Stone Tools and Mobility in the Illinois Valley ─ From Hunter-Gatherer Camps to Agricultural Villages

In this volume, Odell presents a detailed comparative analysis of standardized lithic data from 10 Illinois Valley components spanning 7500 years from the Early Archaic through the Mississippian—perhaps the first time that such a comprehensive set of lithic variables has been analyzed for the entire Holocene of a region. A major part of this study constitutes the most extensive application of low-power lithic use-wear analysis to be found in the literature, accompanied by full discussion of the technique and a suite of new experimental data. The results provide significant information on prehistoric mobility and technological organization in mid-continental North America, revealing clearly for the first time a number of significant behavioral trends: e.g., an increase in the hafting of tools, economizing behavior in chert-poor areas, apparent change in projectile technology, changes in tool use intensity, and symboling behavior. These trends are supported by a massive set of easily accessible tables of data located in the appendix.

George H. Odell was Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tulsa. His books include Lithic Analysis (Springer, 2004), and La Harpe’s Post (University Alabama Press, 2002).