Alternative Title
Using Geometric Morphometrics to Examine Late Prehistoric Points
Subject Area
Anthropology
Abstract
It has been over 70 years since J. Charles Kelley (1947a and b) first defined the Toyah Focus. Dating from approximately AD 1200 to the mid-1600’s. The Toyah Focus begins around the time that people transitioned from spear and atlatl hunting to hunting with bow and arrow technology and continued until the establishment of Spanish mission complexes in Texas in the 1800s (Lohse 2009). The peoples who lived at Toyah sites are believed to have been part of widely spaced small bands of hunter-gatherers who relied primarily on bison (Arnn 2012). Archaeologically, diagnostic artifacts of a Toyah site are Perdiz arrowheads, an expedient stone-toolkit, bison remains, and bone-tempered pottery (Kenmotsu and Boyd 2012). This dissertation takes one aspect of the definition for the Toya Focus - the Perdiz point - and applies new methods of analysis, in the hopes of better understanding variation in lithic technology over the southern Plains landscape as it might relate to the movements of ancient hunter-gatherers and their interactions with other groups (i.e., farmers).
Degree Date
Summer 2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Anthropology
Advisor
Mike Adler
Second Advisor
Kacy Hollenback
Third Advisor
Matt Boulanger
Fourth Advisor
Robert Z. Selden Jr.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Etter, Bonnie, "The Perdiz Problem" (2025). Anthropology Theses and Dissertations.
https://scholar.smu.edu/hum_sci_anthropology_etds/29
