A Preliminary Geoarchaeological Investigation of Ground Stone Tools in and around the Maya Mountains, Toledo District, Belize

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A. Abramiuk ◽  
William P. Meurer

AbstractWe investigate ground stone tools, specifically manos and metates, throughout the Bladen region of the Maya Mountains of Belize and adjacent areas during the Late and Terminal Classic periods. Because of the distinctiveness and relative heterogeneity of rock types in the Bladen region, we can pinpoint the Bladen communities that exploited the raw materials used in manufacturing manos and metates utilized in other communities. Based on mano and metate fragments that were recovered from the Bladen communities, as well as from communities outside the Bladen region, we reconstruct an intercommunity network within the Bladen region and investigate communities outside of the Bladen to which the Bladen communities were directly or indirectly linked. This investigation shows that if enough geo-specific information is available, it is possible to reconstruct a relatively accurate picture of inter-community relations. Moreover, it is shown that the Bladen region was a valuable source of ground stone for the Maya Lowlands and the Bladen communities were integral players in its exploitation.

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia A. McAnany

A monolithic view of Classic Maya society as dominated by divine rulers who inexplicably ceased to erect monuments with long-count dates during the ninth century is examined by reference to new information from Terminal Classic sites in the Sibun Valley of Belize. In this locale and elsewhere, the construction of circular one-room buildings — with striking associated artefacts — may be interpreted as signalling social tensions between the orthodoxy of Classic Maya divine rulers and the more heterodoxic beliefs and practices associated with circular structures built at the end of the Classic period. The round buildings are contextualized within the diversity of architectural expressions of the Sibun Valley and also within a peninsula-wide network of shrines. The chronological placement and character of the Sibun shrines is discussed by way of radiocarbon assays, obsidian sourced by INAA, and raw materials used for groundstone at sites throughout the valley. The presence of marine shell and speleothems — likely used as architectural adornment — found in close association with Sibun Valley round buildings permits discussion of the manner in which elements of the local effected a translation of heterodoxic tenets into vernacularized shrine architecture.


Author(s):  
Mary B. Trubitt

Novaculite quarries in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma were created through largescale extraction of lithic raw materials, used for stone tools by Caddos and other Native Americans over the past 11,000 years and in recent centuries by Euro-Americans for whetstones. Quarry sites are characterized by surface features like large pits. trenches, battered boulders, and debris piles. This article summarizes the results of an Arkansas Archeological Survey research project that described and mapped surface features at one site (3GA22J to provide a better understanding of the problems and potential of documenting novaculite quarries.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Schwall ◽  
Michael Brandl ◽  
Tatjana M. Gluhak ◽  
Bogdana Milić ◽  
Lisa Betina ◽  
...  

The focus of this paper are the stone tools of Çukuriçi Höyük, a prehistoric site situated at the central Aegean coast of Anatolia. The settlement was inhabited from the Neolithic, through the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age 1 periods, a period lasting from the early 7th to the early 3rd millennium BCE. A long-term interdisciplinary study of the excavated lithics with different scientific methods on various stone materials (thin section analysis, pXRF, NAA, LA-ICP-MS) offer new primary data about the procurement strategies of prehistoric societies from a diachronic perspective. The results will be presented for the first time with an overview of all source materials and their distinct use through time. The lithic assemblages from Çukuriçi Höyük consist of a considerable variety of small finds, grinding stones and chipped stone tools. The high variability of raw materials within the different categories of tools is remarkable. In addition to stone tools manufactured from sources in the immediate vicinity of the settlement (i.e., mica-schist, limestone, marble, amphibolite, serpentinite), others are of rock types such as chert, which indicate an origin within the broader region. Moreover, volcanic rocks, notably the exceptionally high amount of Melian obsidian found at Çukuriçi Höyük, attest to the supra-regional procurement of distinct rock types. Small stone axes made of jadeite presumably from the Greek island of Syros, also indicate these far-reaching procurement strategies. The systematic and diachronic analyses of the stone tools found at Çukuriçi Höyük has demonstrated that as early as the Neolithic period extensive efforts were made to supply the settlement with carefully selected raw materials or finished goods procured from distinct rock sources.


2004 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 49-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Cavanagh ◽  
C. Mee ◽  
J. Renard ◽  
N. Brodie ◽  
F. Froehlich ◽  
...  

This is the final report on the intensive survey at Kouphovouno, the prehistoric settlement just south of Sparta, in 1999–2000. As well as a total collection of the artefacts on the surface, there was a magnetometer survey of the site and a programme of environmental studies, for which a series of cores was taken. The site was first occupied in the 6th millennium and covered 4–5 ha in the Middle, Late/Final Neolithic and Early Helladic periods. Occupation continued in the Middle and Late Helladic periods and there is also evidence of Classical-Hellenistic and Roman activity. As well as pottery, the artefacts included chipped and polished stone tools. An analytical programme has investigated the source of the raw materials used for the latter.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Magganas ◽  
Nena Galanidou ◽  
Petros Chatzimpaloglou ◽  
Marianna Kati ◽  
Giorgos Iliopoulos ◽  
...  

