Lithic Reduction Strategies Research Articles

Celts, Slabs, and Space: Organisation of lithic reduction strategies in Tamil Nadu, India

• Lithic reduction strategies for the manufacture of stone celts in SE India. • Dolerite ‘quarries’ for exploitation of slabs for celt façonnage and debitage sequences. • Spatial variability in organization of areas of quarrying, polishing/grinding and use/discard. • Association with early agro-pastoral communities. • Comparison with other celt production sites in India and significance for behaviour. Polished stone celts form a key cultural signifier of the Indian Neolithic/Chalcolithic, although continuing in time into later cultural phases. However, in India, celt manufacturing sequences are rarely studied despite their significance for investigating behavioural organisation, mobility and functionality amongst early agro-pastoral populations. Here we present new data from two celt-manufacturing complexes in Southern India, with a focus on the early stages of celt production at ‘quarry’ sites. We highlight diverse reduction sequences on slabs and flakes, with implications in terms of decision making in knapping strategies and spatial differentiation of activities across the landscape. We identify-three different reduction sequences focused on dolerite slabs and flakes, and granite/gneiss clasts. Spatial variability in reduction stages is observed in locations reflecting quarrying and early stages of knapping near dolerite dykes, grinding and polishing localities, and areas of final stocking/use and discard, distributed across the landscape. We also highlight the local reuse of celts by village populations in ritualistic contexts. We compare the reduction sequences noted at sites in the study region with similar sites in Southern India, thereby contributing to a wider perspective on celt-manufacturing technologies in India.

How Surprising are Lithic Reduction Strategies? The Information Entropy of the Modes A-I Framework

ABSTRACT How surprising are the contents of lithic assemblages? If an archeologist excavated an archeological site somewhere in Eurasia and uncovered evidence of Levallois core technology, how surprising would it be? The surprise in the content of a new assemblage is a function of what is underground as well as our prior knowledge about prehistory. How improved is our understanding of the past when another site is excavated? The answer is a measure of the information contained in lithic assemblages. We present a primer on information theory, which provides tools necessary to conceptualize, measure, and analyze information. We then apply the theory by measuring the information contained in a large comparative dataset describing the presence or absence of technological modes across Late Pleistocene modern human assemblages. We find that technological modes tend to have little conditional dependency with one another, suggesting that lithic assemblages do have relatively high information content.

Experimentation preceding innovation in a MIS5 Pre-Still Bay layer from Diepkloof Rock Shelter (South Africa): emerging technologies and symbols

In southern Africa, key technologies and symbolic behaviors develop as early as the later Middle Stone Age in MIS5. These innovations arise independently in various places, contexts and forms, until their full expression during the Still Bay and the Howiesons Poort. The Middle Stone Age sequence from Diepkloof Rock Shelter, on the West Coast of the region, preserves archaeological proxies that help unravelling the cultural processes at work. This unit yields one of the oldest abstract engraving so far discovered in Africa, in the form of a rhomboid marking on the cortical surface of an ungulate long bone shaft. The comprehensive analysis of the lithic artefacts and ochre pieces found in association with the engraved bone documents the transport of rocks over long distance (>20km), the heat treatment of silcrete, the coexistence of seven lithic reduction strategies (including the production of bladelets and the manufacture of unifacial and bifacial points), the use of adhesives and the processing of ochre. At Diepkloof, the appearance of engraving practices take place in a context that demonstrates a shift in rock procurement and a diversification in lithic reduction strategies, suggesting that these behavioral practices acted as a cultural answer to cope with new environmental and/or socioeconomic circumstances. We argue that the innovations later found during the Still Bay and the Howiesons Poort were already in the making during the MIS5 pre-Still Bay, though not all the benefits were yet taken advantage of by the populations.

