Grinding Slabs Research Articles

Pounding, grinding, transitioning. A use-wear perspective

Much of our current questioning regarding the transition from foraging to farming in the Levant revolves around understanding plant exploitation and its evolution. Because of their common association with plant processing, ground stone tools may be regarded as a critical source of data for investigating this question.This paper first discusses how ground stone tools data and hypotheses regarding their function are incorporated in the various explanatory theories on the transition from foraging to farming in the Levant. One of the models emphasising the importance of social transformation proposes that ground stone tools (especially large mortar) were used to produce prestige foods such as alcohol or bread. This hypothesis is expanded here by suggesting that smaller mortars may indicate the processing of spices/salt and the development of complex cuisines.This article then examines the contribution of use-wear analysis for unraveling ground stone tool functions and assessing the relationship between ground stone tools and plant processing. A ‘state of research’ of use-wear analysis focused on Levantine grinding and pounding implements is first provided, including an overview of the reference collections available, and a discussion on the type of reconstruction of tool function that use-wear approaches can provide. A synthesis of the main results published for collections ranging from the Natufian to the PPNC/Pre-Halaf periods indicate that while cereals represent an important part of the resources that were processed, ground stone tools are also associated with the grinding of various other materials (including other plants, animal and mineral materials) as well as being used in abrasive tasks, or else used as containers. In addition, this synthesis highlights the fact that grinding slabs (or querns) and handstones largely dominate the use-wear sample, while mortars and pestles have been seldom investigated. To tackle this problem, we present in the last part of this article one of the first experimental programs aimed at exploring use-wear formation on mortars and pestles made of basalt. Detailed descriptions of use-wear characteristics and variability associated with the processing of different plant and animal matters are provided.

Starch grain analysis of two different types of grinding stones from the Neolithic Shuangdun site (ca. 7.3–6.8 ka BP) in eastern China

AbstractTwo different types of grinding stones, grinding slabs and rollers, as well as mortars and pestles from the Shuangdun site (ca. 7.3–6.8 ka BP) in the middle Huai River region, were subjected to starch grain analysis to investigate the evolution of plant food processing tools during the transition period from a gathering–fishing–hunting economy to farming. The results suggest that both types of grinding stones were used to process various plant species, including Triticeae, Job's tears (Coix lacryma‐jobi), lotus root (Nelumbo nucifera), and bean (Vigna spp.). However, starch grains of rice (Oryza sativa) were only discovered from mortar and pestle tools, indicating that mortars and pestles might have become a fixed combination tool for rice processing. Damage characteristics analysis for different kinds of starches indicated that mortars and pestles were also used for grinding plant foods besides dehusking rice, whereas some roughly made slabs no longer had a grinding function and were used only for pounding some specific plant foods. The functional degeneration of grinding slabs coincides with the rise of farming in Neolithic China around 7,000 BP. This study provides new evidence for understanding the evolution of prehistoric human plant food processing tools in Neolithic Eastern China.

Ground stone technology in context: Consumption of grinding tools and social practice at Neolithic Avgi, NW Greece

Excavations at the Neolithic site of Avgi (Middle-Late Neolithic, circa 5700-4500 cal. BCE) in the Kastoria region, northwestern Greece, brought to light one of the largest ground stone assemblages known from Neolithic Greece. More than 8000 ground stone tools and objects, raw materials and by-products comprise a valuable record for investigating various aspects of ground stone technology (production, consumption, discard), while their rich contextual information provides an ideal opportunity for addressing its significance for Neolithic societies.
 This paper examines the presence of grinding tools (stable grinding slabs and mobile grinders, their raw materials and by-products) within different spatiotemporal contexts (habitational phases, buildings, open areas, pits). Through the detailed technological and contextual analysis of the grinding artifacts we seek to explore different aspects of their biographies, related to their manufacture, use, maintenance, destruction and discard, within the context of a single Neolithic community. The goal is to shed light on the multiple ways through which the Neolithic society of Avgi consumed those technological products in various social occasions, practices and places (e.g., daily routine activities, special events of communal or symbolic character, individual houses and communal activity areas) and explore their role in the formation of social identities and the production of social meaning.

