1: A Necessity for the Midwestern Archeologist
Justice's "Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points" is a must have for anyone interested in Midwestern prehistoric lithic technology. A number of localized and somewhat regional typology books are available, but none attempts such a widespread regional synthesis. Two primary features make Justice the best point book available. The first is his use of the point cluster concept. Instead recognizing each individual point type name as a scientifically valid and culturally meaningful category (like Perino), Justice groups points by clusters of points exhibiting close morphological affinities. He then lists all those other named variants as "morphological correlates" so that they may still be referenced by looking them up in the index.
The second benefit of this book is the fact that it is profusely illustrated, with most point types being represented by multiple drawings and some by color photographs. This aids the archeologist and collector in that it illustrates the range of variation included in each point type category. The only fault of this book is that it has been abused by some who consider it the final word in point type ranges. This is due to the fact that Justice provides maps of the known distribution of each of the point types in the Midwest. These maps, although helpful, are necessarily incomplete in that they only contain information available up the the date of the book's publication. Science is variable; distributions change. If one keeps this in mind, there will be no problems. In all, therefore, this book is great for all and a necessity for the archeologist and serious collector.
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