scholarly journals Raw material optimization and stone tool engineering in the Early Stone Age of Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (162) ◽  
pp. 20190377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Key ◽  
Tomos Proffitt ◽  
Ignacio de la Torre
Keyword(s):  
Functional Performance ◽  
Material Selection ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Cutting Tools ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Olduvai Gorge ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Material Optimization ◽  
Early Stone Age

For more than 1.8 million years hominins at Olduvai Gorge were faced with a choice: whether to use lavas, quartzite or chert to produce stone tools. All are available locally and all are suitable for stone tool production. Using controlled cutting tests and fracture mechanics theory we examine raw material selection decisions throughout Olduvai's Early Stone Age. We quantify the force, work and material deformation required by each stone type when cutting, before using these data to compare edge sharpness and durability. Significant differences are identified, confirming performance to depend on raw material choice. When combined with artefact data, we demonstrate that Early Stone Age hominins optimized raw material choices based on functional performance characteristics. Doing so flexibly: choosing raw materials dependent on their sharpness and durability, alongside a tool's loading potential and anticipated use-life. In this way, we demonstrate that early lithic artefacts at Olduvai Gorge were engineered to be functionally optimized cutting tools.

Raw Material Selection and Stone Tool Production: Limestone Bifaces in the Mopan Valley, Belize

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 198-204
Author(s):  
Rachel A. Horowitz ◽  
Bernadette Cap ◽  
Jason Yaeger ◽  
Meaghan Peuramaki-Brown ◽  
Mark Eli
Keyword(s):  
Material Selection ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Belize River Valley ◽  
Raw Material Selection

Stone tool producers in the Maya Lowlands had several types of raw materials from which to choose. Limestone, chert, and obsidian are the most naturally abundant, whereas chert and obsidian outnumber limestone in archaeological contexts. The presence of flaked-stone tools made of limestone is typically attributed to the scarcity of more suitable raw materials. Nevertheless, in chert-rich areas, such as the upper Belize River valley, limestone bifaces and production debitage are present. To understand their presence, we examine limestone biface production and use at Buenavista del Cayo.

scholarly journals The Effect of Raw Material on the Identification of Knapping Skill: a Case Study from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Proffitt ◽  
A. Bargalló ◽  
I. de la Torre
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Olduvai Gorge ◽  
Skill Levels ◽  
Early Stone Age ◽  
Apparent Variation ◽  
Raw Material Variability

AbstractThe identification of Oldowan hominin knapping skill levels has been a focus of numerous studies, with apparent variation in technical abilities identified between a number of Early Stone Age archaeological sites. Raw material variability, however, can play a significant role in the outcomes of knapping events as well as in the accuracy of analysis. Implications of such variability are yet to be fully understood. Here we present an experimental study to assess the effects that varying raw materials have on the identification of technological attributes typically associated with varying skill levels and whether it is possible to identify knapper skill levels across multiple raw materials. Variation was tested between raw materials from Olduvai Gorge across and between skill levels. The results suggest that knapping skill levels manifest differently in the material record across raw materials. In addition, we suggest that raw material has a significant effect on identifying knapper skill variation. This has implications for future research concerned with identifying knapper skill within and between early assemblages of differing raw materials.

scholarly journals Preliminary Archaeopetrological Study of the Lithic Industry From the l’Hort de la Boquera Rock Shelter (Margalef de Montsant, Tarragona, Spain): Applying Mineralogical and Geochemical Techniques

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Mar Rey-Solé ◽  
Maria Pilar García-Argüelles ◽  
Jordi Nadal ◽  
Xavier Mangado ◽  
Anders Scherstén ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inductively Coupled Plasma ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Petrographic Analysis ◽  
X Ray Diffraction ◽  
Inductively Coupled ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Lithic Industry ◽  
Plasma Mass Spectrometry

The l’Hort de la Boquera site is located in the northeastern part of Iberia and its stone tool assemblage includes up to 25,000 flint artefacts. This is the first approach to the analysis of the raw material through an archaeopetrological study. Results were obtained by use of mineralogi¬cal techniques: macroscopic and petrographic analysis, Scanning Electronic Microscopy (SEM), Micro-Raman and X-Ray diffraction (XRD); additionally, Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry was applied. It has been possible to discriminate at least four flint categories, the ‘Evaporitic flint type’ (with two local subvarieties – ‘Common evaporitic’ and ‘Garnet’ varieties) that comes from local outcrops of the Ulldemolins Complex, and two flint types that had their origin further afield: the ‘Charophyta flint type’ (coming from the Torrente de Cinca Unit) and the ‘Dark flint type’ (from the La Serra Llarga Formation).These results make this study the most comprehensive analysis of raw materials that has been carried out in the area so far

scholarly journals Procurement and mobility during the Late Pleistocene: Characterising the stone-tool assemblage of the Picamoixons site (Tarragona, NE Iberian Peninsula)

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
María Soto
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Petrographic Analysis ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Ne Iberian Peninsula

