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Clovis Blade Technology. Michael B. Collins. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999. 234 pp.
Clovis Revisited: New Perspectives on Paleoindian Adaptations from Blackwater Draw, New Mexico. Anthony T Boldurian and John L Cotter. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1999.145 pp.
Folsom Lithic Technology: Explorations in Structure and Variation. Daniel S. Amick, ed. Ann Arbor: International Monographs in Prehistory, 1999. 213 pp.
These volumes share in common an emphasis on Paleoamerican prehistory and a focus on ancient technological systems used by late Ice Age peoples to adapt to late Pleistocene environments. My review will highlight each author's substantive contributions and theoretical focus.
In Clovis Blade Technology, Michael B. Collins presents the first systematic treatment of Clovis blades, which represents a significant new contribution to American archaeology. He indicates that the concept of blade technology refers to the knowledge, production strategy, material, activities, and equipment involved in the intentional production of true blades.
Collins employs a decision model approach based on behaviors used by modern flintknappers to infer how Clovis blades were created. The first task in the knapping process is the acquisition of raw materials. Next comes core preparation, then initial reduction, platform preparation, and angle of flaking, followed by core maintenance, core reduction and blade production, and blade modification. For his experimental cognitive/behavioral analog used to infer Clovis blade production patterns, he draws on experiments performed by flintknapper Glenn Good, who has fabricated experimental blades that have morphological parameters similar to those found on Clovis blades.
As a backdrop, Collins summaries what is known about Clovis artifact assemblages. He considers Clovis to be a widespread technological horizon limited to a brief time period, dating from 11,300 to 10,900 years ago. Clovis points define this horizon as do various combinations of prismatic blades, blade cores, bone and ivory foreshafts or points, use of red ochre, and flake tools. While others have used the term culture to refer to Clovis sites and artifacts, he suggests this term is premature, as we know so little about Clovis lifeways.
Collins uses the Kevin Davis Cache as a case study to demonstrate that blades lacking precise temporal and spatial provenience with diagnostic morphological and technological characteristics can safely be assumed to have been produced by Clovis people. The Kevin Davis...