Clovis point allometry, modularity, and integration: Exploring shape variation due to tool use with landmark-based geometric morphometrics

Abstract

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. We demonstrate LGM’s power to uncover new insights by exploring stone-tool allometry, modularity, and integration using a sample of 100 western North American Clovis points. 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.