TEXT D Don E. Crabtree was a
master craftsman and a dean of American flintknappers. Crabtree’s research is
important because it pioneered the development of Experimental Archaeology and
the application of lithic technology to problems of cultural behavior and
cultural history. Crabtree’s participation and involvement in society is
apparent. Crabtree was an active person who was not happy merely enrolled in
school so he dropped out of college after just one term. Even with his lack of
formal education, Crabtree actively shared his knowledge of stone tools with
others at the University of California in Berkeley by 1930. In 1939, he
discovered he had cancer and this caused a brief lapse in his archaeological
studies. Determination could be deterred, however, because he was soon employed
by the Lithic Lab at the Ohio State Museum in the early 1940’s.
Crabtree was sent to serve his country as a shipbuilding engineer during
W6rld War Ⅱ He met his wife and married in 1943. After the war, Crabtree
retired to his home state of Idaho. Retirement appeared to serve Crabtree well
as many accomplishments of his were obtained during this time. As a retiree
Crabtree stayed active as he continued flintknapping, a method by which people
work stone into tools, also called flaking or chipping. Flintknapping involves
striking or punching carefully controlled flakes off of stone. Many other
extraordinary jobs and awards were obtained throughout Crabtree’s later life
as well. Between 1964--1975 he was appointed Research Associate in Lithic
Technology at Pocatello Museum. In 1966, he was awarded a National Science
Foundation grant which allowed him to record on film and publish his experiment
results. Crabtree will be remembered for "Crabtree’s Law", which
simply states that "the greater the degree of final finishing applied to a stone
artifact, whether by flaking, grinding and/or polishing, the harder it is to
conclude the lithic reduction process which produced the stone artifact."
Crabtree’s Law serves as a technological rationale for use in modern scientific
studies of lithic sources in correlation with techniques for tracing the
distribution of material from their sources to the final location of discard.
What Crabtree’s Law argues is that the final finishing state in the production
of many types of stone artifacts actually erases visible, precious steps in the
lithic reduction process. One needs to go beyond and discover the technological
processes by which the tools were produced if they want to truly analyze the
stone artifact. Perhaps the most important printed contribution
of Crabtree’s career was An Introduction to Flintknapping. This well illustrated
glossary became a standard reference for most lithic studies scholars in America
and overseas. Crabtree’s research and generous sharing of knowledge and
expertise has advanced the science involved with stone tool analysis. Crabtree
was a man who always volunteered his wealth of knowledge to anyone willing to
learn. Crabtree was an archaeologist, a pioneer, and a generous
man whose immense energy and curiosity pushed him to world leadership in the
study of stone tool analysis. He was a modest, humble man who believed his lack
of a formal college education was a reflection of his not really being a
scholar. According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true
A．Lithic technology was useful to the understanding of cultural history. B．Crabtree was always willing to share his knowledge with others. C．Crabtree’s Law argues that the final finishing state in producing stone artifacts should be barred in fiintknapping. D．Stone tool analysis mainly consists of investigating the technological processes by which the tools were produced.