The Organization of Novaculite Tool Production: Quarry-Workshop Debitage Comparisons

Mary B Trubitt

doi:10.21112/.ita.2007.1.13

Abstract

Arkansas novaculite, outcropping in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma, has been an important regional lithic resource for thousands of years. Because of the stone’s durability, by-products of past novaculite procurement and tool production and use activities litter the landscape in southwest Arkansas. Recent work situates novaculite quarries in the broader context of tool production and exchange systems. This article focuses on the organization of tool production, and explores analytical techniques that can be used to identify spatial separation of the lithic reduction process between quarry, workshop, and habitation sites.

Highlights

Novaculite is a fine-grained siliceous material with few or no fossils that varies in color and texture; thin pieces are characteristically translucent (Holbrook and Stone 1979; Griswold 1892; Jeter and Jackson 1994)
Projects at sites—many in the Ouachita National Forest—show us, for example, that streambed cobbles were a minor source of raw material as compared to bedrock outcrops (Thomas et al 1982:275; Waddell 1995:106-120; see Coleman 2002:52-53, 56-57); that lithic reduction and tool manufacturing was a major activity at some sites (e.g., Coleman et al 1999; Early 2000; Martin 1982:Table 6; Stewart 1995; Thomas et al 1982:273-276); and that thick bifaces were produced at some workshop sites to be used elsewhere (e.g., Coleman 2003)
Looking just at samples of novaculite debitage from two sites, we have the beginnings of an analysis protocol that can be used to answer questions about how lithic reduction activities took place across space as raw material was obtained from quarries, worked into -transportable packages, and taken home to be worked into tools

Summary

Introduction

Novaculite is a fine-grained siliceous material with few or no fossils that varies in color and texture; thin pieces are characteristically translucent (Holbrook and Stone 1979; Griswold 1892; Jeter and Jackson 1994). Projects at sites—many in the Ouachita National Forest—show us, for example, that streambed cobbles were a minor source of raw material as compared to bedrock outcrops (Thomas et al 1982:275; Waddell 1995:106-120; see Coleman 2002:52-53, 56-57); that lithic reduction and tool manufacturing was a major activity at some sites (e.g., Coleman et al 1999; Early 2000; Martin 1982:Table 6; Stewart 1995; Thomas et al 1982:273-276); and that thick bifaces were produced at some workshop sites to be used elsewhere (e.g., Coleman 2003).

Results

Conclusion