Paleoindian unifacial stone tool 'spurs': intended accessories or incidental accidents?

Abstract

Paleoindian unifacial stone tools frequently exhibit distinct, sharp projections, known as "spurs". During the last two decades, a theoretically and empirically informed interpretation-based on individual artifact analysis, use-wear, tool-production techniques, and studies of resharpening-suggested that spurs were sometimes created intentionally via retouch, and other times created incidentally via resharpening or knapping accidents. However, more recently Weedman strongly criticized the inference that Paleoindian spurs were ever intentionally produced or served a functional purpose, and asserted that ethnographic research "demonstrates that the presence of so called 'graver' spurs does not have a functional significance." While ethnographic data cannot serve as a direct test of the archaeological record, we used Weedman's ethnographic observations to create two quantitative predictions of the Paleoindian archaeological record in order to directly examine the hypothesis that Paleoindian spurs were predominantly accidents occurring incidentally via resharpening and reshaping. The first prediction is that the frequency of spurs should increase as tool reduction proceeds. The second prediction is that the frequency of spurs should increase as tool breakage increases. An examination of 563 unbroken tools and 629 tool fragments from the Clovis archaeological record of the North American Lower Great Lakes region showed that neither prediction was consistent with the notion that spurs were predominately accidents. Instead, our results support the prevailing viewpoint that spurs were sometimes created intentionally via retouch, and other times, created incidentally via resharpening or knapping accidents. Behaviorally, this result is consistent with the notion that unifacial stone tools were multifunctional implements that enhanced the mobile lifestyle of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers.