ethnographic research thesis

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THE BASICS OF ETHNOGRAPHY: AN OVERVIEW OF DESIGNING AN ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN ANTHROPOLOGY AND BEYOND

As a discipline concerned with cultural and social life, Anthropology has a unique scope in compare to other social sciences and humanities that addresses a thorough methodological scrutiny following the theoretical shifts over time and space. The current methodological trends in anthropology claim the role of the researcher as observer (to explore and examine a culture) to grasp the underlying meaning of the participants to interpret the action, perception and networks of the setting in contexts. In this juncture, it is necessary for the researcher to design his/her research methodology in such a way that clarifies the dimensions of the researcher, participants, selection of the research area, and/or problem and the very pros and cons that validates the research in its own essence. Ethnography as one of the major qualitative research approach in anthropology provides an opportunity to construct a specific kind of written observational manuscript about a particular culture. The present authors intend to address the different dimensions from historical genesis to gradual shifts into different theoretical perspectives and critiques as well, that arises from the discussions of ethnography to encircle the possibly significant ideas and issues in as simple and straightforward manner as possible.

Related Papers

Marian Crowley-Henry

In Chapter 3, Marian Crowley-Henry presents an aspect of the evolving research approach of ethnography and participant observation, delineating the complexities involved in classifying research as ethnographic, given underlying discrepancies in how the approach is applied and the respective philosophy behind its use.

Cogito. Multidisciplinary Research Journal

Sergiu Bălan

As a very often repeated observation says, in order to find out what anthropology is, one must see what anthropologists do, and what they do is mainly ethnography. Ethnography can be understood both as a process and as a product. As a process, it is for the anthropologist the same thing laboratory research is for the scientist and survey for the sociologist, the method par excellence. It has to meet three main requirements: long time residence among the members of the studied culture, linguistic proficiency and must be conducted in the form of participant observation. Understood as a product, ethnographic monograph must be holistic and to adopt the emic perspective, as opposed to the etic one.

An Ethnography of Global Landscapes and Corridors

Loshini Naidoo

Marshall University Digital Scholar

Brian A Hoey

Tribhuvan University Journal

Ganga Gautam

This article is an attempt to present the concept of ethnography as a qualitative inquiry process in social science research. The paper begins with the introduction to ethnography followed by the discussion of ethnography both as an approach and a research method. It then illustrates how ethnographic research is carried out using various ethnographic methods that include participant observation, interviewing and collection of the documents and artifacts. Highlighting the different ways of organizing, analyzing and writing ethnographic data, the article suggests ways of writing the ethnographic research.

Challenges and Solutions in Ethnographic Research

Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto

José Gerardo Alvarado

This article reviews references of ethnography as a method in the social sciences gathered by using GoogleTM, EBSCO, ProQuest, REDALYC, PSICODOC, Dialnet and LATINDEX. Anthropologists’ postmodern self-critique has influenced social scientists and ethnography has increasingly become a way to explore our forms of life. This translates into a perspective that responds to ethical, political, cultural, and social concerns about the production of knowledge. It seeks to excise the distance between researchers, often by collaborating with consultants in research projects. The ensuing reflections evoke possibilities generated from interactions in the field and an appreciation of a complexity that poses methodological challenges for researchers who see the field as a space from which they cannot be extricated.

Sultana Tania

Christopher A Howard

European Journal of Sociology

Histories and critiques of anthropology usually deal mainly with what anthropologists say, including what they say they do. However, like their informants, anthropologists are accustomed to saying one thing and doing another. The emphasis in this paper is on the nature of anthropological data and methods, and thus on what anthropologists really do. The argument is that what anthropologists do is often productive and sensible, but that it has very little relationship to what many anthropologists say they should be doing. Indeed those anthropologists who take such theoretical directives seriously labour under a considerable, self-inflicted handicap.

3 Writing Up Ethnographic Methodologies

Published: May 2018
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Chapter 3 offers a roadmap for presenting ethnographic methodologies that emphasizes the importance of contextualizing both the researcher and the experiences of research. Building on Chapter 2’s discussion of research design, the author argues that writing up ethnographic methodologies is less about outlining specific research steps and procedures and more about providing a good-faith accounting of the context and conditions surrounding the work. The author details the historical rise of self-consciousness in ethnography, explaining that its emergence both raised the profile of the ethnographer as an actor in research situations and, in turn, set the stage for ethnography’s reflexive, critical, and collaborative turns. The author next presents a series of goals to which contemporary ethnographers should aspire when representing their research experiences. The chapter closes with an elaboration on the different ways methodological discussions have been placed within ethnographic texts.

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Qualitative research...

Qualitative research methodologies: ethnography

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Peer review
Scott Reeves , associate professor 1 ,
Ayelet Kuper , assistant professor 2 ,
Brian David Hodges , associate professor and vice chair (education) 3
1 Department of Psychiatry, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, Centre for Faculty Development, and Wilson Centre for Research in Education, University of Toronto, 200 Elizabeth Street, Eaton South 1-565, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 2C4
2 Department of Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and Wilson Centre for Research in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M4N 3M5
3 Department of Psychiatry, Wilson Centre for Research in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 2C4
Correspondence to: S Reeves scott.reeves{at}utoronto.ca

The previous articles (there were 2 before this 1) in this series discussed several methodological approaches commonly used by qualitative researchers in the health professions. This article focuses on another important qualitative methodology: ethnography. It provides background for those who will encounter this methodology in their reading rather than instructions for carrying out such research.

What is ethnography?

Ethnography is the study of social interactions, behaviours, and perceptions that occur within groups, teams, organisations, and communities. Its roots can be traced back to anthropological studies of small, rural (and often remote) societies that were undertaken in the early 1900s, when researchers such as Bronislaw Malinowski and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown participated in these societies over long periods and documented their social arrangements and belief systems. This approach was later adopted by members of the Chicago School of Sociology (for example, Everett Hughes, Robert Park, Louis Wirth) and applied to a variety of urban settings in their studies of social life.

The central aim of ethnography is to provide rich, holistic insights into people’s views and actions, as well as the nature (that is, sights, sounds) of the location they inhabit, through the collection of detailed observations and interviews. As Hammersley states, “The task [of ethnographers] is to document the culture, the perspectives and practices, of the people in these settings. The aim is to ‘get inside’ the way each group of people sees the world.” 1 Box 1 outlines the key features of ethnographic research.

Box 1 Key features of ethnographic research 2

A strong emphasis on exploring the nature of a particular social phenomenon, rather than setting out to test hypotheses about it

A tendency to work primarily with “unstructured data” —that is, data that have not been coded at the point of data collection as a closed set of analytical categories

Investigation of a small number of cases (perhaps even just one case) in detail

Analysis of data that involves explicit interpretation of the meanings and functions of human actions; the product of this analysis primarily takes the form of verbal descriptions and explanations

Examples of ethnographic research within the health services literature include Strauss’s study of achieving and maintaining order between managers, clinicians, and patients within psychiatric hospital settings; Taxis and Barber’s exploration of intravenous medication errors in acute care hospitals; Costello’s examination of death and dying in elderly care wards; and Østerlund’s work on doctors’ and nurses’ use of traditional and digital information systems in their clinical communications. 3 4 5 6 Becker and colleagues’ Boys in White , an ethnographic study of medical education in the late 1950s, remains a classic in this field. 7

Newer developments in ethnographic inquiry include auto-ethnography, in which researchers’ own thoughts and perspectives from their social interactions form the central element of a study 8 ; meta-ethnography, in which qualitative research texts are analysed and synthesised to empirically create new insights and knowledge 9 ; and online (or virtual) ethnography, which extends traditional notions of ethnographic study from situated observation and face to face researcher-participant interaction to technologically mediated interactions in online networks and communities. 10

What should I be looking for in an ethnographic study?

Ethnographers typically gather participant observations, necessitating direct engagement and involvement with the world they are studying. Owing to the complex nature of social life, ethnographers need to record a variety of elements in their field notes (box 2).

Box 2 Nine observational dimensions and their descriptions 11

Space—Physical layout of the place(s)

Actor—Range of people involved

Activity—A set of related activities that occur

Object—The physical things that are present

Act—Single actions people undertake

Event—Activities that people carry out

Time—The sequencing of events that occur

Goal—Things that people are trying to accomplish

Feeling—Emotions felt and expressed

During their observations, ethnographers routinely use informal or conversational interviews, which allow them to discuss, probe emerging issues, or ask questions about unusual events in a naturalistic manner. Because of the “casual” nature of this type of interview technique it can be useful in eliciting highly candid accounts from individuals. Ethnographers also gather formal in-depth interviews and documentary data such as minutes of meetings, diaries, and photographs.

Participants or situations are sampled on an opportunistic or purposive basis. It is also usual for ethnographers to focus upon specific features (for example, medical ward rounds) that occur within a research setting.

Analysis of ethnographic data tends to be undertaken in an inductive thematic manner: data are examined to identify and to categorise themes and key issues that “emerge” from the data. Through a careful analysis of their data, using this inductive process, ethnographers generate tentative theoretical explanations from their empirical work.

