Chert Flakes Research Articles

Fit for purpose: investigating adaptations in late Pleistocene lithic technology to an island environment at Buang Merabak, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACTThe occupation of Buang Merabak, a cave located on the island of New Ireland, by 42,000 years ago demonstrates that the colonisation of the Bismarck Archipelago occurred soon after that of Sahul. This provides the opportunity to consider the adaptation of small groups of people to a depauperate island environment. An analysis of a lithic assemblage from Buang Merabak was used to consider how technological organisation reflects changing patterns of site use and subsistence strategies from the late Pleistocene through to the early Holocene. A strategy of small simple flake technology was identified, which would have allowed site occupants flexibility in the face of fluctuating patterns of faunal resource use. During the late Pleistocene, a broad range of local lithic materials were used expediently. Gradual change occurred in the early Holocene to a smaller variety of materials with dominant use of local chert flakes and conservation of specific volcanic materials.

Abrigo La Tinta: Preliminary Results of a New Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Rockshelter from the Pampas Region (Tandilia Range), Argentina

ABSTRACT Abrigo La Tinta (La Tinta Rockshelter) is located in the Tandilia mountain range of Argentina. The excavation of two test-pits during a survey revealed buried archaeological remains, including lithic artifacts, ceramic, mineral pigments, and charcoal. A charcoal fragment recovered in the deepest section of Test-pit 2, in association with quartzite and chert flakes, was dated in 10,414 ± 32 14C yr BP (12,408 to 12,041 cal yr BP), suggesting a late Pleistocene-early Holocene human occupation.

Down the T’uhl Hole: Technological, Metric, and Functional analyses of Chipped Stone From an Ancient Maya Chultun

ABSTRACTTechnological, metric, and microscopic use-wear analyses of the chipped chert and obsidian artifacts from the Chaa Creek chultun present a complex use-history in this underground space. Most, if not all, of the lithics are secondary refuse deposited at this location from other areas of initial production and use. The lithic sub-assemblages within the chultun represent at least two discrete deposition events of expediently produced flakes of local chert used for various domestic/household tasks. The lithics from the construction core of the platform on the surface appear to be secondary refuse that is the product of different formation processes. The number of large whole chert flakes with use wear resulting from contact with wood and stone from the platform construction core suggests an origin from a location or locations in which crafting occurred. By focusing on the stone tools from discrete stratigraphic deposits, it is possible to provide more detailed reconstructions of the various episodes of chultun use.

Artifact Assemblages from San Augustine County, Texas, Sites Recorded in 1939-1940 by Gus E. Arnold

During the 1939-1940 WPA-sponsored archaeological survey of East Texas, Gus E. Arnold was particularly active in identifying and recording sites in San Augustine County, in the East Texas Pineywoods (see Perttula 2015a, 2017a), as well as sites along Patroon, Palo Gaucho, and Housen bayous in neighboring Sabine County (Perttula 2015b, 2017b), and sites in the Angelina River basin in Angelina County (Perttula 2016c). During his archaeological survey efforts, he collected substantial assemblages of ceramic and lithic artifact assemblages (curated by the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin), primarily due to the fact that the surface of sites were well-exposed because of plowing, and he was encouraged to collect robust artifact assemblages by A. T. Jackson, the WPA survey director at The University of Texas at Austin. This article concerns the analysis of the recovered artifact assemblages from 14 different WPA sites in various parts of San Augustine County (Figure 1). The 14 archaeological sites are situated in several different stream basins, on a variety of landforms (i.e., floodplain rise, alluvial terrace, and upland ridge), including the Attoyac Bayou basin (41SA1 on Attoyac Bayou; 41SA5, at junction of Little and Big Arenosa Creek; 41SA24 on Price Creek; 41SA9, 41SA15, and 41SA16, Arenosa Creek), Patroon Bayou in the Sabine River basin (41SA11 and 41SA32), Palo Gaucho Bayou in the Sabine River basin (41SA108), Ayish Bayou (41SA77, 41SA80, 41SA95, and 41SA96) in the Angelina River basin; and Hog-Harvey creeks (41SA85) in the Angelina River basin. According to Arnold, these sites ranged from 1-6 acres in size, based on the surface distribution of artifacts as well as the extent of the landforms. In the case of the Hanks site (41SA80), midden deposits marked by mussel shells and animal bones were preserved there. The landowner had also previously collected two ceramic pipes, a celt, and a 33 cm long notched chert biface from the site. Burned and unburned animal bones were also noted on the surface of the Frost Johnson Lumber Co. site (41SA5); and burials associated with ceramic vessels and other material remains were noted when the site was first put into cultivation. Whole ceramic vessels from ancestral Caddo burial features had been reported to have eroded out of the Allan Howill (41SA24) and J. McGilberry (41SA85) sites. The Allan Howill site also had mussel shells and fragments of animal bone visible on the surface, and an area with ancestral Caddo burials (at least three with skeletal remains) was reported on the edge of an upland bluff there. Arnold also excavated several test pits of unknown size at the D. C. Hines site (41SA95), where he encountered archaeological deposits between ca. 60-76 cm bs. Arnold also noted “exceptionally large quantities of petrified wood, chert and flint flakes and chips cover the surface” of the D. C. Hines site.