Palaeolithic occupation and cultural transition in the Wainganga River Basin, India

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A newly discovered cache of large biface lithics from northern Honshu, Japan

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Lithic economy and prehistoric human behavioral ecology viewed from southern Jordan

A lithic sourcing study coupled with analyses of lithic reduction strategies and settlement- procurement patterns of Middle Paleolithic (Late Levantine Mousterian) and Early Neolithic (Late Middle PPNB) occupations revealed intertwined factors that shaped the different lithic provisioning strategies of the prehistoric groups. The accessibility and morphometrics of lithic sources, the techniques guiding the reduction process, economizing measures conditioned by elements of Optimal Foraging Theory and the settlement-procurement patterns of the consuming groups were important factors modeling the different lithic provisioning strategies. The interrelationship of these factors traces the complex process of lithic procurement and places it more fully within the context of human behavioral ecology.

Tools, trails and time: Debating Acheulian group size at Attirampakkam, India

Estimating Acheulian group sizes based on a fragmentary archaeological record is fraught with difficulties, more so in regions like India, where lithics form the primary source of information. Here, we review current approaches towards modeling group size in Indian archaeology. We then examine to what extent one may address issues related to seasonality, fission-fusion strategies and group size in the context of Acheulian sites, drawing on our research along the southeastern coast of India. We move between multiple scales of analysis: from the regional Acheulian archaeological record to specific studies at the site of Attirampakkam (ATM). We consider aspects of site distribution, sizes, artefact densities and Acheulian lithic reduction strategies, factoring in issues related to geomorphology, taphonomy and chronology. Acheulian hominins occupied the study region over the early to middle Pleistocene, and the fragmented lithic reduction sequence noted on landscape scales suggests diverse site functions structured by ease of access to quartzite raw material for large flake production in addition to other resources. In contrast to most sites, the absence of raw material at ATM necessitated groups to anticipate this, and organize their behavior on landscape scales, and on-site, to resolve this issue. We show how successive groups were attracted to the site over the early Pleistocene, potentially aiming at exploiting seasonally predictable biological resources in a riparian environment, knowledge of which was transmitted across generations. Considerations of the spatial and temporal variability in artefact densities across a vast site area, along with aspects of the lithic reduction sequences suggests a short-duration occupation by a potentially large group, possibly resulting from aggregation of several small groups as noted in some ethnographic examples of hunter-gatherer fission-fusion strategies. We show drastic changes in behavioral organization in the succeeding Middle Palaeolithic phases at the site and in the region.

Assessing raw material’s role in bipolar and freehand miniaturized flake shape, technological structure, and fragmentation rates

This paper concludes a long-term experimental study to examine the role of bipolar and freehand reduction as strategies for lithic miniaturization on milky quartz and flint. The experiments provide clear quantifiable guidelines for identifying bipolar reduction in archeological assemblages. They suggest that with bipolar reduction—a straightforward and time-efficient strategy to learn—toolmakers could easily surpass the cutting edge/mass efficiency levels of more derived lithic reduction strategies such as pressure blade production. Here we compared the efficiency and technological attributes on the experiment’s milky quartz and flint flakes. The results show few practically significant differences between the two flake samples. The strongest differences are in the flakes’ ventral surface and platform features. Otherwise, we concur with previous experimental studies that show certain types of milky quartz behave in essentially the same way as other brittle materials such as flint. Our results aid the identification of bipolar reduction with a focus on cores and flakes. They contribute to a growing body of literature showing the importance of simple, but not simplistic, technological strategies in prehistoric human decision-making.

The Baller biface cache: A possible Clovis site in Hitchcock county, Nebraska

Twenty-six Clovis implement caches are known from western North America. In cases where time-sensitive artifacts (e.g., Clovis projectile points or mammoth ivory rods) or adequate information about their provenience and geological context are absent, assigning temporal and cultural affiliation has been challenging. Such is the case with a cache of eight large bifaces, four of which were donated by Albert E. Baller in the early 1900s to the University of Nebraska State Museum. The cache was discovered along with debitage within a small tributary of the Republican River in south-central Nebraska. The four donated Baller bifaces have been curated since the early 1900s. This study compared the physical properties, metrical attributes, and lithic reduction strategies exhibited by the bifaces with 119 similar large bifaces recovered from 10 Clovis caches. These comparisons suggest that the Baller bifaces may represent yet unreported Clovis cache from western North America.