Reflexivity (that is, the relationship a researcher shares with the world he or she is investigating) is a central element of ethnographic work, owing to the relationship the ethnographer shares with participants and the ethical issues that flow from this close relationship. Within research reports, reflexivity is presented in the form of a description of the ethnographer’s ideas and experiences, which can be used by readers to judge the possible impact of these influences on a study.

To enhance the quality of their work, ethnographers will often provide a detailed or “thick description” of the research setting and its participants, which will typically be based on many hours of direct observation and interviews with several key informants. 12

In addition, ethnographic work commonly uses methodological triangulation—a technique designed to compare and contrast different types of methods to help provide more comprehensive insights into the phenomenon under study. This type of triangulation can be very useful, as sometimes what people say about their actions can contrast with their actual behaviour. 13 Box 3 provides further information about triangulation and the different types that can be employed within ethnographic research.

Box 3 Triangulation in ethnography

Triangulation is a term linked to navigation or surveying: people discover their position on a map by taking bearings on landmarks, and where the lines intersect is where they are positioned. As well as methodological triangulation, Denzin 14 outlines three other types:

Data triangulation, which uses different sources of data to examine a phenomenon in several different settings and different points in time or space

Investigator triangulation, which uses multiple researchers to generate a complex range of perspectives on the data

Theory triangulation, in which researchers approach data with different concepts and theories to see how each helps to understand the data

Ethnographers often draw upon social sciences theory (for example, interactionism, feminism, and postmodernism) to strengthen their research focus and analyses. (The use of theory within qualitative research is examined in more depth in another paper in this series). See box 3 for an example of an ethnographic study.

Box 4 An ethnographic study of professional relationships

This ethnographic study took place in a large general hospital in the United Kingdom. 15 It aimed to understand, in depth, the nature of hospital based nurse-doctor relationships in the wake of changes to health policy and to the delivery of professional education.

The author, a nurse, undertook participant observations for 10 months, during which she worked as a nurse (on an unpaid basis) with doctors, nurses, managers, and auxiliary staff on both a surgical and a medical ward. To gain a candid insight into these professionals’ views, she undertook informal interviews with staff while they worked together. She also collected 57 tape recorded interviews, each lasting 60 to 90 minutes, with nurses, doctors, auxiliaries, and managers. These explored in more depth participants’ views of their interprofessional relationships. Documentary data were also generated through analysis of organisational documents and through attendance at professional and managerial meetings.

The author undertook an inductive approach to data analysis, in which meanings emerged from the data through exploration of all data sets. In addition, she used data from different sources (observations, interviews, documentary data) to generate a more comprehensive understanding in the emerging analysis. The author drew upon negotiated order perspective—a sociological theory developed by Strauss to frame and illuminate the findings from her analysis. She also discussed her reflexive role in the study, and as a nurse, how that helped her secure access into this clinical setting, and how it helped her attain richer insights into the nature of nurse-doctor relationships in relation to how they negotiate professional boundaries in their clinical work.

Why choose ethnography?

Ethnographic research offers several advantages. For example, the use of participant observation enables ethnographers to “immerse” themselves in a setting, thereby generating a rich understanding of social action and its subtleties in different contexts.

Participant observation also gives ethnographers opportunities to gather empirical insights into social practices that are normally “hidden” from the public gaze. Additionally, since it aims to generate holistic social accounts, ethnographic research can identify, explore, and link social phenomena which, on the surface, have little connection with each other.

Ethnographic research can be problematic. Owing to the relatively long periods of time ethnographers spend talking to participants and observing actions, it can be difficult to secure repeated access, especially if institutional gatekeepers are concerned that the research may cast their organisation in a poor light. Obtaining formal approval from research ethics committees can be complicated. The direct interaction that occurs between ethnographers and patients or clinicians during fieldwork can be regarded with suspicion, as traditional notions of health services research rest on researchers’ detachment rather than involvement. Comprehensively recording the multifaceted nature of social action that occurs within a clinic or ward is a difficult task, as a range of temporal, spatial, and behavioural elements need to be documented (see box 1). In addition, the unpredictability of social (and clinical) life often means that ethnographers have to be flexible, patient, and persistent in their work, as data collection activities can be disrupted or access withdrawn as local circumstances and politics change.

Ethnography is a highly useful methodology for addressing a range of research questions within the health professions. In particular, it can generate rich and detailed accounts of clinicians’ professional and interprofessional relationships, their interactions with patients, and their approaches to delivering care, as well as in-depth accounts of patients’ care experiences. Understanding the foundations of ethnography and its key elements will help readers when they come across reports that use this methodology. A later article in this series will provide readers with a more formal framework to use when critically appraising qualitative research papers, including ethnographies. Readers interested in undertaking such research should refer to the works listed in box 4.

Box 4 Further reading

Atkinson P, Coffey A, Delamont S, Lofland J, Lofland L, eds. Handbook of ethnography . London: Sage, 2001.

Fetterman D. Ethnography: step by step . 2nd ed. London: Sage, 1988.

Fielding N. Ethnography. In: Researching social life . London: Sage, 1993:155-71.

Hammersley M, Atkinson P. Ethnography: principles in practice . 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1995.

Spradley J. The ethnographic interview . New York: Holt, 1979.

Journal articles

Atkinson P, Pugsley L. Making sense of ethnographic research in medical education. Med Educ 2005;39:228-34.

Charmaz K, Oleson V. Ethnographic research in medical sociology: its foci and distinctive contributions. Sociol Methods Res 1997;25:452-94.

Fine G. Ten lies of ethnography. J Contemp Ethnogr 1993;22:267-94.

Jeffrey B, Troman G. Time for ethnography. Br Educ Res J 30:535-48

Savage J. Ethnography and health care. BMJ 2000;321:1400-2.

Summary points

Ethnography is the study of social interactions, behaviours, and perceptions that occur within teams, organisations, and communities.

Ethnographic studies typically gather participant observations and interviews; through using these methods ethnographers can immerse themselves in settings and can generate rich understanding of the social action that occurs

Owing to the relationship the ethnographer shares with research participants, reflexivity (whereby ethnographers describe the relationship they shares with the people and world they are studying) occupies a central element of this type of research

Ethnographers commonly triangulate (that is, compare and contrast) interview and observation methods to enhance the quality of their work; this technique is important as what people say about their behaviour can contrast with their actual actions

Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1020

Related to doi: , 10.1136/bmj.a288
doi: , 10.1136/bmj.39602.690162.47
doi: , 10.1136/bmj.a879
doi: , 10.1136/bmj.a949
doi: 10.1136/bmj.a1035

This is the third in a series of six articles that aim to help readers to critically appraise the increasing number of qualitative research articles in clinical journals. The series editors are Ayelet Kuper and Scott Reeves.

For a definition of general terms relating to qualitative research, see the first article in this series

Funding: None.

Competing interests: None declared.

Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

↵ Hammersley M. What’s wrong with ethnography? Methodological explorations. London: Routledge, 1992 .
↵ Hammersley M, Atkinson P. Ethnography: principles in practice. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1995
↵ Strauss A, Schatzman D, Ehrlich R, Bucher M, Sabshin C. The hospital and its negotiated order. In: Freidson E, ed. The hospital in modern society . New York: Free Press, 1963 :147-69.
↵ Taxis K, Barber N. Causes of intravenous medication errors: an ethnographic study. Qual Saf Health Care 2003 ; 12 : 343 -7. OpenUrl Abstract / FREE Full Text
↵ Costello J. Nursing older dying patients: findings from an ethnographic study of death and dying in elderly care wards. J Adv Nurs 2001 ; 35 : 59 -68. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
↵ Østerlund C. Genre combinations: a window into dynamic communication practices. J Manage Inf Syst 2007 ; 23 : 81 -108. OpenUrl
↵ Becker H, Geer B, Hughes E, Strauss A. Boys in white: student culture in medical school . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961 .
↵ Reed-Danahay D. Auto-ethnography: rewriting the self and the social . London: Berg, 1997 .
↵ Britten N, Campbell R, Pope C, Donovan J, Morgan M, Pill R. Using meta-ethnography to synthesise qualitative research: a worked example. J Health Serv Res Policy 2002 ; 7 : 209 -15. OpenUrl Abstract / FREE Full Text
↵ Hine C. Virtual ethnography . London: Sage, 2000 .
↵ Spradley J. Participant observation. New York: Holt, 1980
↵ Geertz C. The interpretation of cultures: selected essays . New York: Basic Books, 1973 .
↵ Strong P. The ceremonial order of the clinic . London: Routledge, 1977 .
↵ Denzin N. The research act in sociology . London:Butterworth, 1970 .
↵ Allen D. The nursing-medical boundary: a negotiated order? Sociol Health Illn 1997 ; 19 : 498 -520. OpenUrl CrossRef Web of Science

Digital Commons @ IWU

Home > Sociology and Anthropology > Selected Anthropology 380 Photo Essays

Outstanding Ethnographic Research Projects

Submissions from 2022 2022.

