scholarly journals Stone Tool Manufacture Strategies and Lithic Raw Material Exploitation in Coastal Patagonia, Argentina: A Multivariate Approach

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Marcelo Cardillo ◽  
Jimena Alberti

This paper seeks to characterize strategies of artifact manufacture and lithic raw material exploitation along San Matías Gulf coast, Argentina, using multifactorial and cluster analysis. Multifactorial analysis is a relatively new method that has yet to be used for archaeological analysis; it has the advantage that it allows us to describe data using different groups of qualitative or quantitative variables at the same time. Additionally, cluster analysis was conducted on multifactorial axis in a bid to identify grouping patterns. The results obtained from the combination of these two methods suggest that they may be useful in characterizing technological strategies in the study area. Furthermore, they may also be a powerful exploratory and characterization tool able to generate explanations at low spatial scales. The application of these methods on San Matías Gulf study case suggests that along the western and northern coasts of this Gulf the most important variables in determining differences in resource use were the fragmentation ratio and lithic raw materials used in artifact manufacture.

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Dariusz Bobak ◽  
Marta Połtowicz-Bobak

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


2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 395-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve A. Tomka

Since its introduction, the study of artifact design has shed new light on the nature of variability in prehistoric technological organization. Few ethnoarchaeological studies exist exploring the interrelationships between subsistence risk, the costs of technological failures, and the design of artifacts. This ethnoarchaeological study investigates these relationships in a transhumant agro-pastoral case study from the southwestern Bolivian altiplano. Three aspects of tool design are explored to document variability in design characteristics between and within assemblages from agricultural and pastoral residences. These design features consist of the reliability of raw materials used in tool manufacture, the reliability of joints used in compound tools, and the maintainability of tools in case of partial or total failure. While time-budgeting constraints differ at pastoral and agricultural residences, the costs of production shortfalls are equally severe. In response, artifacts from both residences are designed to be highly reliable. However, depending on the likelihood of tool failure, artifacts are designed with different raw material and joint reliability to either minimize tool failure or maximize maintainability. Multiple backups and replacement components are accumulated and maintained to reduce subsistence risk caused by the failure of artifacts with high potential failure rates or low maintainability.


Polymers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2237 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. R. Sarika ◽  
Paul Nancarrow ◽  
Abdulrahman Khansaheb ◽  
Taleb Ibrahim

Phenol–formaldehyde (PF) resin continues to dominate the resin industry more than 100 years after its first synthesis. Its versatile properties such as thermal stability, chemical resistance, fire resistance, and dimensional stability make it a suitable material for a wide range of applications. PF resins have been used in the wood industry as adhesives, in paints and coatings, and in the aerospace, construction, and building industries as composites and foams. Currently, petroleum is the key source of raw materials used in manufacturing PF resin. However, increasing environmental pollution and fossil fuel depletion have driven industries to seek sustainable alternatives to petroleum based raw materials. Over the past decade, researchers have replaced phenol and formaldehyde with sustainable materials such as lignin, tannin, cardanol, hydroxymethylfurfural, and glyoxal to produce bio-based PF resin. Several synthesis modifications are currently under investigation towards improving the properties of bio-based phenolic resin. This review discusses recent developments in the synthesis of PF resins, particularly those created from sustainable raw material substitutes, and modifications applied to the synthetic route in order to improve the mechanical properties.


Cerâmica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (351) ◽  
pp. 473-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. C. P. Faria ◽  
J. N. F. Holanda

The sugarcane industry generates huge amounts of sugarcane bagasse ashes (SCBA). This work investigates the incorporation of a SCBA waste as an alternative raw material into a clay body, replacing natural clay material by up to 20 wt.%. Clay ceramic pieces were produced by uniaxial pressing and fired at temperatures varying from 700 to 1100 ºC. The technological properties of the clay ceramic pieces (linear shrinkage, apparent density, water absorption, and tensile strength) as function of the firing temperature and waste addition are investigated. The phase evolution during firing was followed by X-ray diffraction. The results showed that the SCBA waste could be incorporated into red ceramics (bricks and roofing tiles) in partial replacement for natural clay material. These results confirm the feasibility of valorisation of SCBA waste to produce red ceramic. This use of SCBA can also contribute greatly to reducing the environmental problems of the sugarcane industry, and also save the sources of natural raw materials used in the ceramic industry.


2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Mar Rey-Solé ◽  
Maria Pilar García-Argüelles ◽  
Jordi Nadal ◽  
Xavier Mangado ◽  
Anders Scherstén ◽  
...  

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


Author(s):  
Patrick Degryse ◽  
Dennis Braekmans

Petrography has developed into an indispensable tool for ceramic fabric analysis, specifically studying the mineralogical and textural composition of ceramic objects. Petrography is a technique commonly used in geology to describe and classify rocks. Ceramic petrography studies clay-based archaeological or historical materials. Using a polarizing light microscope (PLM) in ceramic studies, the different raw materials used to make a ceramic object can be identified, ranging from clays and other minerals to rock fragments and inorganic or organic temper. The technique moreover feeds into the study of raw material provenance and origin, and is able to discern the different technological procedures followed to make the ceramic object (from shaping to firing), next to providing clues on the function of the object. This information not only helps reconstruct trade and exchange of raw materials and ceramics, but aids in reconstructing society behind the pot.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
María Soto

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (162) ◽  
pp. 20190377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Key ◽  
Tomos Proffitt ◽  
Ignacio de la Torre

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.


Author(s):  
Magdalena Śmiglak-Krajewska

The main purpose of this paper was to identify the factors affecting the selection of raw materials used by feed operators in feed production. An attempt was also made to indicate the barriers to increasing the use of native protein plants by feed operators in feed production. Today, many EU countries (including Poland) primarily rely on vegetable protein derived from genetically modified soya bean meal (mainly imported from South America and the U.S.) in addressing their needs for protein raw material used in animal feed. For many years now, Poland has taken steps to increase the production and use of native protein raw material to partially replace soya bean meal imports. The use of mixes of diverse domestic protein sources derived from grain legumes (peas, field beans, lupine) can provide an advantageous alternative to compound feeding stuff based on imported post-extraction soya bean meal. To meet the objective defined above, this paper relied on the results of a 2018 survey conducted with a sample of 29 feed operators located across the country. More than half (55%) of the enterprises surveyed did not use legumes in feed production; the use of legumes was above 10% in only 3% of respondents. When asked about the key factors affecting the selection of raw materials used in production processes, the respondents declared to be interested in buying large batches of homogeneous raw materials that meet specific quality parameters (33% replied “rather yes” and 67% replied “definitely yes”). The protein content of plant seeds used in feed production was identified as another aspect of extreme importance (55% replied “rather yes” and 24% replied “definitely yes”).


1994 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Andrefsky

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.


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