Plant Foods and Different Uses of Grinding Tools at the Neolithic Site of Tanghu in Central China

ABSTRACT In the central plain of China, grinding tools are a common category of artefacts at sites attributed to the Peiligang Culture (c. 9000-7000 BP). This paper focuses on the grinding tool assemblage from the site of Tanghu, the largest Peiligang Culture settlement yet discovered. The results from the microwear and residue analyses both suggest that cereals were the primary plant material processed with the grinding tools. Other plants, including acorns and underground storage organs, were also processed, but probably to a smaller extent. Furthermore, microwear analysis suggests that the dry-grinding technique was adopted for cereal processing, and a piece of hide or animal skin was placed underneath the grinding slabs to gather the processed plant material. Apart from plant food processing, one of the grinding tools was also involved in processing bone. These data put more insights into the Neolithic culinary practices and different uses of grinding tools in this region.

New insights into the grinding tools used by the earliest farmers in the central plain of China

The site of Jiahu in the central plain of China is known for its early rice cultivation 9000 years ago. The preliminary starch analysis implies that the Jiahu grinding tools were used for processing various plants, including rice. This paper presents the use-wear analysis carried out on a sample of seventeen grinding tools from Jiahu, nine of which were previously analyzed for the presence of starch. Use-wear traces associated with processing cereal and wood-like material were identified. This result confirms important evidence of cereal processing in the early Neolithic period. It also reveals the diversity of functions in the grinding tool assemblage. Furthermore, the use-wear distribution indicates that grinding slabs without feet and cylindrical rollers were mainly associated with the processing of cereals while grinding slabs with feet were mainly related to the processing of wood-like material. Quantitative analysis of the starch data also indicates that grinding slabs without feet possess more starch grains than the grinding slabs with feet. Therefore, it is argued that specific types of grinding tools were used for processing specific kinds of material. This study highlights the different roles grinding tools may have played in early farming societies.

Bronze Age cereal processing in Southern Iberia: A material approach to the production and use of grinding equipment

During the last two decades important progress has been made regarding functional analysis on prehistoric grinding equipment, thanks to the application of new methods and techniques. Despite these efforts studies integrating archaeology, ethnography, geology and other disciplines related to the material sciences are still rare. The main focus of this paper is placed on the grinding equipment composed of two elements, grinding slab and rubber, acting in reciprocal abrasive contact. Starting from systematic petrological, morphometrical, and functional analysis, qualitative and quantitative data are considered to define the manufacturing and use of grinding tools participating specifically in the production of flour. Morphology and size of grinding slabs and rubbers, raw materials used for manufacturing them, their mechanical properties as well as the geographical management of rocks will be interrelated in this study. From a methodological perspective, socio-economic contexts where grain processing was the main food supplying strategy are of particular interest. In these contexts, access to mechanically optimal raw materials and technical equipment plays a crucial role in the social as well as biological reproduction of human communities. This was the case in the El Argar society of southeast Iberia, where barley became the main staple food and the basic good of large scale surplus production between 2200 and 1550 cal. BCE. We will use this archaeological context to highlight the complexity of macro-lithic tool analyses and in particular with regards to the study of grinding tools. The ultimate aim is to understand to what extent the technological parameters of this subsistence strategy were related to the development of class society.

Airborne starch dispersal from stone grinding: Experimental results and implications

Starch granules can be recovered from a variety of archaeological contexts and have been used to interpret plant utilization, cooking technologies, and activity areas. This experiment assessed the distance maize starch granules travelled from an outdoor and indoor stone grinding station. Starch was recovered from water traps as far as 10m from the grinding site, with dense starch concentrations occurring only within 40cm from stone mano and grinding slab. Wind direction drastically altered the travel distance of ground maize starch, highlighting the importance of context in interpreting the archaeological starch record. The parameters established by this experimental work can inform starch researchers to improve sampling, research, and interpretation strategies for archaeological starch in soil and sediment contexts.