The Clark Creek Cache in West-Central Montana

The majority of Precontact lithic caches from Montana cannot be chronologically placed, because they lack primary context with radiometrically datable organics or are not composed of obsidian, a datable natural glass. Dated obsidian from caches can also be positively traced to its geologic source. A rare such cache of largely obsidian pieces was found on the Sieben Ranch in 2011. Forty-three obsidian flakes and four chert flakes were observed partially exposed inside a 21-cm-diameter pit. X-ray dispersive fluorescence analysis attributed obsidian to the Bear Gulch source in the Centennial Mountains area of southwestern Montana and southeastern Idaho, approximately 280 km distant. Hydration dating suggests that the caching event occurred c. 444 ± 18 hydration years before present (HYBP). The unidirectional core technology applied to produce the majority of the pieces and the resulting large, curved, blade-like, retouched flakes is unexpected for the Late Precontact Period in the Northern Plains and Intermountain Regions.

The Hoabinhian from Laang Spean Cave in its stratigraphic, chronological, typo-technological and environmental context (Cambodia, Battambang province)

Cambodian Palaeolithic prehistory is largely obscured by the prestigious tradition of major classical (pre)Angkorian studies and is still little known. Renewed excavations in Laang Spean Cave by the French-Cambodian prehistoric mission since 2009 now provide new stratigraphic, chronocultural and archaeozoological results concerning the Hoabinhian techno-complex. At Laang Spean Cave this cultural milestone has been dated between 11,000 and 5000yearsBP and is situated between a Neolithic level with burials and a Palaeolithic level with chert flakes and cores. It completes the median part of the stratigraphy of the site with an infilling currently over 5m thick, although the bedrock has not, as of yet, been reached. The characterization of the Laang Spean Hoabinhian occupation and its environmental context allows for i) the establishment of a first chronostratigraphic estimate, ii) regional comparisons in Southeast Asia and iii) renewed discussions concerning the technical behaviour and means of subsistence of the last hunter–gatherers at the very end of the Late Pleistocene.

THE ORGANISATION OF DRILL PRODUCTION AT A NEOLITHIC LITHIC WORKSHOP SITE OF BAI BEN, CAT BA ISLAND, VIETNAM

We investigate stone drill point production, use, maintenance, and discard from a technological perspective at the Late Neolithic workshop of Bai Ben on Cat Ba Island, Northeastern Vietnam. Bai Ben contains over 18,000 retouched chert flakes classified as drill points and dating to c.3000BP. Large scale production of drills most likely took place for reasons of mass production of drilled organic and inorganic objects. Few of such drilled objects are found at the site, perhaps due to poor organic preservation or removal of finished objects for trade and exchange. An analysis of attribute on drills and cores examines the time-ordering of dimensional and morphological changes as reduction continued at the site. The research finds that drills were produced from a diverse range of nodules sizes, blanks, core technologies and raw materials, but similar blanks were selected to produce very similar drill point forms.

