USE AND MULTIFACTORIAL RECONCILIATION OF UNIFACE REDUCTION MEASURES: A PILOT STUDY AT THE NOBLES POND PALEOINDIAN SITE

Abstract

How much stone tools are reduced and their form changed from first use to discard bears upon issues such as typological integrity, curation rate, and effects of occupation span. But degree of reduction depends partly upon the measures used to gauge it. Most studies involve single indices that gauge reduction in different ways or at different scales, so results are difficult to compare between studies. In this pilot study, we compare four allometric reduction measures—one each based on length, length:thickness ratio, volume, and mass, estimated by comparing observed values in discarded tools to estimated original values—for consistency when applied to an endscraper sample from the Nobles Pond Paleoindian site in Ohio, USA. Fitted to the Weibull distribution, all measures suggest attrition compared to experimental controls, but variation among them demands reconciliation. A multifactorial method that weights individual measures by their principal-component loadings suggests attritional discard at increasing rate as reduction advances. More importantly, it addresses the growing problem of reconciling the many reduction measures in use, a major concern in this expanding research area.