or not appropriate to the task at hand. Because these design alternatives have markedly different optimal applications and observably different physical characteristics, archaeologists can link the design of prehistoric weapons to environmental constraints and to specific hunting strategies. Ethnographic examples indicate that primitive hunters do use both reliable and maintainable systems in optimal situations.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , October 1986 , pp. 737 - 747
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Balikci, Asen 1970 The Netsilik Eskimo. Natural History Press, New York.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1977 Forty-seven Trips : A Case Study in the Character of Archaeological Formation Processes. In Stone Tools as Cultural Markers, edited by S, R. V. Wright, pp. 24–36. Humanities Press, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1978a Dimensional Analysis of Behavior and Site Structure : Learning from an Eskimo Hunting Stand. American Antiquity 43 : 330–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1978b Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1979 Organization and Formation Processes : Looking at Curated Technologies. Journal of Anthropological Research 35(3) : 255–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1980 Willow Smoke and Dog's Tails. Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems and Archaeological Site Formation. American Antiquity 45 : 4–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birket-Smith, Kaj 1945 Ethnographical Collections from the Northwest Passage. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24, vol. VI, No. 2. Glydendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Boas, Franz 1964 The Central Eskimo. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Charnov, Eric L. 1976 Optimal Foraging : Attack Strategy of a Mantid. American Naturalist 110 : 141–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hames, Raymond B. 1979 A Comparison of the Efficiencies of the Shotgun and the Bow in Neotropical Forest Hunting. Human Ecology 7(3) : 219–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, Ian 1982 Theoretical Archaeology : A Reactionary View. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, edited by Hodder, I., pp. 1–16. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jochim, Michael 1983 Optimization Models in Context. In Archaeological Hammers and Theories, edited by Moore, J. and Keene, A., pp. 157–172. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keene, Arthur 1981 Prehistoric Foraging in a Temperate Forest : A Linear Program Model. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Keene, Arthur 1983 Biology, Behavior and Borrowing, A Critical Examination of Optimal Foraging Theory in Archaeology. In Archaeological Hammers and Theories, edited by Moore, J. and Keene, A., pp. 137–155. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Kleindienst, Maxine R., and Keller, Charles M. 1976 Toward a Functional Analysis of Handaxes and Cleavers : The Evidence from Eastern Africa. MAN 2 : 176–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konz, Stephan 1979 Work Design. Grid, Columbus, Ohio.Google Scholar
Laughlin, Williams S. 1966 Hunting : An Integrating Biobehavior System and Its Evolutionary Importance. In Man the Hunter, edited by Lee, R. and DeVore, I., pp. 304–320. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Lee, Richard B. 1979 The IKung San. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Mathiassen, Therkel. 1928 Material Culture of the Iglukik Eskimos. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24, vol. VI, No. 1. Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Middendorf, William 1969 Engineering Design. Allyn and Bacon, Boston.Google Scholar
Ostrofsky, Benjamin 1977 Design, Planning, and Development Methodology. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Oswalt, Wendel H. 1979 An Anthropological Analysis of Food Getting Technology. Willey-Interscience, New York.Google Scholar
Pye, David 1978 The Nature and Aesthetics of Design. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, Knud 1931 The Netsilik Eskimo. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24, vol. III. No. 1-2. Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Reidhead, A. 1980 The Economics of Subsistence Change : A Test of an Optimization Model. In Modelling Change in Prehistoric Subsistence Economics, edited by Earle, T. and Christensen, A., pp. 141–186. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Smith, J. Maynard 1978 Optimization Theory in Evolution. Annual Reviews in Ecology and Systematics. 9 : 31–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Kenneth I. 1974 Sanuma Fauna : Prohibition and Classification. Mongraphia No. 18, Fundacion La Salle de Ciencias Naturales, Instituto Caribe de Anthropologia y Sociologia, Caracas.Google Scholar
Torrence, Robin 1983 Time Budgeting and Hunter-Gatherer Technology. In Hunter-Gatherer Economy in Prehistory : A European Perspective, edited by Bailey, G., pp. 11–22. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Williams, Nancy 1981 Resource Managers : North American and Australian Hunter-Gatherers. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, Marek 1984 Clues to Recent Human Evolution from Specialized Technologies. Nature 307(26) : 314–315.Google Scholar