Secondary Raw Material Sources of Pedernal Chert in the Albuquerque Basin, New Mexico

Prehistoric quarries targeted primary outcrops of Pedernal chert at Cerro Pedernal and San Pedro Peaks in north-central New Mexico. A long-standing tradition of secondary-source Pedernal chert use is also evident throughout the archaeological record of the Albuquerque Basin. Santa Fe Group gravels distributed across the basin contain abundant recycled Pedernal chert clasts that provide an important locally available source of this lithic raw material. LA-ICP-MS analysis of Pedernal chert collected from primary sources, Santa Fe Group gravels, and Pedernal chert artifacts from the basin revealed no significant chemical differences among these materials. Pedernal chert is most often associated with its primary source at Cerro Pedernal; however, geologic evidence reveals that recycled Pedernal chert clasts within Albuquerque Basin gravel deposits most likely originated from outcrops along the San Pedro–Sierra Nacimiento range. Size distributions among Pedernal chert gravels found within differing portions of the Albuquerque Basin present specific limitations on lithic reduction strategies. As such, regional settlement distributions and lithic assemblage variability reflect patterned variation in the use of these secondary deposits through time.

Levallois economics: an examination of ‘waste’ production in experimentally produced Levallois reduction sequences

Mathematical modelling has suggested that Levallois core morphology represents a reduction strategy driven by economic considerations; particularly the minimization of ‘waste’ while aiming to maximize cutting edge length of flakes obtained from cores of a given size. Such models are elegant in that they facilitate formal modelling of economic considerations that potentially motivate patterns seen in prehistoric data. However, the abstract nature of such models means that they do not take full account of all the practical difficulties and material challenges involved in reproducing Levallois-style reductions in stone. In particular, such models have only examined nodule morphology in two-dimensions, and did not take account of the fact that in the case of classic (lineal) Levallois reduction, core surfaces must be re-prepared between successive stages of flake removal. Hence, the potential economic implications of these factors are currently unknown, potentially undermining the significance of models that assume specific economic conditions. Here, we undertook to examine these factors using a series of experimentally produced Levallois reduction sequences. A total of 3957 flaking events were considered in our analyses, and we used six specific measures of economy to examine Levallois reduction across successive phases. Our analyses found that key assumptions of mathematical models suggesting that Levallois core morphology was driven by economic considerations (i.e. conservation of raw material when attempting to remove flakes with long cutting edges) can be upheld under the practical challenges of replicating Levallois-style reduction in stone. In supporting the notion that Levallois reduction has advantageous economic properties, our results emphasize the importance of considering why Levallois reduction did not emerge earlier in the archaeological record, and indeed, why even during the later Pleistocene the temporal and geographic distribution of Levallois technology varies. Our results also re-emphasize the value of formally modelling lithic reduction strategies in specific economic terms.

Some Comments on Blade Technology and Eastern Clovis Lithic Reduction Strategies

Blade/bladelet technology has been described as a highly efficient manner by which to produce stone tools, both tool blanks and finished forms. It was practiced during the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (or Epipaleolithic) over vast portions of Europe, Asia, and Africa and it has also been ascribed to the Paleoindian Period for both Pre-Clovis and Clovis assemblages. However, the authors believe that in North America blade technology was relatively rare when compared to Old World settings and almost absent in some areas such as northeastern North America. Eastern Clovis lithic reduction systems supported a high degree of mobility, extremely low population densities, and an adaptation to a highly variable and changing Allerød and Younger Dryas environment. At roughly the same time, Old World Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic peoples used relatively structured and standardized blade/bladelet manufacturing systems that best suited higher population densities with lower levels of mobility. This paper examines the characteristics of these different lithic reduction strategies and outlies the benefits of the bifacial core and tool technologies employed by early Paleoindians.

