particular features of artifacts as indicative of specific cultural traditions.

Different researchers hold quite varied views about the role played by style in human societies, about the types of information that style conveys, and, therefore, about how style can be identified. Some archaeologists, such as Wiessner, regard style as a form of nonverbal communication that conveys information about both individual and group identity. For cognitive archaeologists (such as Ian Hodder) style is a symbolic expression of social relations, and the aim of analysis is to investigate the meaning of the symbols that style embodies. However, there is no general agreement that style is always symbolic or that it is always intended to convey specific information. For example, J.R. Sackett (1982) distinguishes between style as symbol (iconological style) and style that simply reflects the choices that individual artisans made in producing functionally equivalent objects (isochrestic style). He also distinguishes between passive style (regularity in artifact form, arising from shared traditions) and active style (intended to convey specific information).

Attempts to refine the concept of style and make it more amenable to archaeological analysis and interpretation do not actually resolve the archaeologist’s dilemma about whether stylistic causes and effects operate independently of functional causes and effects. The obvious solution is to hold one source of variation constant in order to identify the effects of another. However, this approach assumes that it is possible to identify functionally equivalent artifacts and/or that it is possible to identify the options from which the prehistoric knapper made his or her choices during artifact manufacture. This notion is not as straightforward as it might at first seem. Types or attributes that appear to be functionally redundant in one context may not be so in another. Furthermore, what is functionally redundant in any context is actually in the mind of the maker, and it is therefore impossible to assess interpretations of patterned variation as isochrestic style. Consequently, techniques for identifying the contribution of style to differences (and similarities) in the composition of artifact assemblages are not well developed, and they rely on reductive analytical strategies, which presuppose the independence of the different dimensions of artifact variability.

In the final analysis current arguments about style are based on different ideas about the information contained in patterned archaeological data. On the one hand, the debate involves a return to the dispute between Bordes and Binford: whether artifact assemblages are cultural markers or markers of functionally distinct tool kits. On the other hand, much has been learned about the interdependence of different dimensions of artifact variability in different contexts. Reductive analytical techniques cannot incorporate all the potential contributors to stone artifact assemblage variability, but there can be no doubt that these have enhanced archaeologists’ understanding of the factors contributing to the similarities and differences between artifact assemblages from different time periods. Archaeologists can now pursue a broader array of interpretative approaches, depending on the information they choose to generate from the artifact assemblages under investigation.

Functionalist Approaches

Functionalist approaches use ecological and evolutionary theory, together with paleoenvironmental information, to investigate the interrelationships between ecological and environmental variables and aspects of a society’s economic, social, and political structures—in particular, the role these institutions played in the survival and success of different human societies. Debate about the causes of Middle Paleolithic artifact variability underscored how little was known about the relationship between stone artifact assemblage composition, site function, site layout, and seasonal variation in foraging activities. As a consequence, Binford, JohnYellen, and others initiated ethno-archaeological research during the 1960s designed to identify in human behavior those regularities that can be assemblages.

Binford’s study of the activities of the Nunamiut people of Alaska ultimately provided the theoretical underpinning for an approach to stone artifact analysis and interpretation that became known as technological organization (Nelson