Cladistics Is Useful for Reconstructing Archaeological Phylogenies: Palaeoindian Points from the Southeastern United States |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, University of Seville, María de Padilla S/N, 41004 Sevilla, Spain;2. Department of Prehistory, Archaeology, Social Anthropology and Historiographic Sciences and techniques, University of Valladolid, Pz/ del Campus S/N, 47011 Valladolid, Spain;3. Centre for Nuclear Science and Technology, IST, University of Lisbon, E.N. 10 ao km 139,7, 2695-066 Bobadela LRS, Portugal;4. Centre for Archaeology, University of Lisbon, Alameda da Universidade 1600-214 Lisboa, Portugal;5. Andalusian Centre for Ibearian Archaeology, University of Jaén, Paraje Las Lagunillas s/n, Jaén, Spain;1. School of the Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China;2. Dinosaur Trackers Research Group, University of Colorado, Denver, CO, USA;3. Regional Geological Survey Team, Sichuan Bureau of Geological Exploration and Development of Mineral Resources, Chengdu 610213, China;4. School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK;5. Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China;6. Saurierwelt Paläontologisches Museum, Neumarkt, Germany;7. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada;8. Department of Earth Science Education, Korea National University of Education, Cheongwon, Chungbuk 363-791, South Korea;9. Zigong Dinosaur Museum, Zigong, Sichuan, China;10. Key Laboratory of Ecology of Rare and Endangered Species and Environmental Protection, Ministry of Education, Guilin 541004, China |
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| Abstract: | Cladistics, a method used to create a nested series of taxa based on homologous characters shared only by two or more taxa and their immediate common ancestor, offers a means of reconstructing artifact lineages that reflect heritable continuity as opposed to simple historical continuity. Although cladistically derived trees are only hypotheses about phylogeny, they are superior both to trees created through phenetics, which employs characters without regard as to whether they are analogous or homologous, and to trees created by using undifferentiated homologous characters. To date, cladistics is an unused approach to constructing archaeological phylogenies but one that holds considerable potential for resolving some of archaeology's historical problems. For example, it has long been noted that the southeastern United States exhibits the greatest diversity in fluted-point forms in North America—an observation that prompted Mason (1962) to propose that fluted points originated in the Southeast and then spread to other areas. However, because of a paucity of such points from well-dated contexts in the Southeast, it is difficult to ascertain chronological, let alone phylogenetic, relations among the various forms. Evolutionary trees derived from cladistical analysis are testable hypotheses about those phylogenetic relations. |
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