People, Not Symptoms: A Visual Ethnography of Ayurvedic Doctor Ashlesha Raut , Elizabeth Baranski

Submissions from 2019 2019

Laurie Bergner: A Bloomington-Normal Community Educator Shaped by Her Values , Jessica Bugayong

Community Lawyering and the Immigration Project: An Ethnographic Study of Charlotte Alvarez , Kathryn Jefferson

It’s about more than reproduction: a visual ethnography about Jennifer Sedbrook , Sommer Martin

Nine Months in One Day: A Visual Ethnography with Caroline and Elizabeth Fox-Anvick , Kayla Ranta

Submissions from 2018 2018

Colleen Connelly: Taking the First Step towards Improving Food Accessibility , Michelle Rekowski '19

Submissions from 2016 2016

“Don’t Cross Momma!” A Visual Representation of LGBTQI Woman Leader Jan Lancaster , Lucy Bullock '17

Sacred Partnership: A Visual Ethnographic Study of Rabbi Rebecca L. Dubowe , Anna Kerr-Carpenter '17

Women Leaders as Change Agents: Mary Campbell’s Story of Academic and Community Leadership , Raelynn Parmely '17

Submissions from 2013 2013

American by Citizenship or American at Heart? An analysis of becoming an “American” as seen through the eyes of an Indian-American immigrant , Helen Brandt '14

Pierogies to Hamburgers: An immigration story , Madeline Cross '13

The Long Road to Becoming American: One Kenyan’s Immigration Journey Filled with Perseverance, Discrimination, and Student Visa Restrictions , Katelyn Eichinger '14

Bicultural Living: Maria Luisa Mainou’s Experience with Immigration and Cultural Change , Alicia Gummess '13

Russian-Jewish Immigration and the Life Experiences of Dr. Marina Balina: A Photo Essay , Lauren Henry '14

Snapped into Focus: Addressing the Challenges Faced by Undocumented Mexican Immigrants in the United States , Nora Peterson '14

An American who Emigrated from Poland: The Significance of Education and Family Support in the Acculturation Process , Stephanie Pierson '13

Submissions from 2012 2012

Smile and Style: An Ethnographic Analysis of ISU's Gamma Phi Circus , Sarah Carlson '13

Building Christ-based Relationships, Disciples, and Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ at Illinois State University , Cassandra Jordan '12

When Words Fail, Music Speaks , Hannah Williams '12

Submissions from 2011 2011

Exploring Acupuncture in the American Midwest , Shuting Zhong '11

Submissions from 2010 2010

Luck Be A Lady: An Exploration of the Bloomington Bingo Community Through Visual Ethnographic Methods , Monica Simonin 11

Getting High: An Inside Look into College Students' Lives with Type 1 Diabetes , Amber Spiewak 11

Twin City Chess Club: a Visual Ethnographic Examination of Chess , Morgan Tarbutton 11

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Dibble’s Reduction Thesis: Implications for Global Lithic Analysis

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Published: 07 May 2024
Volume 7 , article number 12 , ( 2024 )

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Michael J. Shott ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6592-4904 1

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Harold Dibble demonstrated the systematic effects of reduction by retouch upon the size and shape of Middle Paleolithic tools. The result was the reduction thesis, with its far-reaching implications for the understanding of Middle Paleolithic assemblage variation that even now are incompletely assimilated. But Dibble’s influence extended beyond the European Paleolithic. Others identified additional reduction methods and measures that complement Dibble’s reduction thesis, and applied analytical concepts and methods consistent with it to industries and assemblages around the world. These developments facilitated comprehensive reduction analysis of archaeological tools and assemblages and their comparison in the abstract despite the great diversity of their time–space contexts. Dibble argued that many assemblages are time-averaged accumulations. In cases from New Zealand to North America, methods he pioneered and that others extended reveal the complex processes by which behavior, tool use, curation, and time interacted to yield those accumulations. We are coming to understand that the record is no mere collection of ethnographic vignettes, instead a body of data that requires macroarchaeological approaches. Archaeology’s pending conceptual revolution in part is a legacy of Dibble’s thought.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Around 1980, Harold Dibble began a career that examined sources of variation in Middle Paleolithic industries, mostly in France and southwest Asia. His untimely death in 2018 could not diminish the scale and impact of Dibble’s contributions to Paleolithic archaeology. Other contributors can testify to his stature in that field. As an archaeologist who cannot tell a Quina scraper from a chapeau de gendarme platform, my task is different: to sketch some of Dibble’s broader contributions to lithic analysis beyond Paleolithic studies, and especially to emphasize several current lines of thought and practice that at once derive in part from Dibble’s work but extend beyond it. This essay does not pretend to be comprehensive evaluation of Dibble’s oeuvre, merely to trace the extent of some of its parts, on the logic that a scholar’s work can be gauged partly by surveying how others use and expand it.

Experimental Controls and Key Variables in Fracture Mechanics

In a series of highly controlled experiments over several decades, Dibble and students demonstrated systematic effects of the fracture mechanics of reduction upon the size and shape of flakes struck from cores. Results synthesized by Li et al. ( 2023 ), this experimental program identified variables, mostly continuous, that were independent (e.g., platform dimensions) and dependent (e.g. length, mass or volume) in the fracture mechanics of flake production. The program established a framework for study of variation in flake size and shape. Experiments’ designs showed the limited effects of unobservable variables like angle and force of blow, suggesting that observable independent variables could predict original size of flake tools.

Results may seem narrow but these experiments had very broad implications indeed. By itself, inferring flake size and shape has modest value; for the great mass of unretouched flakes, it has none at all, because these dimensions can be measured directly and require no inference. But the results have great value in the study of flake tools that underwent resharpening between first use at larger size and discard at smaller size. In that context, Dibble’s experimental program identified independent or causal variables, again mostly continuous, like platform area and mathematically expressed their effects upon dependent continuous variables of size and shape. This insight made it possible to predict original flake size from properties like platform area that are retained on many retouched flakes. To the extent that flake tools were smaller at discard than experimental controls predicted, reduction from resharpening or other reasons is implicated. To the further extent that shape changed as size declined, variation in flake-tool shape may be a by-product of reduction, not a reflection of intended original form. Enter the reduction thesis.

The Reduction Thesis

With some ethnographic support (see citations in Dibble et al., 2017 :823), Dibble’s work showed that many—not all—stone tools varied substantially and systematically between first use and discard. Trivially, they only could become smaller, not larger, but tools and types varied greatly in degree and pattern of reduction experienced and the range of intermediate forms they took between first use and discard. Size and shape at discard are observable directly, but Dibble’s contribution was to demonstrate that, for many retouched tools, remnant unchanged segments of the original detached flake (e.g., platform variables) furnished estimates of original size. Thus, arose the reduction thesis (Shott, 2005 ; Iovita’s, 2009 :1448 “reversed ontogenies”).

Lithic analysts readily appreciate the importance of inferring original size of retouched and therefore reduced archaeological specimens. Again, by itself the knowledge is modest. But it looms larger in the context of Middle Paleolithic studies, where tool types were regarded as Platonic essences based on particular configurations of their form, and placement and extent of retouch qua reduction. Alternatively, as Dibble ( 1987 ) suggested, the pattern and degree of reduction by retouch allowed large flake tools to transit from what seemed one essential Middle Paleolithic type, often one or another variety of scraper, through a second, possibly to a third, and so on. For example, Middle Paleolithic backed knives experienced “transformations from one morphological Keilmesser form to another” (Jöris, 2009 :295) as a result of resharpening to maintain functional edges. If so, tool form at discard reflects not original design, least of all size, but “the last stages of a series of metamorphoses” (Jelinek, 1976 :27) of original form, as Dibble’s mentor put it. In this perspective, the ontological validity of essentialist Middle Paleolithic tool types is in doubt, and to some typology has passed from analytical to descriptive enterprise. Assuming that the form in which a tool was discarded was its intended, unchanging form is Davidson and Noble’s ( 1989 ) “finished-artefact fallacy,” rephrased by Dibble et al. as “the fallacy of the ‘desired end product’” (2017:814). In North American practice, it also has been called the “Frison effect” (Frison, 1968 ).

Dibble’s insight later was expanded in three respects:

The reduction thesis applied to cores as well as tools, for instance, in Dibble’s ( 1995 ) analysis of the Biache St.-Vaast Level IIA reduction sequence that demonstrated how core form and scar-patterning varied with their degree of working. (Throughout this essay, “reduction sequence” indicates the patterned ways that cobbles were reduced in the process of shaping them into tools or detaching flakes from them for use as tools, and subsequent reduction by retouch of core and flake tools, usage consistent with Dibble [e.g., 1995 :101]. This is not the place to address the contested issue of how or whether the reduction-sequence concept, originating over a century ago in North America, differs from the more recent and, in Paleolithic studies, more popular “ chaîne opératoire ”; interested readers may consult Shott [ 2003a ].)

