Alan P. Sullivan - Archaeological Variability and Interpretation in Global Perspective

edited by

Alan P. Sullivan III
and Deborah I. Olszewski

University Press of Colorado

Boulder

2016 by University Press of Colorado

Published by University Press of Colorado
5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C
Boulder, Colorado 80303

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of Association of American University Presses.

The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University.

This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

ISBN: 978-1-60732-493-5 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-60732-494-2 (ebook)

If the tables in this publication are not displaying properly in your ereader, please contact the publisher to request PDFs of the tables.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sullivan, Alan P., editor. | Olszewski, Deborah, editor.

Title: Archaeological variability and interpretation in global perspective / edited by Alan P. Sullivan III and Deborah I. Olszewski.

Description: Boulder : University Press of Colorado, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016000562| ISBN 9781607324935 (cloth) | ISBN 9781607324942 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: ArchaeologyMethodology.

Classification: LCC CC75 .A6545 2016 | DDC 930.1dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016000562

Front cover design by Irfan Ibrahim

Chapter One
Working with Archaeological Variability in the Twenty-First CenturyThinking about Materiality, Epistemology, and Ontology

ALAN P. SULLIVAN III AND DEBORAH I. OLSZEWSKI

Section I.
Advances in Interpreting Regional Archaeological Records

Chapter Two
A Lithic Perspective on Ecological Dynamics in the Upper Pleistocene of Western Eurasia

C. MICHAEL BARTON AND JULIEN RIEL-SALVATORE

Chapter Three
The Significance of Persistent Places in Shaping Regional Settlement History: The Case of the Mimbres Mogollon

BARBARA J. ROTH

Chapter Four
Reductive Technology and the Epipaleolithic of the Middle East and North Africa

DEBORAH I. OLSZEWSKI

Chapter Five
Context and Complexity on the Arid Margins of Australia: Assessing Human Reponses to an Unpredictable Environment

SIMON J. HOLDAWAY , JUSTIN I. SHINER , PATRICIA C. FANNING , AND MATTHEW J. DOUGLASS

Chapter Six
Theoretical Implications of Artifact-Scatter Lithic Assemblage Variability for Mobility-Based Models of Technological Organization

ALAN P. SULLIVAN III

Section II.
Venerable Sites Revisited

Chapter Seven
Timelessness and the Legacy of Archaeological Cartography

SISSEL SCHROEDER AND LYNNE GOLDSTEIN

Chapter Eight
Sherd Cross-Joins, Ceramic Use-Wear, and Depositional History: Rethinking the Sociopolitical Aftermath of a Collapsed Bronze Age Cistern at Myrtos-Pyrgos, Crete

EMILIA ODDO AND GERALD CADOGAN

Chapter Nine
Estimating the Population Size of Casas Grandes: Empirical Issues and Theoretical Consequences

DAVID R. WILCOX

Chapter Ten
Biface Production at Tabun: Manufacture, Maintenance, and Morphological Variability

GARY O. ROLLEFSON

Section III.
Cross-Cultural, Conceptual, and Experimental Perspectives

Chapter Eleven
Celebrating the Dead and Recrafting Social Identity: Placing Prehistoric Mortuary Practices in Broader Social Context

BRIAN F. BYRD AND JEFFREY ROSENTHAL

Chapter Twelve
Flint from the Ancestors: Ritualized Use of Stone Tools in the Prehistoric Southwest

JOHN C. WHITTAKER AND KATHRYN A. KAMP

Chapter Thirteen
Form, Function, and Mental Templates in Paleolithic Archaeology

PHILIP G. CHASE

Chapter Fourteen
The Role of Controlled Experiments in Understanding Variation in Flake Production

ZELJKO REZEK , SAM LIN , AND HAROLD L. DIBBLE

The editors are beholden to Jessica dArbonne, acquisitions editor, whose encouraging words and unflagging commitment to the volume enabled us to move forward in the face of the many obstacles that, at various times, seemed insurmountable.

We are grateful to the C. P. Taft Research Center, University of Cincinnati, for awarding a publication grant to Alan P. Sullivan to cover a portion of the volumes indexing costs.

Proceeds from this volume will be directed to the Native American Scholarships Fund of the Society for American Archaeology in the name of Arthur J. Jelinek, Emeritus Professor, School of Anthropology, University of Arizona.

Thinking about Materiality, Epistemology, and Ontology

ALAN P. SULLIVAN III AND DEBORAH I. OLSZEWSKI

One inclusive view of archaeology is that the field is concerned with providing theoretically informed narratives of the cultural past that arise from unbiased engagements with the archaeological record. To achieve this lofty objective, archaeologists routinely examine their assumptions about the interpretation of archaeological variability (e.g., Schroeder 2013 ), as well as ideas regarding the creation, organization, and analysis of problem-specific data (e.g., Jackson 2014 ). This widespread, and accelerating, practice of critical reflection promotes disciplinary renewal, which in turn enables the development of robust methods and contributes to insights about how to conduct archaeological studies of human behavior and evolution in ways that are not constrained by disciplinary privilege ( Lyman 2007 ) or political partiality ( Leone and Potter 1992 ).

But these are relatively recent developments ( Fagan 2005 ) and contrast sharply with simplistic late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century conceptualizations of the emergence and interpretation of archaeological variability ( Longacre 2010 ; Meltzer 1985 ). Looking back, this period of innocence ( Clarke 1973 ), easily appreciated with a casual examination of Man the Tool-Maker ( Oakley 1949 ), Ancient Man in North America ( Wormington 1957 ), World Prehistory: An Outline ( Clark 1961 ), or The Old Stone Age ( Bordes 1968 ), evokes a time when accounts of human prehistory were largely uncontroversial and comfortably familiar. Everyone is aware, of course, that this state of affairs was upended more than half a century ago when Lewis R. Binford (1962) observed that archaeologists conduct their investigations with an incomplete understanding of the archaeological recordits properties, sources of variability, and inferential potential. Since then, archaeologists have labored, and continue to struggle, in hope of understanding the factors that influence the formation and content diversity of the archaeological record (e.g., Barton and Riel-Salvatore 2014 ; Bar-Yosef et al. 2005 ; Jelinek 2013 ; Lucas 2012 ; March et al. 2014 ; Schiffer 1987 ; Shott 1998 ; Sullivan 2008 ; van der Veen 2007 ; Weiner 2010 ). Now largely unbound from its former conceptual constraints ( Trigger 1991 ), archaeology today is populated by handfuls of theoretical approaches and interpretive paradigms, all intended to enlighten investigations of the worlds extraordinarily diverse archaeological records (e.g., Bintliff and Pearce 2011 ; Hodder 2012 ; Preucel 2006 ; Rathje et al. 2013 ; Schiffer 2012 ; Wallace 2011 ).