Using Cladistics to Construct Lineages of Projectile Points from Northeastern Missouri

Abstract

This chapter presents the use of cladistics to reconstruct the phylogeny of early projectile points in northeastern Missouri. It utilized cladistics because of its unique ability not only to create testable lineages of points but also to lay out sequences of character-state changes. Cladistics is a method that "in its purest form, seeks to group taxa into sets and subsets based on the most parsimonious distribution of characters". However, one of the powerful aspects of using cladistics for examining technological change is that we can move down from the taxic level to examine historical change in individual characters. On an individual level, it is possible to see which characters are relatively stable over time versus those that change rapidly or to see if some go through bursts of activity or are under constant change. With a phylogenetic tree it is possible to speculate as to which form of transmission was related to the character change.

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