It explained variation in Paleolithic flake-tool types besides scrapers, e.g., notched flakes (e.g., Bustos Pérez, 2020 ; Holdaway et al., 1996 ; Roebroeks et al., 1997 ). It also was applied to extensively or completely retouched, quasi-formal tools like Acheulean handaxes (McPherron, 1994 ) in Africa and Europe, European Middle Paleolithic bifaces (Serwatka, 2015 ) and Upper Paleolithic endscrapers (Morales, 2016 ), late Paleolithic core tools in Southeast Asia (Nguyen & Clarkson, 2016 ), Middle Stone Age Aterian points (Iovita, 2011 ) and Still Bay points (Archer et al., 2015 ) in Africa and unifacial and bifacial points in northern (Hiscock, 2009 :83) and western Australia (Maloney et al., 2017 ). Such analyses linked in the same tool-use and -reduction sequences what initially were defined as distinct types (e.g., Middle Paleolithic Keilmesser handaxes and leaf points [Serwatka, 2015 :19] and late Paleolithic core tools such that “various tool types are viewed as points or stages along a trajectory of continued reduction, rather than as discrete or separate types as in a segmented and discontinuous scheme” [Nguyen & Clarkson, 2016 :38]).

Largely implicit in Dibble’s work, reduction is or at least can be understood as a continuous process.

Expansion of the reduction thesis itself is significant in two further respects. First, it suggested the argument’s universal scope, the recognition that stone tools of all times and places can be subject to systematic transformations during use. What began, then, as an effort to understand variation in Middle Paleolithic flake tools might apply to stone-tool variation of any age, any industrial character, anywhere. In this perspective, the thesis can “put the analysis of tool’s live [sic] histories in a global and standardized framework to interpret the organization of past societies” (Morales, 2016 :243). Second, and starting from studies of Acheulean handaxes (McPherron, 1994 ), the reduction thesis engaged the concept of allometry to explain variation in stone tools. (Crompton and Gowlett introduced allometric analysis to Paleolithic research, defining allometry somewhat broadly, as “size-related variability” [1993:178]. No doubt suitable for their purposes, allometry is best understood as a biological concept—change in shape with change in size—and process that unfolds during growth to maturity. In lithic studies, obviously, the direction of size change is reversed; there, the allometric process unfolds during reduction. In biology where the concept originated and in lithic studies more generally, allometry measures the degree and strength of shape’s dependence upon size variation. Although Crompton and Gowlett found allometric variation at Kilombe, they explained it in functional, i.e., design, terms, not as the product of reduction.) Allometry is an inherently continuous process that requires measurement in continuous terms. Allometric variation certainly describes some aspects of the morphological transformations of Middle Paleolithic flake tools wrought by the reduction process. But it is especially pertinent to the analysis of extensively retouched tools, Paleolithic or otherwise, whose distinctive forms and time–space distributions make them markers of industries or cultures. Expansion of the reduction thesis, therefore, is particularly relevant in archaeological contexts that abound in such tools, not least the Americas.

Besides pertaining to many Paleolithic and other defined tool types and besides its invocation of allometry, the reduction thesis bears upon other theoretical and methodological matters. It engages the concept of tool curation and encompasses the methodology of tool failure or survivorship analysis. It has implications for long-term accumulations that help to disentangle the complexities of the formation of stone-tool assemblages. It begs—and can help answer—a deceptively complicated question about stone-tool quantification. Finally, it can contribute to the intellectual transformation that archaeology desperately needs, a “macroarchaeology” (Perreault, 2019 ) that eschews ethnographic dependency, studies archaeological units in their own terms with their own long durations and applies uniquely archaeological theory to explain their time–space variation. All of this from experiments on the fracture mechanics of flakes and their implications for Middle Paleolithic flake tools. The following sections untangle and address some threads of the reduction thesis.

The reduction thesis has far-reaching implications, one of course that concerns the integrity of French Middle Paleolithic scraper typology. Tool types from scrapers to notches may not be the Platonic essences sometimes assumed (e.g., like Dibble [ 1987 ], Bustos Pérez’s [ 2020 :Table 43] and Roebroeks et al.’s [ 1997 :148 and Figs. 17–18] observations that varieties of Middle Paleolithic scraper types transit via reduction to varieties of notch and denticulate types). If so, the reduction thesis reveals Middle Paleolithic Mousterian assemblage variation not as a chronicle of the “acrobatic manoeuvering of…typological tribes” (Clarke, 1973 :10) signaling their self-conscious identity by fixed tool form and assemblage composition as they alternate between rockshelters. Instead, variation might be a record of adaptive behavior, when freed of the constraint of subjectively defined “technocomplexes” (Monnier & Missal, 2014 ; cf. Faivre et al., 2017 ).

Significantly, Dibble’s thesis applies, as above, to more formal Paleolithic tools types and equally to other areas and research contexts. As examples of the reduction thesis’s even broader scope, Dibble’s argument echoes in the variation exhibited by Hoabinhian and other Southeast Asian industries (Marwick, 2008 ), in a comprehensive revision of the causes and meaning of variation in Australian flake tools (Hiscock & Attenbrow, 2005 ), in Hoffman’s ( 1986 ) concern that a range of Holocene North American point “types” defined using traditional approaches (what Maloney et al., 2017 :43 called “ad hoc” classification) capture merely various degrees of reduction of a single original type (reading Fig. 1 from Stages B to E; see Hamsa [ 2013 ] for a similar conclusion from a different sample in a different North American region), in New World Paleoindian points (Suárez & Cardillo, 2019 ; Thulman et al., 2023 ), and in the need to identify original sizes and shapes of distinct Holocene Patagonian point types whose forms converge in reduction (Charlin & Cardillo, 2018 ).

(Source: Hoffman, 1986 :Fig. 5)

Reduction’s effect upon typology. A single original bifacial tool type (far left) retouched in varying pattern and degree ( x -axis) yields several apparent “types” (far right)

Reduction as Continuum

If tools undergo continuous reduction then, ipso facto , reduction is a continuum. Increasingly, reduction’s continuous nature is assimilated to European Paleolithic practice, with productive results applied to flake tools (e.g., Iovita, 2009 ; Morales, 2016 :236; Serwatka, 2015 ). What goes for tools goes for debitage; since the reduction thesis arose, lithic analysts have modeled reduction’s entire span in continuous terms. Dibble’s work on these lines parallels, not presages, research elsewhere, particularly in North America. As there, he questioned typological approaches to flake analysis that involved subjective judgments of selected products and favored detailed measurements of full ranges of flake classes (e.g. Dibble, 1988 ). (See Shott, 2021 :57–70 on the comparative merits of typological and attribute methods in flake analysis.) By engaging the full range of materials in the Biache St.-Vaast Level IIA assemblage and recording dimensions and other continuous measures, for instance, Dibble ( 1995 ) showed that cores themselves exhibited systematic, size-related variation according to degree of reduction, and that resulting flakes also patterned by size regardless of the supposedly distinct types to which some of each were assigned. In this way, “Dibble was able to show that relying solely on scar pattern analysis of cores and some Levallois products was not suitable for studying the dynamics of a reduction strategy” (Wojtczak, 2014 :26). The continuous nature of this reduction process largely remained implicit in Dibble’s treatment, yet is apparent upon close reading.

Reduction sequences, that is, are continuous because the size, shape, and technological properties of cores and even unretouched flakes vary continuously along the reduction continuum from the first to last flake detached from a cobble. Some still question a continuous view of reduction, arguing for instance that “the dichotomy between ‘discrete’ vs. ‘continuous’ is difficult to place on neutral grounds – lithic scholars rarely come up with convincing means to evaluate the alternative to their preferred view” (Hussain, 2019 :243). This view relates stances—reduction as continuum or successive, discrete stages—to distinct ontological first principles incapable of comparative evaluation. Indeed, to some “Stage-like descriptions of technological choices are the hallmark of” traditional French systematics (Anghelinu et al., 2020 :35). If so, the question of reduction as continuous or staged becomes a matter of a priori predilection rather than reasoned inference, metaphysic more than logic.

Yet precisely such evaluations of competing alternatives have been made, testing a priori stances rather than merely choosing between them. Dibble ( 1988 ) tested a stage-based thesis of “predetermination” in Levallois reduction. He showed instead that a wide range of reduction products varied continuously among and between themselves, a result inconsistent with stage views. Analyzing experimental flake assemblages, Bradbury and Carr ( 1999 ) found no evidence for reduction “stages,” and expressed relative order of flake detachment (from 0 to 100% of core reduction) as a joint, continuous, function of faceting measures and flake size. A later study systematically tested key implications of both “stage” and “continuum” views in experimental data, again finding no support for the validity of stages and extensive support for the continuous alternative (Shott, 2017 ). A complementary approach supplements attribute recording with mass analysis and involves flake-size distributions that, in the same experimental assemblage, vary predictably between successive segments defined arbitrarily or, for instance, by change in hammer. When such assemblage segments hypothetically are “mixed” in various combinations, they model the mixing that characterizes empirical flake assemblages accumulating over long periods. Using suitable methods—in this case, constrained least-squares regression—the approach offers the prospect of disentangling—unmixing—empirical assemblage accumulations. Applied to two large North American Great Basin quarry assemblages, it identified mostly early but also intermediate segments of reduction that varied continuously across contexts and between assemblages (Shott, 2021 :98–103), complex mixing and variation that rigid “stage” approaches could neither detect nor characterize. Thus, individual reduction sequences and their products can be understood in continuous terms, as can the complex mixing of many reduction sequences in archaeological accumulations. Again, the continuous nature of the reduction process mostly was implicit in Dibble’s work, but clearly his approach paralleled those taken elsewhere and led to similar conclusions.

