Stone Tools and Mobility in the Illinois Valley: From Hunter-Getherer 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.