Defining and Measuring Diversity in Archaeology

Metin I. Eren is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Kent State University and a Research Associate at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He is Co-Director of the Kent State University Experimental Archaeology Laboratory and has conducted research in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. A master flintknapper, Eren knaps, uses, shoots, and breaks stone technologies from across the Stone Age to figure out how they work and to better understand technological evolution.

List of Illustrations



Foreword

Michael J. O’Brien and David Hurst Thomas



Introduction: On the Challenges of Measuring Diversity in Archaeology

Briggs Buchanan and Metin I. Eren



Chapter 1. Dispersion and Diversity: Parfleche Variation on the Great Plains vs. the Columbia Plateau

Stephen J. Lycett



Chapter 2. The Diversity of North America’s “Old Copper” Projectile Points

Michelle R. Bebber and Anne Chao



Chapter 3. Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Architecture

Brian Andrews, Danielle Macdonald, and Brooke Morgan



Chapter 4. The Potential of Coverage-Based Rarefaction in Zooarchaeology

J. Tyler Faith and Andrew Du



Chapter 5. Diversity and Lithic Microwear: Quantification, Classification, and Standardization

W. James Stemp and Danielle A. Macdonald



Chapter 6. Intensification Mechanisms Driving Dietary Change among the Great Plains Big Game Hunters of North America

Erik Otárola-Castillo, Melissa G. Torquato, and Matthew E. Hill



Appendix 6.1: Summary Information for Archaeological Sites Used in This Study



Chapter 7. Challenges and Prospects of Richness and Diversity Measures in Paleoethnobotany

Alan Farahani and R. J. Sinensky



Appendix 7.1: Abundance of Reproductive Plant Parts Recovered from the Las Capas Site, Southeastern Arizona, 1220–730 BCE 205



Chapter 8. Quantifying Evenness of Paleoindian Projectile Point Forms within Geographic Regions of Eastern North America

Matthew T. Boulanger, Ryan P. Breslawski, and Ian A. Jorgeson



Chapter 9. Thinking about Diversity in Material Culture at Multiple Scales

Steven L. Kuhn



Chapter 10. Measuring and Comparing Class Diversity in Archaeological Assemblages: A Brief Guide to the History and State-of-the-Art in Diversity Statistics

Robert K. Colwell and Anne Chao



Epilogue: Diversity Metrics are Convenient, but Their Archaeological Meanings Are Still Obscure

R. Lee Lyman



Index