Allometry and Modularity

Typically, continuous flake-tool reduction produces allometry; some segments—usually distal and/or lateral edges—are reduced while others—usually butts or platforms–remain unchanged. Shape changes as size declines, i.e., allometry. Shape changes because various distinct segments— modules —of flakes are retouched to varying degrees or not at all. Hence, the reduction thesis views even humble flakes as composites of modular parts. Because it draws an analytical distinction between segments qua modules of flakes, the thesis encompasses allometry and modularity as latent properties, made explicit in recent applications of landmark-based geometric morphometrics (GM) to flake assemblages (Knell, 2022 ).

Allometry can be analyzed using tool dimensions like length and thickness (e.g., Crompton & Gowlett, 1993 ). Yet GM methods are particularly suited to analysis of allometry. GM itself is an innovative way to characterize and measure stone tools. GM methods are not “size-free” (cf. Caruana & Herries, 2021 :92) in the sense of separating all variation in size from all variation in shape. Rather, they separate shape variation that is independent of size from shape variation that is size-dependent (Shott & Otárola-Castillo, 2022 :95). As a result, GM methods can be instrumental to allometric analysis, not obstacles to it.

GM facilitates allometric analysis only by defining modules, segments of larger wholes whose landmarks vary more internally than they do with other modules of the same points. The modularity concept originated in biology, modules there comprising distinct anatomical segments like wings or limbs. As above, though, Dibble’s experiments and the reduction thesis arguably preadapted lithic analysis to receive it. Among Paleolithic flake tools, one salient modular distinction is between platforms, which may change little during use and retouch, and distal segments, which may be extensively retouched. Other modules can be defined and their correlations studied depending upon the research focus. In Western Hemisphere bifacial points, an equally salient distinction is between stems and blades as separate modules (e.g., Shott & Otárola-Castillo, 2022 ; Thulman et al., 2023 ), again not the only conceivable modular subdivisions. (For instance, Patagonian Bird Type IV-V points support a tip-versus-rest-of-point modularity [González-José & Charlin, 2012 ], and point margins also can function as modules.) In this perspective, allometry occurs by changing size proportions among modules as functions of overall specimen size. Archaeological GM analysis transforms stone tools from integral wholes to things of complementary parts—modular constructions—in complex interaction. In the process, it invokes a concept of modules implicit in Dibble’s experiments.

Curation and Its Distributions

Pattern and especially degree of reduction reflect the practice of curation. Originating with Binford ( 1973 ), the curation concept was (Hayden, 1976 ; Nash, 1996 ; Odell, 1996 )—still is, in some quarters—fraught with ambiguity. Yet a consensus has emerged that views curation as a continuous property of individual tools, not a categorical trait of entire assemblages or industries (e.g., Morales et al., 2015b :302). It expresses the ratio between realized and maximum utility (Shott, 1996 ), calculated in subjects like retouched stone tools as the difference between size at first use and at discard, usually on a 0–1 scale. Thus, curation of retouched flake tools scales as the difference between each tool’s size at detachment (or modification in preparation for first use) and at discard. As above, size at discard is a simple matter of observation but Dibble and colleagues’ experiments permitted inference to size at detachment. Hence, Dibble’s experimental results are key to the measurement of curation.

Again tools, not assemblages or industries, are curated (Shott, 1996 ), and specimens of a single type can be curated to varying degrees. Of course their original size, shape, and production technology are important properties of tools and their types. But the reduction thesis underscores the equal importance of the characteristic patterns and degrees of reduction that tools of any type experienced. Reduction is inherent in stone-tool curation, so must be measured. Analysts have devised a range of measures, mostly geometric or allometric (e.g., Morale et al., 2015a ; Shott, 2005 ). So many reduction measures demand criteria for their evaluation (Hiscock & Tabrett, 2010 ) and, considering their diversity and varying statistical properties, may even reward synthesis as pooled or “multifactorial” measures derived from ordination methods (e.g. Shott & Seeman, 2017 ).

At any time, each person has a single value for age, trivially. The populations they comprise do not have discrete ages. But they can be characterized by their age distributions, the number or proportion of individuals at each age or pooled intervals of age from birth to greatest age. Similarly, each retouched tool has a single, individual, curation value. But when numbers of tools of any type are analyzed (types necessarily being defined before compiling curation distributions to avoid the mistake of conflating ranges of reduction and curation [e.g., the limited curation of “single scrapers” versus the more extensive curation of “double scrapers”] with distinct types), the resulting range and relative frequency of reduction values are population properties of the type. Ranging from unretouched to extensively reduced specimens, tools’ reduction values form curation distributions for the types. Such distributions plot the fate of any number x of specimens of a type similar or identical in original size and shape as they undergo varying patterns and degrees of reduction. Fractions of x experience discard at progressive intervals along the range of curation from larger original to smaller discarded size and shape. Across a range of specimens of the type, degree of reduction (ascending on the x-axis in Fig. 2 ) leaves fewer survivals (cumulative survivorship descending on the y-axis there). Figure 2 shows distributions for two variants of reduction indices computed from the same set of North American Paleoindian unifacial scrapers (LT1NP, LT2NP which, for illustration only, are treated here as separate distributions) and one for reduction of a replicate scraper (LTMorrow). (See Sahle & Negash, 2016 :Fig. 5 for similar distributions characterizing Ethiopian ethnographic scrapers.) Reduction distributions may indicate high (LT1NP) or comparatively low (LTMorrow) curation. Empirical distributions can reveal differences that certainly are continuous and sometimes are subtle.

(Source: Shott & Seeman, 2015 : Fig. 5)

Reduction distributions plotting cumulative survivorship (descending on y -axis) against degree of curation (ascending on x -axis). Upper, convex distribution (LT1NP) indicates high curation, most specimens surviving until they experience extensive reduction. Lower, less convex distribution (LT2NP) indicates lower curation by continuous degree, more specimens discarded at low to modest degree of reduction. Distribution of experimental replica (LTMorrow) indicates lowest curation by comparison

Whatever their form, curation distributions are properties of tool types no less integral than their original design (Iovita, 2009 ). The variation they exhibit itself has analytical value. For instance, reduction distributions correlate degree of utility extracted to varying hunting return rates, making curation a behavioral variable that tracks long-term adaptations (Miller, 2018 :55–63). They can be fitted to failure models like Weibull that gauge their scales and shapes and identify causes of discard in experimental assemblages (Lin et al., 2016 ), and among Upper Paleolithic Iberian endscrapers (Morales, 2016 ; Morales et al., 2015b :302–303) and late Pleistocene North American scrapers (Shott & Seeman, 2017 ). Differences between distributions beg explanation, perhaps by industrial variation in Paleolithic assemblages or by changing access to toolstones, varying land-use scales or technological organization, changing population density or sociopolitical organization in assemblages anywhere. In this way, the reduction thesis creates variables by which to explain prehistoric behavior.

Assemblage Formation

Curation rate itself arguably measures relative use-life of tools (Shott, 1996 ). In turn, use-life is a key quantity in assemblage-formation models, along with tool-using activity rates and “mapping relations” (how types “map onto” functions or uses) (Ammerman & Feldman, 1974 ). Tool-use rates and “mapping relations” establish the functional or activity correlates of tool use. They contribute to assemblage variation, but are irrelevant in the following discussion that holds them constant in order to illustrate how curation and use-life alone can generate assemblage variation. Curation, which can be estimated in stone tools from the reduction thesis, and use-life thereby extend the reduction thesis’s scope beyond individual tools to the size and composition of entire assemblages as time-averaged accumulations.

Use-life is measured in time, and assemblages accumulate in time, a truism but one with important implications. Assemblage size increases, ceteris paribus , with time, therefore with accumulation span. But assemblage composition also changes as size increases, even holding tool-use activity rate and mapping relations constant, if tool types vary among themselves in use-life. How and why this occurs is explained elsewhere (e.g., Schiffer, 1975 ; Shott, 2010 ). Relevant here is that the composition of assemblages—presence or absence of and, if present, proportions of, various tool types—can vary strictly as a function of time and the accumulation of discarded specimens; assemblage size and composition are not always, possibly not often, independent quantities, composition instead changing with size up to an equilibrium point determined by the relationship between accumulation span and tool-type use-lives. When assemblage composition (as richness—number of types present—or other measures like heterogeneity) is plotted against assemblage size, either between assemblages or in bootstrap sampling within an assemblage, a positive linear relationship can result, up to the equilibrium point beyond which composition changes little. Before that point, assemblage composition has not stabilized for use-life and assemblage-size effects; beyond it, composition is stabilized with respect to those effects.

