Prehistoric lithic raw material utilization in north central Texas

The status of archaeological research in north central Texas has greatly improved since Lynott's dissertation on regional model development over a decade ago. However, many researchers in this region still rely on hypotheses developed in the early 1950's.;The primary objective of this thesis is to test the hypothesis, based on Crook and Harris' (1952) proposition, that as territorial areas decreased due to population increase over time, the local inhabitants were forced to rely more heavily on local lithic raw material. If the hypothesis is to be supported, there should be a strong relationship between the variety of raw material in the debitage assemblage and the cultural time period; that is over time, a higher percentage of local lithic raw material should be present. This is the first hypothesis to be statistically tested. This relationship would reveal changes in lithic raw material utilization over time, which Crook and Harris (1952) felt was shown by the Carrollton and Elam foci sites. However, preliminary research for this thesis suggested that there could be another cause for raw material utilization patterns within the north central Texas region.