Introduction

Artifact classification is hardly new to archaeology. Artifact classification has played an important role in archaeological research as a means to organize artifact material ever since archaeology’s inception as a field of study (see reviews by Klejn 1982; Dunnell 1986; Wylie 2002). At a pragmatic level, artifacts need to be organized in some manner to be able to deal with the sheer quantity of material remains recovered through excavation. Faced with tens or even hundreds of thousands of artifacts, ranging from small bits of lithic debitage and pottery sherds to complete lithic tools and pottery objects, some form of organization for these materials will be devised even if only in the form of a catalogue system for the retrieval of the artifacts of interest from the mass of material obtained through excavation. Pragmatic classifications of this kind may simply assign artifacts to classes whose definitions need no justification beyond their utility for organizing the material at hand.