Early Neolithic human exploitation and processing of plant foods in the Lower Yangtze River, China

Abstract The Xiaohuangshan site is an early Neolithic settlement in the lower Yangzi River dating to 9000–7000 BP. In this paper, starch grains extracted from the surfaces of 9 pottery sherds and 6 grinding slabs unearthed from the early Xiaohuangshan phase (9000–8500 cal. BP) are identified from Oryza, Triticeae Tribe, Coix lacryma-jobi, Nelumbo sp., Dioscorea opposita Trunb, Vigna and Quercus spp. Based on the statistical analysis of percentage presence and the minimum numbers of plants identified by starch grains on the grinding slabs and potteries, it can be found that rice has become one of the major staple foods together with Triticeae grasses, Job's tears and acorns, which indicates rice should have been cultivated intentionally at Xiaohuangshan. The results also suggest that grinding slabs from Xiaohuangshan were used mainly for processing wild plants other than rice, and plant residues extracted from their surfaces cannot be utilized independently to explore human's subsistence strategies in that time. In addition, acorns probably were cooked whole in the pottery vessels before they were shelled or ground on the grinding slabs in the Xiaohuangshan site. This paper provides new evidence for the beginning of rice cultivation during the early Neolithic in the Lower Yangtze River.

Millet and sauce: The uses and functions of querns among the Minyanka (Mali)

The central role of grinding activities in the dietary practices of traditional agricultural populations can be approached from an ethnoarchaeological point of view. The comparison of ethnographic references raises the question whether the function and the socioeconomic context in which grinding slabs are used allow to assess issues related to conclusions drawn from archaeological contexts. Our discussion is based on the analysis of the manufacturing of grinding slabs, their use cycles and their social status in several Minyanka villages (Mali), providing useful references when examining the way in which archaeologists explain and interpret technological, functional and spatial observations. The typological and technical evolution and variability of querns results from a combination of several factors determined by the available raw materials, the skill of shaping techniques, the organisation of manufacturing and the transference of the function of grinding tools. But these factors alone cannot explain the encountered range of variation. Our study thus emphasises the very role of cultural aspects within these temporal and regional developments, and the impossibility of dissociating the use of a quern from its socio-economic context.

The paleolithic site of Longwangchan in the middle Yellow River, China: chronology, paleoenvironment and implications

The Longwangchan Paleolithic site, situated on the Yellow River terraces in the Hukou area, Shaanxi province, China, was found in 2003–2004, and two areas (Localities 1 and 2) of the site were excavated in 2005–2008. Abundant stone artifacts including microliths, a grinding stone fragment and a shovel, with some animal bones and shells, were recovered from Locality 1. In this study, the cultural deposits from Locality 1 were dated using radiocarbon and optical dating techniques, and the sediment properties of the deposits were analyzed. The results show that the age of the deposits ranges from 29 to 21 ka and most of them were deposited between 25 ka and 29 ka. This indicates that corresponds to late Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 and early MIS 2. During the human occupation period, the climate in this area became colder and drier. Sediments from beds where the grinding slab and the shovel were found were dated to ∼25 ka, which is the oldest among the grinding stones found in China. The microliths and the grinding stone are important evidence for an incipient socio-economic process that eventually led to the regional transition from hunting-foraging to farming.

Book Review of New Approaches to Old Stones: Recent Studies of Ground Stone Artifacts, edited by Yorke M. Rowan and Jennie R. Ebeling; Assyrian Stone Vessels and Related Material in the British Museum, by Ann Searight, Julian Reade, and Irving Finkel

As the contributors to both of these volumes emphasize, the study of stone vessels (a class of material culture within which we can usefully group, for certain analytical purposes, a variety of closed-stone containers, open shapes, and grinding slabs) has tended to be a poor relation to the study of what are typically more abundant and more chronologically diagnostic pottery or knapped-stone data sets.

