Production Skill and Paleoindian Workgroup Organization in the Medicine Creek Drainage, Southwestern Nebraska

Extremely skillful stoneworking is widely cited as an important characteristic of the Paleoindian period in North America. This paper considers differences in finished and unfinished projectile points and bifaces from two Paleoindian sites in the Medicine Creek drainage of southwestern Nebraska with...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of archaeological method and theory Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 132 - 153
Main Authors Bamforth, Douglas B., Hicks, Keri
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston Springer 01.03.2008
Springer US
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Anthropology
Archaeological research
Archaeological sites
Archaeology
Creeks
History of technology
Knapping
Land use
Lithics
Material culture
Nebraska
North Amerindians
Paleoanthropology
Paleoindian periods
Plywood
Production
Projectiles
Raw materials
Skills
Social Sciences
Stone tools
U.S.A
Work organization
Paleoindian
Skill
Projectile points
Flintknapping
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Summary:Extremely skillful stoneworking is widely cited as an important characteristic of the Paleoindian period in North America. This paper considers differences in finished and unfinished projectile points and bifaces from two Paleoindian sites in the Medicine Creek drainage of southwestern Nebraska with this in mind, arguing that these differences reflect significant differences in the overall level of skill of the stone workers who used these sites. Recognizing variability in Paleoindian flintknapping skill has implications for the organization of landuse in the Medicine Creek region and for our understanding of the archaeology of the Paleoindian period in general.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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ISSN:1072-5369
1573-7764
DOI:10.1007/s10816-007-9045-1