Expedient technology in European North America: implications from an alternate use of glass by historic period populations

Abstract

This study examines the roles of expedient and curated (or formal) artefacts for extracting information from the archaeological record. Using these concepts of technological organization, certain hypotheses concerning assemblage characteristics are examined. Glass sherds used as woodworking tools by North Americans of European descent provide the opportunity for addressing these concepts in an archaeological setting. Use-wear analyses of glass edges damaged through experiments are employed to identify patterns of damage associated with woodworking and a number of post-depositional activities which may alter glass sherds. The data resulting from these analyses are manipulated through a series of multivariate procedures in an effort to create a model for the identification of used glass sherds. This analytical process provides techniques and results which can be employed by other analysts. Collections of materials from four historic sites in Alberta are processed through this model to identify the used sherds. The relationships of these "tools" to formal artefact types are employed to address the theoretical relationships of artefacts to the human behaviour responsible for their creation and deposition.