The reduction thesis bears directly upon assemblage formation only in helping to reveal types’ relative use-lives. But because the thesis demonstrates that some Paleolithic “types” like single scrapers are not types at all but merely modestly reduced versions of the legitimate type “flake tool,” indirectly it also helps explain some patterns of assemblage variation. For instance, assemblage size-composition correlations are documented in contexts as diverse as the French Middle Paleolithic (Shott, 2003b ), the North American Paleoindian (Shott, 2010 ) and late prehistoric New Zealand (Phillipps et al., 2022 ). As one example, Olduvai Paleolithic flake-tool “types” can, like Middle Paleolithic ones, be linked as segments of cobble reduction sequences (Potts, 1991 ); they are not legitimate types. Bootstrapped plots of richness, a composition measure, against number or size distinguish assemblages there whose size-composition relationships had stabilized (Fig. 3 a, FLK1-2) from those that had not (Fig. 3 b, HWK-1)(see Shott, 2003b :142–143 for similar treatment of French Middle Paleolithic assemblages).

Examples of bootstrap gauging of richness adequacy and standard deviation in Oldowan assemblages. a FLK1-2, adequate because empirical size is sufficient to stabilize richness and narrow standard deviation; b HWK-1, inadequate because richness fails to stabilize and standard deviation to narrow before reaching empirical size (Data source: Leakey, 1971 )

Similarly, Dibble argued that a Middle Paleolithic scraper’s “type” registers not its Platonic essence—single, double and convergent scrapers are not legitimate, distinct types but merely segments of the reduction continuum of the legitimate type “flake tool”–but its curation rate and, ceteris paribus , relative use-life (Lin, 2018 :1791). Dibble and Rolland ( 1992 :11) defined “intensity of occupations” in part as the ratio of Bordean scrapers to notches. In size-stabilized assemblages, Bordean single scrapers correlated inversely with the intensity ratio, double scrapers positively at high slope or rate, convergent ones positively at lower rate. The reduction thesis explains this size-composition pattern; single scrapers first must become double scrapers before they might become convergent ones. Both double and convergent scrapers can be transformed single scrapers, but double scrapers are transformed sooner because they form directly from single scrapers. As a joint probability of transformation-by-reduction first to double scraper and only later, possibly, to convergent scraper, a lower proportion of convergent scrapers is a highly probable arithmetic consequence of the reduction thesis. Scraper “types” considered as successive segments of a reduction continuum of a single flake-tool type increase proportionally in size-stabilized assemblages as measured by Dibble and Rolland’s scraper:notch ratio of occupational intensity because the ratio measures increasing scraper use and discard (Shott, 2003b :145 and Fig. 11.9). Recognition of such size-composition correlations also contributed to one of Dibble’s and colleagues’ later arguments (e.g., Dibble et al., 2017 ) that surface assemblages may be time-averaged palimpsests revisited as.

Quantification

Assimilating several components of the reduction thesis—its prevalence, resulting allometric variation, curation rates and their connection to use-life, and assemblage size-composition correlations—begs a question that appears trivial at first glance: how much is a tool? In limited respects, this question was broached years ago (e.g., Hiscock, 2002 ; Shott, 2000 ), chiefly to improve and standardize assemblage characterization for comparative analysis. Applied to a Syrian Middle Paleolithic assemblage, for instance, several measures of original number of specimens yielded generally concordant results, best among them considered total length of all intact and broken specimens combined divided by mean length of intact tools at discard (“TLV 1”) (Wojtczak, 2014 :63–72).

We regard tools as integral wholes not only for purposes of typological assignment and various analytical approaches, but also for counting. Leaving aside the fragmentation that further complicates quantification, for counting purposes one Quina scraper or one Early Side-notched (ESN) point, to use a North American example, is as much as another, no more or less: it’s one. But recognizing that many tools are subject to reduction of varying degree and pattern, whether or not they transit between types in any taxonomic system, we might change our perspective. A newly minted, large ESN point (Fig. 4 a) is, trivially an ESN point. But is it as much of an ESN point as a heavily resharpened stub (Fig. 4 e)? More? Less? Is the large, new point “one,” the reduced stub much less than one? Alternatively, is the latter, owing to its extensive use, more than one mint-condition ESN point? Questions so abstruse may seem unworthy of consideration. Yet if assemblages reflect, at least in part, patterns and frequencies of past activities, then not all ESN points register the same amount, or necessarily kind, of activity. For the study of original design, the specimen shown in Fig. 4 a is more than that shown in Fig. 4 e; as registers of use, Fig. 4 e is much more of a tool than is Fig. 4 a. The reduction thesis is essential to the calibration of tool occurrence to past design and behavior, in part by linking amount of use to degree or pattern of reduction.

(Source: Randall, 2002 :Fig. 4.2)

Reduction sequence of North American Early Side-notched points, a–e representing progressive intervals of reduction

Macroarchaeology

Fitfully, archaeology is evolving as a scholarly discipline. In the mid-twentieth century, essentially it was culture history. Later, American archaeology became a functional or ecological anthropology, later still a postmodern critique of whatever postmodernists disliked, latterly a forum for identity construction and defense. Archaeology can be all of those things; it also can be a science of the human past, a possibility that encompasses at least part of all such approaches save postmodernism.

Dibble practiced a scientific archaeology, although not exactly as conceived by Perreault’s ( 2019 ) “macroarchaeology” that extensively revises the field’s ontology. Yet despite macroarchaeology’s breadth, even the limited domain of the reduction thesis and the study of stone tools bear upon it. For instance, objects like stone tools and their attributes are directly observable. But so trivial a statement obscures important implications. In macroarchaeological perspective, objects and the attributes they possess are “primary historical events” or units (Kitts, 1992 :136), of a time–space scale commensurate with individual observation and experience. Anyone can observe an object in production or use today, and lithic analysts can directly examine a prehistoric stone tool. The theory required to explain objects and their attributes, be it technological, functional, symbolic or social, and how they serve their broader cultural context, be it material (e.g., behavioral ecology), symbolic, structural, or social (e.g., agency, Marxism), is suitable to primary historical units, i.e., of a time–space scale commensurate with individual experience. Such theory explains the actions of individuals or social groups at moments or short intervals in time; it is historical (e.g., the movement of populations, the rise or decline of complex societies), material (e.g., environmental change, adaptation), or ethnographic. Little or none is unique to archaeology or its customary time–space scales.

Tool types are defined by repetitive patterning in attributes across specimens. Industries or assemblages of specimens of various types are defined by joint patterns of use and deposition. Types and industries or assemblages, and the cultures constructed from them, are bounded empirically by their time–space distributions. Types may occur over broad areas and persist for generations or longer, and their distribution at any moment surpasses the scale of individual experience. Pompeiis excepted, industries or assemblages are time-averaged over at least years, usually much longer. Neither types, assemblages, and cultures, or their time–space boundaries, are primary historical units. Types persist, and assemblages and industries accumulate, at time scales orders of magnitude greater than ethnographic or historical contexts. They are secondary historical events or units that “have no counterpart in the present…[and] are composed of primary events related in a spatial and temporal nexus” (Kitts, 1992 :137). As secondary units, types and assemblages possess properties that are emergent at the lower level of primary events—not deducible from the properties of units at that level—and that require “explanatory principles emergent with respect to” (Kitts, 1992 :142) them. Secondary units’ salient properties must be constructed from the material record. Units’ origins—how and why types or other secondary units arise, according to what causes–and behavior—their duration, changing incidence or distribution over that span, how and why they end, either by termination, transformation or branching—can be explained only by theory that pertains to their nature and time–space scales as secondary historical units. No other discipline has or needs such theory; archaeology has yet to develop it for its own purposes. Here lies its greatest challenge: conceiving the method and theory to define and explain the character and behavior of secondary historical units.

Perreault argued that the time–space scale that defined secondary historical units compromise the application of explanatory theory based on primary units, that the archaeological record was underdetermined by such theory (2019:29–32). Then he posed questions that limn the macroarchaeological challenge, some pertinent to lithic studies and the reduction thesis (2019:169–173). Merely as examples relevant in this context, macroarchaeological questions include the following examples. Do tool types or the industries they form and the reduction sequences that produced them trend in complexity over archaeological time? If so, why? Are types’ or industries’ rates of change related to that complexity, to population size, even to curation rate if, like biological taxa whose evolutionary rates are proportional to individual lifespan, higher curation implies fewer instances of replication? What explains why and how tool types, industries or other constructs originate and, crucially, why and how they end? No current theory–from behavioral ecology to evolutionary archaeology to any prehistoric equivalent of Annales to archaeology of the long term–approximates the macroarchaeological approach that Perreault advocates.

Of course macroarchaeology far surpasses the scope of the reduction thesis, which nevertheless has relevant implications for its development. The thesis promotes typological hygiene and thereby the definition of valid types qua secondary units. It distinguishes resharpening allometry and the modularity on which allometry rests from typological variation. Degree and pattern of allometry measure curation rate; the latter then becomes, as above, a continuous attribute of types as secondary units. Through its effect upon assemblage formation and accumulation (e.g., the size-composition effects noted above), the thesis links the composition of assemblages or industries as secondary units to the composition of tool inventories at the level of primary units.

