Donut Stones as Thigh-Supported Spindle Whorls: Evidence of Ancient Maya Household Yarn and Cordage Production

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Tomasic
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Functional Interpretation ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Ground Stone ◽  
Spindle Whorls ◽  
Andean South America ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Stone Artifact

AbstractDonut stones are a relatively common class of ground stone artifact found at archaeological sites throughout Mesoamerica and Andean South America, and a variety of functional interpretations have been proposed for these artifacts. In this article, ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological data are presented along with the results of replicative experiments in support of an argument that some donut stones from the Maya Highlands and Southern Lowlands may have functioned as whorls for a previously unrecognized type of thigh-supported spindle. Based on a functional interpretation of donut stones as thigh-supported spindle whorls, these artifacts can potentially be used to provide insight into the nature of ancient Maya household yarn and cordage production.

Food-processing ground stone tools in the Greek Neolithic and Bronze Age. A synthesis of the published data

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tasos Bekiaris ◽  
Danai Chondrou ◽  
Ismini Ninou ◽  
Soultana-Maria Valamoti
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Food Processing ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Ground Stone

Ground-Stone Tools and Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence in Southwest Asia: Implications for the Transition to Farming

1994 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine I. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Food Processing ◽  
Younger Dryas ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Plant Food ◽  
Southwest Asia ◽  
Processing Methods ◽  
Plant Foods ◽  
Ground Stone ◽  
Early Farming ◽  
Wild Cereals

Ground-stone tools and hunter-gatherer subsistence in late Pleistocene southwest Asia are examined in light of ethnographic and experimental data on processing methods essential for consumption of various plant foods. In general, grinding and pounding appear to be labor-intensive processing methods. In particular, the labor required to make wild cereals edible has been widely underestimated, and wild cereals were unlikely to have been “attractive” to foragers except under stress conditions. Levantine ground-stone tools were probably used for processing diverse plants. The earliest occurrence of deep mortars coincides with the glacial maximum, camp reoccupations, the onset of increasingly territorial foraging, and the earliest presently known significant samples of wild cereals. Two major episodes of intensification in plant-food processing can be identified in the Levant, coinciding respectively with the earliest evidence for sedentism (12,800-11,500 B.P.) and the transition to farming (11,500-9600 B.P.). The latter episode was characterized by rising frequencies of grinding tools relative to pounding tools, and suggests attempts to maximize nutritional returns of plants harvested from the limited territories characteristic of sedentary foraging and early farming. This episode was probably encouraged by the Younger Dryas, when density and storability of foods may have outweighed considerations of processing costs.

Changing Patterns in the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Prehistory of Southern Africa as Seen from the Nelson Bay Cave Stone Artifact Sequence

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Deacon
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Sensu Stricto ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Stone Artifact

The dating of the Stone Age sequence in southern Africa has been considerably revised over the last decade, and one of the anomalies which has resulted is that the Middle Stone Age, now dated to beyond 30,000 B.P., does not immediately precede the Later Stone Agesensu stricto. The excavation and analysis of occupation horizons dating between the most recent Middle Stone Age assemblages and the Holocene is therefore of particular interest. Nelson Bay Cave, situated on the southern coast of South Africa, contains deposits which partly fill the “gap” between the Middle and Later Stone Ages, and the occupation horizons dating between about 18,000 and 5000 years ago are described in this paper. Changes in the habitat in the vicinity of the site caused by sea-level and vegetation changes coincident with the amelioration of temperatures at the end of the Pleistocene are clearly marked in the faunal remains at the site. Largely correlated with the faunal changes (which includes the introduction of marine resources to the cave at about 12,000 B.P.) are changes in the stone artifact assemblages. Three industries are recognized in the sequence: the Robberg, characterized by microbladelets produced from bladelet cores and a few small scrapers and backed tools; the Albany, characterized by large scrapers and an absence of backed tools; and the Wilton, characterized by a variety of Formal Tools including relatively large numbers of small scrapers and backed tools. These changes in artifact-manufacturing traditions are interpreted as signaling adjustments to changing environmental conditions. An explanation for these adjustments is not sought in a simple cause-and-effect relationship between the environment and the cultural response; artifact changes are seen instead as the result of a twofold process, with the environment acting as an external stimulus to change, and the direction of the artifact change governed by the selection of a range of possibilities offered by the technology of the Later Stone Agesensu latothat was widespread in subequatorial Africa during the last 20,000 years.

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