Energetic Efficiency and Lithic Technology: An Upper Mississippian Example

1992 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Jeske
Keyword(s):  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Optimal Foraging Theory ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Energy Budgets ◽  
Energetic Efficiency ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Formal Tool

Optimal-foraging theory and the concept of energetic efficiency have been used in archaeology for over a decade, usually to explore subsistence behavior. People, however, made choices for energy expenditure in other areas of culture, including lithic technology. It is suggested that a shift in the allocation of energy as an adaptive response to changes in social organization caused the widely noted decline in formal tool types and stone-tool refinement in the late prehistoric periods in eastern North America. Data from an Upper Mississippian village are used to demonstrate the economic use of poor-quality lithic raw material. A bipolar technique was used to produce flake blanks for triangular projectile points as well as a peculiar but common Upper Mississippian tool, the humpback biface. It is suggested that bipolar reduction and other lithic efficiency and economizing strategies are indicators of stress on the energy budgets of human populations.

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.

Cascade Phase Lithic Technology: An Example from the Lower Snake River

1995 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Andrefsky
Keyword(s):  
Raw Material ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Snake River ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Chipped Stone ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Technological Characteristics ◽  
Major River ◽  
River Drainages

Chipped stone artifact data from several Cascade phase sites located on the lower Snake River are analyzed to evaluate lithic technological characteristics of the early Cascade phase. Interpretations based upon the stone tool assemblages suggest traditional generalizations about the early Cascade phase require some rethinking. Specifically, tool type and debitage type analysis indicate that early Cascade phase settlement organization was not necessarily oriented to a local riverine setting, rather, early Cascade phase populations were highly mobile and visited major river drainages during only part of an annual cycle. Analysis of lithic raw material shows that early Cascade phase populations prefer nonlocally available cryptocrystalline cherts and fine grained basalt for production of refined tools such as projectile points and that locally available coarse grained basalts were primarily used to make nonportable situational gear.

scholarly journals Shape as a function of time + raw material + burial context? An exploratory analysis of Perdiz arrow points from the ancestral Caddo area of the American Southeast

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Z. Selden ◽  
John Dockall ◽  
britt bousman ◽  
Timothy Perttula
Keyword(s):  
Geometric Morphometrics ◽  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Exploratory Analysis ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Material Quality ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
American Southeast

Temporal assignments carry substantive weight, and archaeologists regularly assume that artefacts from discrete temporal units may differ in ways that convey changes in preference or behaviour. Similarly, archaeologists regularly assume that raw material differences articulate with stone tool morphology, and the role of differential raw material quality and preference associated with Caddo lithic technology remains largely unexplored. Whether a particular artefact is found in or outside of burial contexts is a sensitive and regularly discussed topic in the archaeological literature, providing valuable insights related to prehistoric burial practices, as well as generational shifts in aesthetics, design, and raw material preferences. These assumptions were tested using geometric morphometrics, yielding results in support of the hypothesis that Perdiz arrow point shape is protean, and that significant differences existed in shape by time, raw material, and burial context.

A critique of the Chinese ‘Middle Palaeolithic’

Antiquity ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 76 (292) ◽  
pp. 397-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xing Gao ◽  
Christopher J. Norton
Keyword(s):  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Material Procurement ◽  
Core Reduction ◽  
Late Palaeolithic

The Chinese Palaeolithic has traditionally been divided into three distinct cultural periods: Lower, Middle, and Upper. Analysis of four stone tool criteria (raw material procurement, core reduction, retouch, and typology) to determine if a distinct Middle Palaeolithic stage existed in China suggests that very little change occurred in lithic technology between the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic. Accordingly, a two-stage progression is proposed: Early and Late Palaeolithic. The transition between these two cultural periods occurred with the development of more refined stone tool making techniques (e.g. introduction of blade and microblade technology) and the presence of other archaeological indicators of more modern human behaviour (e.g. presence of art and/or symbolism) (c. 30,000 years ago).

