A simple model of technological intensification

Ugan, Bright and Rogers [When is technology worth the trouble? Journal of Archaeological Science 30 (10) (2003) 1315–1329] develop procurement and processing versions of an optimization model, termed the tech investment model, to formalize the conditions that favor investing time in the manufacture of more productive but more costly technologies. Their approach captures the tradeoffs that occur as less costly versions are supplanted by more costly versions of the same category of technology (e.g., fishhooks), but not the tradeoffs that occur when more costly categories of technology supplant different but less costly categories used for the same purpose (e.g., hook and line vs. spear). We (i) propose an alternative model in which different categories of technology are characterized by separate cost–benefit curves, (ii) develop point-estimate and curve-estimate versions on this model, and (iii) show how they might be applied using the development of weaponry in aboriginal California as an example.