A Neutral Model of Stone Raw Material Procurement
2003/07/01 by P. Jeffrey Brantingham · 22 citations
Social Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Evolution and Paleontology Studies
paper · doi:10.2307/3557105
Abstract
Stone tool assemblage variability is considered a reliable proxy measure of adaptive variability. Raw material richness, transport distances, and the character of transported technologies are thought to signal (1) variation in raw material selectivity based on material quality and abundance, (2) optimization of time and energy costs associated with procurement of stone from spatially dispersed sources, (3) planning depth that weaves raw material procurement forays into foraging activities, and (4) risk minimization that sees materials transported in quantities and forms that are energetically economical and least likely to fail. This paper dispenses with assumptions that raw material type and abundance play any role in the organization of mobility and raw material procurement strategies. Rather, a behaviorally neutral agent-based model is developed involving a forager engaged in a random walk within a uniform environment. Raw material procurement in the model is dependent only upon random encounters with stone sources and the amount of available space in the mobile toolkit. Simulated richness-sample size relationships, frequencies of raw material transfers as a function of distance from source, and both quantity-distance and reduction intensity-distance relationships are qualitatively similar to commonly observed archaeological patterns. In some archaeological cases it may be difficult to reject the neutral model. At best, failure to reject the neutral model may mean that intervening processes (e.g., depositional time-averaging) have erased high-frequency adaptive signals in the data. At worst, we may have to admit the possibility that Paleolithic behavioral adaptations were sometimes not responsive to differences between stone raw material types in the ways implied by current archaeological theory.
Citations
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- Lithic Techno-economics and OSL Chronology of the Later Stone Age at Chessungalane, Save River Valley, Mozambique
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- Creating frames of reference for chert exploitation during the Late Pleistocene in Southwesternmost Iberia. [europepmc]
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- Unveiling Neolithic Economic Behavior: A Novel Approach to Chert Procurement at Çukuriçi Höyük, Western Anatolia. [europepmc]
- Examining Gravettian and Magdalenian mobility and technological organization with IR spectroscopy. [europepmc]
- Modelling Mobility of Hunter-Gatherer Populations: A Dynamic Simulation Approach Based on Cellular Automata. [europepmc]
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