Experimental and Archaeological Verification of an Index of Retouch for Hafted Bifaces

2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 743-757 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Andrefsky
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Data Set ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Projectile Points

The relative amount of retouch on stone tools is central to many archaeological studies linking stone tool assemblages to broader issues of human social and economic land-use strategies. Unfortunately, most retouch measures deal with flake and blade tools and few (if any) have been developed for hafted bifaces and projectile points. This paper introduces a new index for measuring and comparing amount of retouch on hafted bifaces and projectile points that can be applied regardless of size or typological variance. The retouch index is assessed initially with an experimental data set of hafted bifaces that were dulled and resharpened on five occasions. The retouch index is then applied to a hafted biface assemblage made from tool stone that has been sourced by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF). Results of both assessments show that the hafted biface retouch index (HRI) is effective for determining the amount of retouch and the degree to which the hafted bifaces have been curated.

scholarly journals Declining Foraging Efficiency in the Middle Tennessee River Valley Prior to Initial Domestication

2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elic M. Weitzel
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Optimal Foraging Theory ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Foraging Efficiency ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Tennessee River ◽  
Tennessee River Valley ◽  
Middle Tennessee ◽  
Relationship Of

Recently, researchers investigating the origins of domestication have debated the significance of resource intensification in the shift from foraging to food production. In eastern North America, one of several independent centers of domestication, this question remains open. To determine whether initial domestication may have been preceded by intensification in eastern North America at approximately 5000 cal BP, I evaluated the archaeofaunal assemblages from six sites in the middle Tennessee River valley. Analyses of these data suggest that overall foraging efficiency gradually declined prior to initial domestication, but patch-specific declines in foraging efficiency occurred in wetland habitats and not terrestrial ones. Climatic warming and drying during the Middle Holocene, growing human populations, and oak-hickory forest expansion were the likely drivers of these changes in foraging efficiency. These results support the hypothesis that initial domestication in eastern North America was an outcome of intensification driven by environmental change and human population increases. Finally, while the debate concerning the relationship of intensification to domestication has been framed in terms of a conflict between niche construction theory and optimal foraging theory, these perspectives are compatible and should be integrated to understand domestication more fully.

scholarly journals Elephant bones for the Middle Pleistocene toolmaker

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0256090
Author(s):  
Paola Villa ◽  
Giovanni Boschian ◽  
Luca Pollarolo ◽  
Daniela Saccà ◽  
Fabrizio Marra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Medium Size ◽  
Bone Tools ◽  
Lithic Industry ◽  
Taphonomic Analysis

The use of bone as raw material for implements is documented since the Early Pleistocene. Throughout the Early and Middle Pleistocene bone tool shaping was done by percussion flaking, the same technique used for knapping stone artifacts, although bone shaping was rare compared to stone tool flaking. Until recently the generally accepted idea was that early bone technology was essentially immediate and expedient, based on single-stage operations, using available bone fragments of large to medium size animals. Only Upper Paleolithic bone tools would involve several stages of manufacture with clear evidence of primary flaking or breaking of bone to produce the kind of fragments required for different kinds of tools. Our technological and taphonomic analysis of the bone assemblage of Castel di Guido, a Middle Pleistocene site in Italy, now dated by 40Ar/39Ar to about 400 ka, shows that this general idea is inexact. In spite of the fact that the number of bone bifaces at the site had been largely overestimated in previous publications, the number of verified, human-made bone tools is 98. This is the highest number of flaked bone tools made by pre-modern hominids published so far. Moreover the Castel di Guido bone assemblage is characterized by systematic production of standardized blanks (elephant diaphysis fragments) and clear diversity of tool types. Bone smoothers and intermediate pieces prove that some features of Aurignacian technology have roots that go beyond the late Mousterian, back to the Middle Pleistocene. Clearly the Castel di Guido hominids had done the first step in the process of increasing complexity of bone technology. We discuss the reasons why this innovation was not developed. The analysis of the lithic industry is done for comparison with the bone industry.

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.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document