Selection, Planning, and Convenience in Lithic Procurement

Thanks to Anne Dowd for organizing this symposium, and all who contributed papers for participating. I am sorry that George Odell was not present to share his vast experience in this field; we all will very much miss his work and insights documented in Anne Dowd's comprehensive review of his teaching, research, and publications. His ideas about lithics are summarized in the two companion articles published in the Journal of Archaeological Research (Odell, 2000, 2001), and in his book, Lithic Analysis (Odell, 2004). Odell argued that to understand even the simplest cases of toolstone procurement and distribution requires the consideration of many variables including where toolstone occurs and how it was procured. In this article I take the opportunity to address some of these issues in terms of selection, planning, and convenience.