Groove Marks in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands

Groove marks are an extremely enigmatic style of rock art. Incised groove marks are deep narrowly incised lines, usually in the shape of a "V" or "W" that rarely are more than six millimeters in depth and two to three millimeters wide. Several functional hypotheses have been introduced to explain the purpose of this rock art style. In 2010, the author designed an experimental study designed to test one long held hypothesis that suggests groove marks in limestone were formed by sharpening bone implements. The experiment conducted in the ethnoarchaeology lab at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas demonstrated that groove marks most likely were not used as a way to sharpen bone awls in limestone. Instead, the experiment suggests that archaeological groove marks in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands were created with chert flakes.

Shadow of Doubt or Doubtful Shadows: Small-Scale Low-Density Lithic Scatters and Agrifacts

The fundamental identification of flaked stone as artifact is critical to all that follows in archaeology. The identification of sites, interpretations of prehistoric behaviors, adaptations, land use patterns, settlement and subsistence studies, etc. can be distilled to the initial determination of an artifact as being “real” or the result of natural or accidental phenomena such as plow damage. In cultural resource management, artifact identification drives immediate field decisions to modify research strategies and ultimately forms the argumentative basis for research potentials and determinations of significance. Chert flakes and shatter discovered during a NYSDOT sponsored project conducted by New York State Museum-Cultural Resource Survey Program were subjected to a battery of lithic attribute analyses in an attempt to identify artifacts in an agricultural area blanketed by natural chert. With the exception of exotic material types, no single attribute can certainly identify human involvement. A cumulative score of multiple attributes affords greater levels of confidence for cultural vs. natural determinations for larger assemblages. In settings with the “background noise” of natural chert in cultivated soils, cultural genesis determinations of single pieces and very small sparse assemblages must be recognized as hunches or faith-based decisions yet worthy of measured continued investigation.

Use life and curation in New Guinea experimental used flakes

In 1983, Sillitoe timed New Guinea Wola men as they used chert flakes in customary tasks. We use the resulting data to distinguish the familiar but often conflated concepts of use life and curation, defining curation as the ratio of realized to maximum utility. We compile distributions of time-to-discard, analogous to mortality profiles in demography and zooarchaeology and failure distributions in engineering, and propose a quantitative curation measure, the Gompertz-Makeham b parameter, to characterize them. We compare this curation measure to use-life distributions. Despite use life measured only in minutes, curation varies independently of use life in different tool distributions. Some tools were well curated despite brief use. Thus, use-life can be short when curation is high; the quantities are independent. We discuss the implications of the ability to measure, not just subjectively judge, curation.

The Surface Alteration Features of Flint Artefacts as a Record of Environmental Processes

This paper introduces a method to study the degree of change that affected a prehistoric context as the result of environmental processes. It is based on the direct examination of a representative sample of stone tool by-products, and on the identification of all surface alteration features. We summarize the theoretical bases for the formation of some wear features and the main results of a number of experiments involving interaction between chert flakes and sediments. Experimental results include: (1) the wear rate of flakes is not constant; (2) the wear rate increases as the size of the grains that compose the matrix increases; (3) fine grained chert resists wear better then coarse grained chert; and (4) the presence of moisture will trigger some chemical reactions that promote wear and the formation of films on chert surfaces. We apply these findings to the cave site of Grotta di Pozzo, Italy, and conclude that, strictly within the area sampled, there is low degree of disturbance and low intensity of chemical processes that may, however, confound the reconstruction of human activities in this part of the cave.

An Expedient Lithic Technology in Northern Luzon (Philippines)

The persisterne of a simple litbic technology east of the so-called Movius Line has long evoked the interest of prehistorians. Two plausible hypotheses bave been presented. The first involves the availability in Southeast Asia of wooden materials such as bamboo, which can easily be shaped into tools. The second concerns the predominarne of coarse-grained raw materials (e.g. andesite), which are difftcult to shape into formal tools. This study took a two-stage approach to test the hypotheses. An experimental study using andesite and chert flakes on bamboo, rattan and meat was conducted to identify probable microwear traces. The second stage involved microwear analysis of prehistoric andesite and chert flakes from Minori Cave (Luzon). The experimental study showed that microwear analysis could be conducted on andesite flake tools. Microwear analysis showed that some of the prehistoric flakes were, in fact, used on hard contact materials. possibly bamboo.