This paper examines the lithology and raw material provenance of knapped stone artifacts recovered from prehistoric sites on Meganisi in the course of the Inner Ionian Sea Archipelago survey. Research was twofold: in the field to map the geology of the island and collect raw material samples, and in the laboratory to conduct a petrological study using LM, XRD, SEM and ICP-MS techniques. The greater part of the materials used to produce stone tools consists of almost pure SiO2, bedded or nodular cherts mainly of Malm–Turonian and Eocene ages. The cherts were collected by prehistoric knappers from local sources. Patinas present on the artifacts are relatively enriched in calcite material of incomplete silica diagenesis and subsequently a product of late weathering and alteration.


Author(s):  
Lisa G. Duffy

This chapter examines use wear on the Cerro Maya collection of manos and metates to investigate what materials were processed on them. Maize processing is generally presumed to be the primary function of ancient Maya manos and metates; however, analysis suggests that these implements were also used to prepare a variety of other products. Use wear analysis documents that a reciprocal, back-and-forth grinding motion is the most efficient way to process maize. However, nonreciprocal rotary movements are also associated with some types of ground stone tools used for nonmaize products. Results of the analysis indicate that a broader range of foods were processed in the Late Preclassic era while maize grinding was the use for manos and metates in Terminal Classic and Postclassic times.


Starinar ◽  
2005 ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragana Antonovic ◽  
Kristina Resimic-Saric ◽  
Vladica Cvetkovic

This paper shows the results of petrographic analyses of raw materials used for making the ground stone industry implements in two Vinca culture sites Vinca and Belovode. The assemblages from the aforementioned sites feature a number of specific characteristics. In Vinca, in late strata, a kind of devaluation in the selection of stone raw materials is registered, which is closely related to the decline in quality of stone processing and may be a consequence of territorial narrowing of the Vinca culture per se in its later phases, and of introduction of metallurgy in everyday life. For this reason an analogy with the Belovode site was made, which subsists only throughout the early phase of the Vinca culture and is doubtlessly a metallurgic settlement. Petrographic analyses of the raw materials from which ground stone tools used to be made at the Vinca and Belovode sites are only a part of the commenced petro-archaeological research. They imply that further investigations should focuses on field work, principally in the vicinity of the sites themselves. Primarily by petrographic, and, as applicable, by other analyses of samples brought from the field work, and by comparison of the tools, it could be possible to define more precisely the territory from which the raw materials originated.


Author(s):  
César Neves

Presentation of the polished and ground stone tools artefacts from Neolithic site of Moita do Ourives. It corresponds to a low number of artifacts in poor preservation condition and high degree of fragmentation, making the typological and functional classification quite difficult. The tools production is based mainly on locally available raw materials, such as quartzite, sandstone and quartz (85% of the all set). Exogenous raw materials (amphibolite and granite), possibly obtained more than 40km from the site, represent 15% of the recovered elements. The results of this study allow, together with the analysis of other material culture elements, a reflection on the functionality of this settlement, as well as the mobility and socioeconomic activities of the communities of the Middle Neolithic in the Western Iberia.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Saibatul Hamdi

The purpose of this research is to know the mechanical strength of gypsum board by utilizing waste sawn wood. Raw materials used consist of flour, gypsum,wood particles, boraks and kambang (Goniothalamus sp), wood tarap (Artocarpus elasticus REINW) and lua (Ficus glomerata ROXB). Wood particle 40 mesh and 60 mesh, concentrations boraks of 1 and 2 and the percentage particles of gypsum sawn timber is 300, 400 and 500%. The results showed that the average value Modulus of Rufture (MoR) in lua wood ranges from 12.55 – 14,47 kgcm2, wood kambang 25.10-31,11 kgcm2 and wood tarap 19.20- 24,18 kgcm2. As for Modulus of Elasticity (MoE) on the lua 1129,80- 2092,70 kgcm2, wood kambang 2512,37-3971,32 kgcm2 and tarap 2050,63-2691,09 kgcm2. Gypsum board are mechanical properties do not meet quality standards created SNI 03-6434-2000.Keywords: sawdust, lua, kambang, tarap, gypsum, mechanical


Author(s):  
Chernichkina A.D.

A large number of biologically active substances, organic acids, tannins, and pectin substances were detected during the study of fruits, leaves, and pulp of the fruits of mountain Ash. The content of these substances in leaves and pulp will significantly expand the arsenal of medicinal plant raw materials used. Given the wide distribution of mountain Ash in the territory of the Russian Federation, harvesting leaves from the same plants after harvesting the fruit and using pulp will make it possible to obtain new phytopreparations.


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