Rubbish, Routines, and Practice: Chipped Stone Blades from Uruk-Period Sharafabad, Iran

Abstract

Through the analysis of chipped stone blades from Uruk-period Sharafabad (Khuzestan), this paper examines routines and practices of villagers faced with agricultural uncertainty and state demands. Annual, seasonal and intra-seasonal patterns of tool production, use and discard, along with evidence for various domestic pursuits, show that villagers maintained elements of their daily lives in the face of poor crop yields but altered both types and intensities of production activities in order to do so. The results demonstrate the possibilities of archaeological analyses at very line temporal scales, while at the same time illustrating some methodological and interpretive challenges posed by such research.