Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:50:10.329Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Behavioral Approach to Lithics and the Use of Ethnographic Analogy: A Comment on Odell

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Deborah Rowland Sabo
Deborah Rowland Sabo*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

George Odell's article calls attention to the need for more creative uses of the results of lithic use-wear studies. However, the structure of his argument is precarious because it is based on a hierarchy of assumptions about the stone tools themselves, as well as about the behavioral contexts of their use. A major failing of the argument is the lack of a rigorous methodology for construction and application of ethnographic analogies. The present comment argues for the use of general analogy, based on consideration of a range of pertinent ethnographic examples.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , January 1982 , pp. 187 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1982

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

Ascher, Robert 1961 Analogy in archaeological interpretation. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 17:317–325.Google Scholar
Beals, Ralph L., and Joseph A., Hester Jr. 1974 Indian land use and occupancy in California. 3 vols. Garland, New York.Google Scholar
Bishop, Charles A. 1974 The northern Ojibwa and the fur trade: an historical and ecological study. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Toronto.Google Scholar
Champlain, Samuel de 1907 Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, 1604-1618. edited by Grant, W. L.. Scribner's, New York.Google Scholar
Champlain, Samuel de 1922-1936 The works of Samuel de Champlain (1626), edited by Henry P., Biggar. 6 vols. The Champlain Society, Toronto.Google Scholar
Clarke, David 1976 Mesolithic Europe: the economic basis. In Problems in economic and social archaeology, edited by Sieveking, G. de G. et al., pp. 449–481, Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Gusinde, Martin 1971 The Selk'nam, on the life and thought of a hunting people on the great island of Tierra del Fuego. Human Relations Area Files, New Haven.Google Scholar
Hiatt, Betty 1967 The food quest and the economy of the Tasmanian aborigines. Oceania 38:99-133, 190–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jochim, Michael A. 1976 Hunter-gatherer subsistence and settlement: a predictive model. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Jochim, Michael A. 1979 Catches and caches: ethnographic alternatives for prehistory. In Ethnoarchaeology, implications of ethnography for archaeology, edited by Carol, Kramer, pp. 219–246. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Keeley, Lawrence H. 1980 Experimental determination of stone tool uses, a microwear analysis. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Keeley, Lawrence H., and Mark H., Newcomer 1977 Microwear analysis of experimental flint tools: a test case. Journal of Archaeological Science 4:29–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroeber, Alfred L. 1925 Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78.Google Scholar
Lamb, Harold H. 1977 Climate: present, past and future, [vol. 2]: climatic history and the future. Methuen, New York.Google Scholar
Lange, Frederick W. 1980 Prehistory and hunter/gatherers: the role of analogs. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 5(1): 133–147.Google Scholar
Odell, George H. 1980 Toward a more behavioral approach to archaeological lithic concentrations. American Antiquity 45:404–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Odell, George H., and Frieda, Odell-Vereecken 1980 Verifying the reliability of lithic use-wear assessments by “blind tests“: the low power approach. Journal of Field Archaeology 7:87–120.Google Scholar
Ray, Arthur J. 1974 Indians in the fur trade: their role as trappers, hunters, and middlemen in the lands southwest of Hudson Bay 1600-1870. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.Google Scholar
Rogers, Edward S. 1962 The Round Lake Ojibwa. Occasional Paper No. 5, Royal Ontario Museum, Art and Archaeology Division, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Rogers, Edward S. 1973 The quest for food and furs: the Mistassini Cree, 1953-1954. National Museum of Man Publications in Ethnology No. 5, National Museum of Canada.Google Scholar
Rogers, Edward S., and Mary B., Black 1976 Subsistence strategy in the fish and hare period, northern Ontario: the Weagamow Ojibwa, 1880-1920. Journal of Anthropological Research 32(1):1–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall 1965 On the sociology of primitive exchange. In The relevance of models for social anthropology, edited by Michael, Banton, pp. 139–227. Association of Social Anthropologists, Monograph No. 1. Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Stuart, David E. 1972 Band structure and ecological variability: the Ona and Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego. Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Thompson, Raymond H. 1956 The subjective element in archaeological inference. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 17: 317–325.Google Scholar
Thwaites, Reuben G. (editor) 1896-1901 The Jesuit relations and allied documents. 73 vols. Burrows Brothers, Cleveland (Reprinted in 1959 by Pageant, New York).Google Scholar
Trewartha, Glenn T. 1968 An introduction to climate (fourth ed.). McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Van Riper, Joseph E. 1971 Man's physical world. McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Watanabe, Hitoshi 1964 The Ainu: a study of ecology and the system of social solidarity between man and nature in relation to group structure. Journal of the Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, Section V, Anthropology, Vol. II, Part 6.Google Scholar
Yellen, John E. 1977 Archaeological approaches to the present: models for reconstructing the past. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar