Lithic Technology in Lagoa Santa in the Early Holocene

Abstract

In this chapter, we delineate a brief history of the interpretations about lithic technological variability in Lagoa Santa region during the early Holocene. We begin presenting some considerations about Lagoa Santa lithic industry made by studies undertaken during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After that, we present the general characteristics of two lithic collections that we have studied and that were made on the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We discuss the interpretations formulated regarding the composition and significance of the lithic industry in the Lagoa Santa region, especially in the aspect of its role as an indicator of time and space. The central issue concerns the proposals of artefact homogeneity and variability and their implications for understanding the process of occupation of the Lagoa Santa karst. Based on these data, we propose, even though the lithic technology of Lagoa Santa continues to be largely undefined, that the image of a simple, homogenous lithic industry of little interest is no longer sustainable. What we see is a technological organization that integrates different areas: the circulation of raw material, the combination of different techniques in exploiting those raw materials and the production of artefacts with diversified uses and meanings, constructing a mosaic of choices that define the specificity of that industry.