Tool-using strategies by early hominids at Bed II, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

This study examines the current prevailing model of Oldowan technology—the opportunistic, least-effort strategy of stone tool making and using by early hominids. The sample includes the MNK chert factory site and three contemporaneous assemblages from Olduvai Gorge, all dated between 1·65 and 1·53m.y.a. The analysis suggests that early hominids at Olduvai may have been selective, applying distinctive strategies in making and using tools depending on the different types of raw materials available to them. The preponderance of lava cores and near absence of flakes associated with the cores suggest that lava cores at Olduvai did not provide a source of flakes. They were primarily heavy-duty core tools, despite the fact that the majority of Olduvai lava is of excellent quality for flaking. Contrary to this pattern, the abundance of chert flakes and the lack of large chert cores suggest that the production of flakes was the most important strategy applied to chert. Original forms and flaking mechanics of the raw materials may have been important factors in the simultaneous application of the different, complementary strategies. The Oldowan tool-using strategy was dynamic and flexible, in response to changes in raw material availability. The use of chert between 1·65 and 1·53m.y.a. was apparently related to the drastic decrease in flake production in lava and quartz. Finally, lack of initial reduction episodes of lava material challenges the idea of the stone cache strategy at Olduvai between 1·65 to 1·53m.y.a.

Archaeological Investigations at the Landa Park Golf Course Pro Shop, New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas

In December 1996, the Center for Archaeological Research of The University of Texas at San Antonio was contracted by the city of New Braunfels to conduct testing and monitoring to determine the impact of planned renovation on the cultural resources on the Landa Park Golf Course. The planned renovation called for extensive modifications and additions to the existing Pro Shop constructed by the WPA in the 1930s. Modifications and additions included subsurface excavations required for additional foundation footings and utility lines. Shovel testing was performed within the footprint of the proposed addition and utility trenching was monitored. Evaluation of the shovel test results called for the further excavation of a 1-x-1-m unit by CAR archaeologists. Testing and monitoring uncovered various prehistoric and historic artifacts, including chert flakes, cores, bifaces, two projectile points (one Angostura point and another of unknown type), mussel shell, and fire-cracked rock. Historic artifacts included glass (colored and clear), one coin, aluminum pull tabs, nails, machine screws, metal fragments, one bottle cap, Bakelite fragments, and one condom wrapper. The results of the testing and monitoring confirmed the findings of previous investigations on and adjacent to the Landa Park Golf Course which concluded that a long history of human occupation-starting from the Late Paleoindian period, through the Archaic, and into the Historic-occurred along the first terrace (T1) of the upper Comal River. However, this investigation also concluded that previous construction and landscaping, as well as erosion of the T1 by the Comal River, had significantly impacted the cultural remains within the project area.

Test Excavations at Site 41TT87 on County Road 211 Titus County, Texas

Archaeological testing of Site 41TT87 was performed during May and June of 1989 by the State Department of Highways and Public Transportation (SDHPT). These investigations were prompted by plans by Titus County and the SDHPT to replace three wooden bridges and reconstruct the County Road 211 roadway which crosses While Oak Creek bottom. Five 1 meter square test units were excavaled which produced a number of prehistoric ceramic sherds, chert flakes, and bifacial tools of which the Gary dart point type is dominant. No prehistoric features were found and the areas available for study all exhibited prior disturbance. Historic artifacts were also recovered and included wire and cut nails, glass, sheet metal fragments, and earthenware and stoneware ceramic sherds. The major portion of the site containing the prehistoric component lies outside the right-of-way. Those portions of the site within the right-of-way are not believed to be eligible for inclusion within the National Register of Historic Places. No further investigations are recommended.