Even if most of Dibble’s work did not attempt the shift in scale and focus that Perreault’s macroarchaeology entails—no one has, to this point—he helped establish knowable, replicable—positivist—foundations for scientific inference from the material record. And Dibble et al.’s ( 2017 ) accumulations view takes a limited macroarchaeological perspective on the formation and transformation of assemblages. Until macroarchaeology prevails, we will continue to define the wrong units at the wrong scales whose nature and behavior we try to explain using the wrong theory. The reduction thesis has a role, admittedly modest, in this necessary transformation.

Reception of the Reduction Thesis

The reduction thesis rejects the view of Paleolithic tool types as Platonic essences. Being a powerful explanation for considerable variation in lithic industries and assemblages, as sketched above, it has earned broad if uneven acceptance, particularly in New World and Australian archaeology. Ironically, that reception is conspicuously uneven in European Paleolithic archaeology, where the thesis originated. If to some there the reduction thesis is “reasonably demonstrated” (Anghelinu et al., 2020 :37), others dismiss or ignore it. Despite noteworthy exceptions, my outsider’s impression is that many, possibly most, European Paleolithic scholars remain unpersuaded by, or indifferent to, the reduction thesis and its far-reaching implications for our understanding of the past.

No doubt the number of such scholars and the breadth of their practice surpass any simplistic opposition between views of Paleolithic tool types as Platonic essences or mere domains of nominal variation (Marwick, 2008 :109), of French versus American paradigms (Clark, 2002 ), of Bordes’s facies qua cultures versus Binford’s toolkits. Nor can an outsider like me command the relevant literature or be attuned to possibly subtle changes in approach or ontology in Paleolithic studies. But even recent efforts to reconcile or synthesize approaches betray a strong predisposition toward essentialism (e.g., Hussain, 2019 ; Reynolds, 2020 :193; cf. Anghelinu et al., 2020 , whose attempt at synthesis deserves close study). Even if, then, Dibble’s reduction thesis is a figurative prophet with highly uneven honor in its field of origin, it has transformed the analysis of stone tools in other contexts.

One Recent Example of Dibble’s Influence

Many Dibble students and colleagues are recognizable by the nature and quality of their work, itself one of his greatest legacies; you know who you are, Holdaway, Iovita, Li, Lin, McPherron, Monnier, Olszewski, Rezek and others. But Dibble influenced many more.

As one example among many, my current collaborative project involves GM allometric analysis of a fairly large sample—over 5000—midcontinental North American points catalogued from private collections that form a time sequence that spans more than 10,000 years of prehistory (Nolan et al., 2022 ). The reduction thesis and its implications, sketched above, are integral to our analytical approach. We can chart time trends in curation rates, allometric trajectories and degrees of modularity and integration in our dataset (e.g., Shott et al., 2023 ), and relate these properties of secondary historical types to environmental, demographic, or sociopolitical trends at suitable time–space scales. Certainly in its current form, this project would be inconceivable without Dibble’s work. In prehistoric archaeology, Dibble’s influence extends well beyond the Old World Paleolithic. In theoretical terms, it extends well beyond the fracture mechanics of brittle solids.

This essay began with flakes and ended at some of the greatest ontological challenges confronting archaeology today. In the process, it discussed other archaeologists’ practice as much as Dibble’s. That is at once deliberate and meant as praise. Dibble’s own interests lay in important details of fracture mechanics and in Middle Paleolithic archaeology, as well as field-recording and database management. Yet implications of his work were explored and elaborated in time–space contexts that far surpass the Middle Paleolithic. Today, we can devise reduction measures suitable to a range of tool types and practice typological hygiene by distinguishing continuous or categorical variation between types from continuous allometric reduction variation within them. We can gauge that allometric variation in the context of varying integration of modular segments of stone tools. We can derive curation distributions, measure their properties in detail and compare variation among types or periods. We can begin to probe the complexities of assemblage formation, the persistent correlation between assemblage size and composition. We can pose and begin to address deceptively profound questions like “How much is a tool?”. We even can contemplate needed, macroarchaeological, revisions to the field’s ontology. We can do these things and more in part because of Dibble’s work with his students and colleagues. Not a bad legacy, that.

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Acknowledgements

My thanks to Gilliane Monnier and Shannon McPherron for the kind invitation to participate in the Society for American Archaeology symposium from which this essay derived. The editor and three anonymous reviewers helped clarify important points. A. Randall kindly permitted use of Figure 4 . Of course the essay is dedicated to Harold Dibble, for his many contributions to lithic analysis.

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Shott, M.J. Dibble’s Reduction Thesis: Implications for Global Lithic Analysis. J Paleo Arch 7 , 12 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-024-00178-y

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Four UW–Madison students receive Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships

Four UW–Madison students have been awarded fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the Mellon Foundation to support their innovative and creative dissertation research.

The Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships support doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences with up to $50,000 including funds for research, training, professional development, and mentorship. The four fellows at UW–Madison are among 45 overall, selected from a pool of more than 700 applicants. They are:

Kuhelika Ghosh , doctoral candidate in English with a minor in Culture, History, and Environment
Fauzi Moro , doctoral student in History with a minor in African Cultural Studies
Anika M. Rice , doctoral student in Geography with a minor in Community-Engaged Scholarship
Vignesh Ramachandran , doctoral student in Geography

Read more about each Mellon/ACLS Fellow below.

Kuhelika Ghosh

Ghosh’s dissertation explores multispecies gardens in Anglophone Caribbean literature and culture from the 1960s to the present, bringing together postcolonial studies and ecocritical approaches.

“I am interested in the ways that Afro-diasporic women’s gardening practices in the Caribbean region often engage with nonhuman rhythms relating to seasonal time, harvest and fallow, and the lives of insects, birds, and other species,” she said.

Through this work, Ghosh demonstrates how human gardening practices and the rhythms of many different species found in gardens of various types relate to postcolonial food politics and responses to empire. Ghosh explained that the original kitchen and market gardens began during plantation slavery as provisions grounds, which were plots of land set apart from plantations for enslaved people to grow their own food.

The project uses literary texts, visual culture, little-studied archival materials, and physical gardens to create new theories about key problems in cultural study, including voice, rhythm, and spatiality. Ghosh takes an interdisciplinary approach that crosses through literary studies, environmental studies, history, and visual cultures, which gives her dissertation the boundary-pushing trait the Mellon/ACLS fellowship seeks to encourage.

“By focusing on small-scale cultivation, women’s care work, and ‘inconsequential’ multispecies creatures, my project sheds light on the many minor figures in the postcolonial Caribbean that have the power to create change in food justice movements,” Ghosh said.

She also said agricultural scholarship tends to be biased toward men’s labor, while women make up a significant portion of the agricultural labor force in the Caribbean – especially through domestic spaces like backyard gardens. She seeks to highlight Caribbean women’s perspectives and voices around the topics of food justice and postcolonial politics.

“I hope my research brings to light the importance of gardens as a feminist practice, postcolonial agricultural strategy, as well as a form of art in itself,” Ghosh said. “Gardens are often seen as ‘minor’ in the field of the environmental humanities, but my dissertation attempts to demonstrate that although a garden may be minor in terms of area, it has political, ecological, and social significances for marginalized populations in the Caribbean as well as in other postcolonial spaces around the globe.”

Fauziyatu Moro (Fauzi)

Three miles north of Accra’s central business district, the city’s largest migrant enclave, Nima, houses migrants from various African countries. Moro explained that in the nine decades of Nima’s existence, its residents have embodied a distinct Afro-cosmopolitan identity that has thus far gone unnoticed by scholars of African urban history, migration, and the African diaspora.

Moro’s dissertation and an open-access digital archive emerging from her work theorizes Nima as an internal African diaspora and an unprecedented site of pan-African consciousness. This is facilitated by migrants’ urban leisure which speaks to an ethos of global Black solidarity, Moro said.

“By centering intra-Africa migrants’ social imaginations and amusements in the making of Accra’s pan-African and transnational history, my dissertation offers a glimpse into the possibilities of researching migration and urbanization in Africa through the category of leisure as opposed to migrant labor,” Moro said. This challenges scholars to reassess assumptions about working-class intra-Africa migrants, while introducing ideas about migrants’ roles as key historical actors in creating and socially transforming African urban spaces, she added.

Moro’s project centers on migrants’ narratives, social imaginations, and visual and material culture, creating a retelling of the history of Accra. This is underscored by multi-disciplinary methods including oral sources, state and migrants’ personal archives, print media, and literary and visual analysis.

“Migrants’ oral histories and personal archives are particularly crucial to my methodology because they anchor the counter-narrative I seek to provide about Accra’s intra-Africa migrants whose lives and experiences often come to us through the skewed lens of crime, poverty and/or chaos. My research is, thus, undergirded by a quest to make visible the histories of Africa’s urban migrants as told in their own voices,” Moro said.

Anika M. Rice

“In this context, how families leverage landholdings for migration is central to livelihoods, agrarian change, debt, and situated meanings of land,” Rice said.

Land access is often left out of discussions about the root causes of migration in Central America, Rice explained. Her research provides a grounding point that takes seriously the role of land access and how land is used in the decisions that families make about migration.

