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Landmark-based geometric morphometrics LGM is most often used in archaeology to characterize and differentiate groups of artifacts, but it can be used for much more. Here, allometry concerns how stone tools change in shape as their size changes through their use-lives, and modularity and integration concern how the constituent parts of a tool work together. We show that Clovis points are surprisingly complex tools. When their blades and hafts are defined technologically, rather than arbitrarily, they unambiguously exhibit allometry, and their hafts and blades are modular and highly integrated.
We use these analyses to further explore questions about Clovis points, including the differences between cache and non-cache points. Finally, we use heuristic haft-size categories to examine functional constraints on the shape and size of hafts and blades. This work illustrates the importance of using accurate measurements of point components rather than estimates or proxies, which can lead to unfounded inferences.
These analytical approaches and accompanying R code are easily transferable to other research questions of stone-tool use. Stone-tool analysis is often the major, or only, focus of archaeologists on early prehistoric societies, due to the paucity of the archaeological record for reasons of preservation and small populations. In North America, that is the case for the Paleoindian Clovis culture ca.
BP , where most Clovis artifacts are stone tools [ 1 :1, 2 ]. Using two-dimensional landmark-based geometric morphometrics LGM , we examine aspects of Clovis points from initial manufacture to ultimate discard or loss. Whether projectile armature or knife or both [ 2 , 3 ], the Clovis point garners outsized attention and focus. We start the inquiry on a significant feature of Clovis points in the archaeological record: Whether the shapes and sizes of points and their component parts proximal hafts and distal blades changed from initial design through discard or loss, and if so, how that change can be understood in functional and life-history contexts.
