Failure as Truth: An Autopsy of Crabtree's Folsom Experiments
John E. Hughes Clark · 2021
Mining the bedrock of Crabtree’s method requires examining details of his discoveries. Crabtree tested 11 general classes of knapping techniques for manufacturing Folsom points, with some sub-variants. In Crabtree&s;s Folsom experiments, failures include those with the least number of trials, the reverse of logical necessity. A major failing of Crabtree&s;s Folsom experiments is that he misunderstood the significance of his failures. Crabtree advanced propositions about Folsom points concerning requisite skill, the manufacturing sequence, and the manufacturing technique. Crabtree’s description of the manufacturing sequence for Folsom points is a bit difficult to disentangle because he often failed to distinguish between observations of experiments and assertions about ancient techniques. Crabtree was somewhat dissatisfied with his results of his experiments because they failed to supply sufficient evidence to winnow the candidates for the manufacturing sequence down to a single technique. Crabtree’s basic method for discovering ancient manufacturing techniques was the process of elimination, or basic trial and error.