Rice will collaborate with groups of predominantly Maya K’iche’ women with migrant family members who seek to understand possibilities for collective resistance against the structural and institutional impacts of migration. These groups are part of the Jesuit Migration Network‘s programming in Guatemala.

“I intend for my research to center the agency of K’iche’ women and other marginalized folks in communities of origin, and affirm the right to migrate with dignity,” she said.

Rice said that while there has been important work on transnational migration in host and transit countries, as well as on the intersections of migration and agrarian change, there is limited attention to the gendered impacts of migration in communities of origin and how migration is tied to land access. Her dissertation will use community-based research approaches to engage with the experiences of women with migrant family members, showing their strategies for survival and persistence.

Previous scholarship has often focused on the head of household and on remittances sent home from migrants. Rice’s methods will integrate household surveys with ethnographic work that engages with how multiple family members in different social positions relate to and may leverage specific parcels of land for migration.

“Elevating voices from communities of origin, with a focus on how women are organizing, is central to the co-production of knowledge on social relations, mobility and the environment,” Rice said.

Vignesh Ramachandran

Scientific management, also known as Taylorism, focuses on economic efficiency and labor productivity. Ramachandran’s research focuses on how digital Taylorism – such as automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and algorithm-based management practices – affects delivery workers. Ramachandran uses a worker’s inquiry methodology that emphasizes collaborative, action-oriented research conducted alongside workers to document the effects of digital Taylorism.

“Through this methodology, this project outlines the racializing and disciplining effects of algorithms in shaping the lives of immigrant delivery workers,” Ramachandran said. “In doing so, it also hopes to discover how digital Taylorism produces residual after-effects, like solidarity and care, that propose other modes of social life under the managerial control of algorithms and digital technology.”

Innovations in automation and AI are constantly changing the terrain of labor and work, Ramachandran said. Many of those innovations are implemented in the gig economy and push workers to work harder and faster, while corporations increase their profits, he said. His dissertation challenges “disembodied” descriptions of technological innovation by centering perspectives of immigrant delivery workers.

“Many working class immigrants in New York City have been doubly subjected to the effects of imperialism—faced with austerity, militarism, and climate crisis in their home countries, and border violence, policing, and structural poverty in the U.S.,” Ramachandran said. “In this context, my research challenges race-neutral accounts of the gig economy by situating exploitation in the gig economy within the long [duration] of racial capitalism and imperialism, and by documenting stories of immigrant worker resistance amidst this violence.”

Ramachandran said his approach to dissertation research “re-introduces the workers’ inquiry as an innovative form of collaborative research that academics can undertake with workers.”

“Whereas companies like Uber, Grubhub, and Doordash spend millions on research and development to maximize profit in the gig economy, the workers’ inquiry turns to the experiences and situated knowledge of workers to document and contest exploitation in their workplace,” he explained. “In this case, this project builds on over two years of community-engaged research with undocumented South Asian delivery workers and community organizations to understand how resistance to exploitation in the gig economy takes place at the intersection of digital technology, labor, and everyday immigrant life. Moreover, the project develops the importance of collaborative, community engaged methodologies in the broader humanities and social sciences.”

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Massive Fossil Donation Helps Brazil’s National Museum Rise From the Ashes

A gift from abroad of more than 1,100 Brazilian fossils aims to step up efforts to rebuild the country’s National Museum, which suffered major fire damage in 2018.

A long, open-mouthed pterosaur skull with its crest and very sharp teeth very clearly visible in a slab of stone.

By Michael Greshko

On the night of Sept. 2, 2018, a fire swept through the National Museum of Brazil, devastating the country’s oldest scientific institution and one of South America’s biggest and most important museums. On Tuesday, the museum announced that it received a major donation of ancient Brazilian fossils to help rebuild its collection ahead of a scheduled 2026 reopening.

Burkhard Pohl, a Swiss-German collector and entrepreneur who maintains one of the world’s largest private fossil collections, has handed over to the National Museum about 1,100 specimens, all of which originated in Brazil. The donation is the biggest and most scientifically important contribution yet to the museum’s rebuilding efforts, after the loss of 85 percent of its roughly 20 million specimens and artifacts in the fire.

The move also returns scientific treasure to a country that has often seen its natural heritage vanish beyond its borders — and presents a potential global model for building a natural history museum in the 21st century.

“The most important thing is to show to the world, in Brazil and outside Brazil, that we are uniting private people and public institutions,” Alexander Kellner, the National Museum’s director, said. “We want others to follow this example, if possible, to help us with this really herculean task.”

Far more than the public exhibits they host, natural history museums safeguard the world’s scientific and cultural heritage for future generations. The 2018 fire destroyed the National Museum’s entire collections of insects and spiders, as well as Egyptian mummies bought by the erstwhile Brazilian imperial family.

The flames also consumed more than 60 percent of the museum’s fossils, including parts of a specimen that scientists used to identify Maxakalisaurus, a Brazilian long-necked dinosaur. The newly donated fossils include plants, insects, two dinosaurs that might represent new species and two exquisite skulls of pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that soared over dinosaurs’ heads. The donation also includes previously studied fossils, including the enigmatic reptile Tetrapodophis, which was identified as a “four-legged snake” in 2015 but is now thought to be an aquatic lizard .

Dr. Pohl, who comes from a family of art, mineral and fossil collectors, said his donations were meant to ensure that Brazil’s national museum has a comprehensive and accessible collection of the country’s own fossil heritage.

“A collection is an organism,” Dr. Pohl said in an interview. “If it’s locked away, it’s dead; it needs to live.”

The bones provide snapshots of life in what is now northeastern Brazil between 115 million and 110 million years ago, when the region was a lake-dotted wetland frequently flooded by a young and growing Atlantic Ocean. Over time, these ancient bodies of water gave rise to the Crato and Romualdo Formations, limestone deposits in the Araripe Basin where quarries now dig for raw material to make cement. Impeccably preserved fossils lurk among the rocks, some of which formed as creatures’ bodies were rapidly covered in microbial muck along ancient shorelines, and then buried. Crato fossils were squished flat like pressed flowers; Romualdo fossils were entombed in nodules of stone.

Since 1942, Brazil has treated fossils as national property and strictly prohibited their commercial export. But for decades, Brazilian fossils from the Crato and Romualdo Formations have circulated in the global fossil market, sold into museum holdings and private collections around the world, including Dr. Pohl’s.

Brazilian paleontologists who were thrilled at the fossils’ return to their home country emphasized the research and training opportunities they represent — and the positive precedent it could help set for other donors. “It’s very positive to show to perhaps some other collectors that things can be done in a friendly manner,” said Taissa Rodrigues, a paleontologist at Brazil’s Federal University of Espírito Santo.

The seeds for Dr. Pohl’s donation were planted in 2022, when Dr. Kellner met Frances Reynolds, the founder of a Brazilian arts nonprofit called the Instituto Inclusartiz. She quickly embraced the mission of rebuilding the National Museum’s collections, reaching out to a network of collectors to secure long-term loans and donations.

“If we people can help and don’t, then I can’t expect anything from anybody else,” Ms. Reynolds said. “It’s been a lot of work but an incredible experience.”

Ms. Reynolds learned of Dr. Pohl’s fossil collection through his son, who manages galleries owned by Dr. Pohl’s Interprospekt Group, a fossil and gem company based in Switzerland. A year of negotiation followed, and the fossils were shipped to Brazil in 2023; they are being housed in provisional facilities until the museum’s main building is restored.

In addition to the fossils, the National Museum is partnering with the Interprospekt Group to jointly conduct research in the United States. Last summer, a group of six Brazilian paleontologists and students traveled to Thermopolis, Wyo., where Dr. Pohl maintains a private fossil museum. There, the Brazilian team will help dig for fossils that may later join the National Museum’s collections.

Dr. Kellner and Ms. Reynolds are actively soliciting donations and collaborations, and international institutions are responding to the call. Last year, the National Museum of Denmark donated a red cloak of scarlet ibis feathers made by Brazil’s Tupinambá people, one of only 11 such artifacts remaining in the world. The museum is also working closely with Brazil’s Indigenous groups to rebuild the museum’s ethnographic collections.

“This could be a major turning point,” Dr. Kellner said. “It’s really something for the future of our people.”

The World of Dinosaurs

Was Spinosaurus a Swimmer?: Paleontologists agree that the dinosaur ate fish. But whether it swam underwater is a question of prickly contention.

Robo-Dinosaur: The origin of bird wings has long presented a puzzle to paleontologists, so scientists built a working model of an early winged dinosaur to test a hypothesis about how the appendages evolved.

New Origin Story: The discovery of a new species of Tyrannosaurus from New Mexico suggests a new chapter could be added to the origin story of Tyrannosaurus rex.

A Tinier Tyrannosaur: Researchers are trying to remake the case that fossils known as Nanotyrannus were their own species , rather than a teenage Tyrannosaurus rex.

A Fossilized Meal: Some 75.3 million years ago, a dinosaur swallowed the Cretaceous equivalent of a turkey drumstick. It would turn out to be the predator’s final feast .

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