The Constant Power Control of Hydraulic Grinding Saw

Hydraulic grinding saw is a kind of important equipment broadly used in billet precise cutting in metallurgical industry. In order to improve productivity significantly, control feeding speed reasonably, at the same time to compensate the variation of driving torque caused by the change of contacting area between grinding wheel and slab, thus to obtain the optimized match between the feed of the grinding wheel and the driving motor, the application of hydraulic servo system in the control of the feeding speed of grinding wheel is discussed in this thesis. This article introduces the principle of hydraulic grinding saw, brings out the project of constant power PID control based on the relationship between driving torque and motor current. The transfer function of the hydraulic servo system, the optimized PID controller is also worked out. According to the result of simulation analysis, the controlling factors can be well obtained.

Long-term trends in Natufian subsistence: a use-wear analysis of ground stone tools

The author studied intensification of plant use (including cereal consumption) during the Natufian period of the Levant, using microscopic analysis of use-wear on 166 basalt grinding stones from Natufian sites. These prehistoric grinding surfaces were compared to those created on an experimental collection of basalt stones used for known tasks. The Natufian tools were judged to have been used for a variety of purposes, including hide working, legume processing, cereal processing, and mineral grinding. There seemed, however, to be a clear increase over time in the use of grinding slabs with flat surfaces, suitable for reducing cereals and legumes to tinier particles, with a concomitant increase in the release of nutrients. This trend may help explain the appearance of agriculture at the end of the Natufian.

THE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC OF NORTH CHINA: THE XIACHUAN CULTURE

A rich assemblage of typical Late Palaeolithic stone tools was found at the Xiachuan Culture sites in Shanxi Province, China. The greyish-brown soil layer in the upper part of Stratum I (radiocarbon dated to ca. 20,000 b.p. or earlier) at the site of Fuyihe yielded a large amount of Xiachuan Culture lithics. The Xiachuan assemblage is representative of the Late Palaeolithic in North-Central China, and it includes blade cores and various microblade cores, burins, backed blades, scrapers, flakes, and cores. The microblade cores are of two principal types: wedge-shaped and conical. There are also some large stone implements such as adze-shaped objects, stone hammers, stone grinding slabs, and stone bowls. This article distinguishes six classes of Xiachuan burins.

Identifying specialisation, production and exchange in the archaeological record: the case of shell bead manufacture on Motupore Island, Papua

AbstractAnalyses of shell beads and stone drillpoints from Motupore Island, near Port Moresby, PNG contribute to the debate about the specialised role of the site in a prehistoric exchange network as well as to theoretical discussions concerning the relationship between craft specialisation and social stratification. The presence of drillpoints, which are specialised and efficient tools for making beads, demonstrates a level of technological efficiency expected with trading systems. Studies of the spatial patterning of drillpoints, shell beads, and grinding slabs on the site and in the region, along with usewear and residue research, and statistical analyses of the artifacts are carried out. These data demonstrate that shell bead manufacture represents village level craft specialisation and was a significant part of Motupore's economy throughout its history. Finally, the paper shows that village level specialised production need not imply institutionalised social differentiation.

Thorne Cave, Northeastern Utah: Archaeology

AbstractThorne Cave is a site in Cliff Creek Canyon, north-eastern Utah. Between 5000 and 2000 B.C. alluvial fill in the canyon reached the level of Thorne Cave and formed its floor. At this time, and intermittently for perhaps the next 200 years, peoples with a Desert Archaic cultural tradition camped on a dune near the cave mouth while the canyon and the cave continued to fill. Stratified camp debris was washed into the cave, and alluvium accumulated well above the cave brow, leaving a dead space in the dome area of the cave roof. Dissection of canyon alluvium later re-exposed Thorne Cave and washed away much of the evidence of human occupation. Radiocarbon-dated charcoal indicates that the site was occupied as early as 4230±250 years B.P. Materials recovered from Thorne Cave include redeposited charcoal and food-bone scrap; projectile points, small choppers and scrapers, manos, and grinding slabs; bone awls, needles, a pendant, a flaking tool, and a scapula seed-header; and impressions of twined basketry.