The Picamoixons site is a rockshelter located in the province of Tarragona (NE Iberian Peninsula). It was object of two rescue campaigns during 1988 and 1993, which led to the recovery of a complete archaeological assemblage, including stone tools as well as faunal and portable art remains that date the occupation to the 14th to 11th millennium BP (calibrated). This study involves a petrographic characterisation of the stone-tool assemblage in order to establish: 1) the procurement areas, 2) the raw materials management strategies and 3) the mobility radius and territorial sizes of the hunter-gatherers groups that occupied the site. The method applied comprises in a multiscale analysis that includes systematic prospection, the petrographic characterisation of geological and archaeological samples, an analysis of the chert types represented in the knapping sequence, and the definition of the mobility axes and areas frequented according to lithic procurement.A petrographic analysis of the chert in the prospected area led to the definition of nine macroscopic varieties related to five types (Vilaplana, Morera, Maset, Vilella and Tossa cherts), related to Lower and Upper Muschelkalk (Triassic), Lutetian, Bartonian (Palaeocene) and Sannonian (Oligocene) deposits.The study of the knapping sequences indicates the main exploitation of Bartonian cherts (Tossa type), and the use of Lutetian cherts (Maset and Morera types) for configuring retouched tools. The exploitation of the remaining raw material types identified is considered sporadic and opportunistic.Defining the procurement areas enabled the mobility radius to be assessed as between 3 and 30 km, highlighting the importance of the fluvial basins as natural movement pathways. The results indicate that the main procurement territory was 16 km2 in area, associable with a forager radius. The most remote procurement distances suggest a maximum exploitation area of 260 km2, defining an intra-regional range. This range presents parallelisms with various contemporaneous hunter-gatherers groups in Western Europe, suggesting a progressive mobility reduction dynamic during the Late Pleistocene-Initial Holocene.

Production and use of percussive stone tools in the Early Stone Age: Experimental approach to the lithic record of Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 367-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Policarpo Sánchez Yustos ◽  
Fernando Diez-Martín ◽  
Isabel M. Díaz ◽  
Javier Duque ◽  
Cristina Fraile ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Olduvai Gorge ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Early Stone Age

scholarly journals Aesthetic sense and social cognition: a story from the Early Stone Age

Synthese ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Currie ◽  
Xuanqi Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Regular Feature ◽  
Aesthetic Responses ◽  
Aesthetic Sense ◽  
Early Stone Age

AbstractHuman aesthetic practices show a sensitivity to the ways that the appearance of an artefact manifests skills and other qualities of the maker. We investigate a possible origin for this kind of sensibility, locating it in the need for co-ordination of skill-transmission in the Acheulean stone tool culture. We argue that our narrative supports the idea that Acheulean agents were aesthetic agents. In line with this we offer what may seem an absurd comparison: between the Acheulean and the Quattrocento. In making it we display some hidden complexity in human aesthetic responses to an artefact. We conclude with a brief review of rival explanations—biological and/or cultural—of how this skills-based sensibility became a regular feature of human aesthetic practices.

Raw-Material Availability and the Organization of Technology

1994 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Andrefsky
Keyword(s):  
Production Technology ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Important Variable ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Formal Tool ◽  
Lithic Raw Materials ◽  
Tool Types

Ethnographic examples of stone-tool makers in Australia and archaeological examples from three different areas in the western United States indicate that the availability of lithic raw materials is an important variable conditioning stone-tool production technology. Attributes of availability such as abundance and quality of lithic raw materials condition the production of formal- vs. informal-tool types. Poor-quality raw materials tend to be manufactured into informal-tool designs. High-quality lithic raw materials tend to be manufactured into formal-tool designs when such materials occur in low abundance. When high-quality materials occur in great abundance both formal- and informal-tool designs are manufactured. Other factors, such as residential mobility or sedentism, are found to be less-important determinates of lithic-production technology.

scholarly journals Variability of the Lithic Raw Material in the Upper and Late Palaeolithic sites in Southeastern Poland

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Dariusz Bobak ◽  
Marta Połtowicz-Bobak
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
The South ◽  
Tool Manufacture ◽  
Western Ukraine ◽  
Later Phase ◽  
Late Palaeolithic ◽  
Lithic Raw Material

In terms of supply of good quality raw materials for stone tool manufacture, the area of southeastern Poland is rather poor. Considering research conducted so far, there are only few sites that can be the basis for analysis. Nevertheless, certain phenomena seem to be characteristic on sites in southeastern Poland in the later phase of the Upper Palaeolithic and in the Late Palaeolithic. There are usually more than one kind of raw material present. Apart from local erratic flint, imported Świeciechów (grey white-spotted) and ‘chocolate’ flint dominate. The presence of both Jurassic (areas near Cracow) and Volhynian flints are poorly recorded, whereas resources from the south are almost absent. These imported raw materials indicate the existence of particularly strong relations linking the areas of southeastern Poland with the Sandomierz Upland, and much weaker relationships with the territories of Lesser Poland and Western Ukraine

scholarly journals Eksperimen Pembuatan Beliung Persegi

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Ali Akbar
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Collective Knowledge ◽  
The People ◽  
Made In

<p>Writing a research paper does not only use three steps, such as analysis, explanation and conclusion, but it may also use analogy. It assumes two phenomena, individual or inter-related, similar. Analogizing method uses historic, ethnographic, and experimental sources. Experimental analogy, in particular, is done by duplication. For example, it is conducted by making a stone tool, which implies that there is a collective knowledge about the characteristics of the raw material and their relations to human. Despite the fact that prehistoric archeological remnants, such as the rectangular adze, were found in different areas in Indonesia, there had not been many who knew about process of making them, and the people who used them. The experimental duplication was done repetitively, gradually, and systematically. Repetition of the production of rectangular adze is made in order to be able to draw a general conclusion. The raw materials that are used are chert, metalimestone, limestone, chalcedony, jasper, and obsidian. A rectangular adze is produced after some steps are taken: firstly, preparing the raw material and the tool, secondly, shaping, and thirdly, molding.</p>

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