Excavations at Site 41CK193: Cultural Resource Investigations Along SH 158 West of the Town of Edith Coke County, Texas

Test excavations were conducted at Site 41CK193 by members of the cultural resources staff at the Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation (SDHPT). The excavation was completed between November 17 and 19, 1986, as part of a road improvement project along SH 158 in northwestern Coke County. A few cutting implements and a blade core were found by Wayne C. Young of the SDHPT in a general surface collection which he made in September of 1986. Subsequently, four 1 by 1 meter test units and a single 2 by 2 meter test unit were excavated by hand to depths of between 10 and 30 cm below the present surface. The large unit revealed a hearth feature, part of which was visible on the surface. The other test units resulted in the recovery of only a few flakes of chert and no other features were found. No artifacts were recovered with which to assign a firm date to the site. Road maintenance such as scraping along the right-of-way may have removed the upper portion of the site. However, the overall lack of material and features suggests that the site was an ephemeral campsite of limited function. It is not considered worthy of nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, nor to warrant State Archeological Landmark designation.

An Analysis of Plow-Damaged Chert Artifacts: the Brookeen Creek Cache (41HI86), Hill County, Texas

AbstractThe recovery of a disturbed prehistoric cache of 173 chert blades and flakes from the Blackland Prairie of east-central Texas provides the opportunity for a detailed analysis of attributes of plow damage to archeological specimens. Twelve major categories of damage are derived from examination of 157 machinery-altered specimens. The described categories include keys to category recognition, plow trajectory, and potential identification errors resulting front fortuitous or intentional retouch. The kinds and extent of plow damage represented in the cache assemblage serve to point out the necessity for extreme caution in assigning functional attributes to lithic specimens from routinely cultivated fields.

Emergence of higher thought 3.0-0.2 Ma B . P

The oldest known probable manuport is the dark reddish jasperite pebble from a layer with Australopithecus at Makapansgat, Transvaal ( ca . 3 Ma). There are indications at two earliest Acheulian sites in east Africa that Homo erectus ol ca . 1.5 Ma B . P .was interested in red mineral pigment. At Terra Amata,near Nice, 75 shaped pieces of red ochre were found with the earliest European Acheulian industry ( ca . 0.3 Ma B . P .). This occurrence indicates that to an Acheulian society red mineral pigment had great symbolic value. Several flint and chert artefacts from Acheulian sites in Britain are described on account of embedded fossils, evidently regarded as symbolic, with a visual pattern stimulating to an aesthetic impulse in the minds of men who selected the material in preference to the more readily available plain flint. Most remarkable are two humanly struck flakes of coral-bearing chert found in the Swanscombe Gravels (0.2Ma B . P. This starry stone, it is inferred, was a manuport carried about 120 miles ( ca . 193 km) from an outcrop of Jurassic (Portlandian) rock at Tisbury in Wiltshire.

Upper Pleistocene Stratigraphy, Paleoecology, and Archaeology of the Northern Yukon Interior, Eastern Beringia. I. Bonnet Plume Basin

New stratigraphic and chronometric data show that Bonnet Plume Basin, in northeastern Yukon Territory, was glaciated in late Wisconsinan time rather than during an earlier advance of Laurentide ice. This conclusion has important ramifications not only for the interpretation of all-time glacial limits farther north along the Richardson Mountains but also for non-glaciated basins in the Porcupine drainage to the northwest. The late Wisconsinan glacial episode in Bonnet Plume Basin is here named the Hungry Creek advance after the principal Quaternary section in the basin. Sediments beneath the till at Hungry Creek have produced well-produced pollen, plant macrofossils, insects, and a few vertebrate remains. The plant and invertebrate fossils provide a detailed, if temporally restricted, record of a portion of the mid-Wisconsinan interstadial, while the vertebrate fossils include the oldest Yukon specimen of the Yukon wild ass. Some of the mid-Wisconsinan sediments have also yielded distinctive chert flakes that represent either a previously unreported product of natural fracturing or a by-product of stone tool manufacture by human residents of Bonnet Plume Basin. In addition to presenting new data on these diverse but interrelated topics, this paper serves as an introduction to a series of reports that will treat in turn the Upper Pleistocene record of Bluefish, Old Crow, and Bell basins, respectively.&nbsp

A Desert Culture Site Near Two Guns, Northern Arizona

A Desert Culture-affiliated site was collected near Two Guns, Arizona. Projectile points, knives, cutter-scrapers, primary decortication flakes, ground stone, and utilized flakes of chert, obsidian...