Mobility and Lithic Economy in the Terminal Pleistocene of Central Honshu

During the Terminal Pleistocene in central Honshu, which coincided temporally with the emergence of pottery, lithic raw material reduction sequences ceased to be rational and economical, instead becoming expedient and wasteful. Furthermore, hunter-gatherers had stopped importing lithic raw materials over long distances, and attempts made previously to attain a maximum number of usable edges on artifacts upon one nodule had ceased. Their reduction sequences might have no longer required a sparing strategy, since they now used abundant local raw materials, probably due to reduced mobility. It is suggested that the emergence of pottery allowed them to exploit more diverse plant sources and enabled them to survive within smaller territories, while the lithic reduction strategies changed as they adapted to use of available lithic raw materials.

Field Survey and Geochemical Characterization of the Southern Armenian Obsidian Sources

In comparison with those of the west Mediterranean, the Aegean, and Anatolia, the numerous obsidian sources in the southern Caucasus have begun to receive archaeological attention only recently. The least research has been directed to the southernmost of these sources, in the province of Syunik in southern Armenia. These sources lie close to the border with Azerbaijan, in remote mountainous uplands reaching elevations above 3200 m and under snow for more than half the year. The flows around the volcanic domes at Bazenk, Satanakar, and Sevkar provide abundant, high-quality obsidian which, although geologically well documented, has been neither adequately characterized in terms of geochemical variability, nor assessed archaeologically with regard to its past utilization. Research at the Syunik obsidian sources has been undertaken since 2005 as one part of the Armenian-American Vorotan Project. The purpose of the fieldwork and analyses presented here was to characterize the flows by means of large-scale sampling for Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis; to assess the distribution of the raw material, by both natural and cultural means; and to evaluate source preference and utilization in antiquity. Study has concentrated on the documentation and sampling of the sources, as well as secondary obsidian deposits along the Vorotan River, together with morphological, technological, and metrical analyses of the large obsidian assemblage collected in the course of survey and excavation by the project. Results indicate that the Bazenk and Satanakar sources have more than one geochemically-distinct flow, whereas all of the samples from the various Sevkar flows are indistinguishable. Analysis of artifacts from sites ranging in date from the late 5th to 1st millennium B.C. indicate an overwhelming preference for Sevkar obsidian. Heavy use of cobbles taken from the Vorotan River appears to have affected local lithic reduction strategies in significant ways.

Obsidian Use and Technological Change in Rose Valley: Conclusions Based on the Analysis of Debitage from Two Sites

A comprehensive obsidian analysis of two important archaeological sites (Rose Spring and Stahl) in eastern California shows a significant change in lithic reduction strategies of locally obtained obsidian approximately 5,000 years ago. The technological analysis of the debitage used to defined the two trajectories is summarized and the importame of the conclusions to our understanding of culture change trough observed shifts in lithic technology is discussed.

Variabilidad de las estrategias de talla y cambio tecnológico en el Paleolítico Medio del Abric Romaní (Capellades, Barcelona)

Lithic reduction sequences are a fundamental topic in palaeolithic research, since they provide data on the behavioural capabilities of early hominids. This paper studies the variability of lithic reduction strategies in the Abric Romani (Capellades, Barcelona). This site has an extensive stratigraphic sequence, dated between 40 and 70 ka BP. In this sequence, mostly formed by travertine deposits, 27 archaeological levels have been identified, most of them corresponding to the Middle Palaeolithic. The Middle Palaeolithic levels so far excavated (B-L) are dated between 40 and 52 ka BP, and suggest a reconstruction of the behavioural patterns of the Neanderthal groups preceding the early Upper Palaeolithic. The variability of the reduction sequences in a synchronous level and the changes over time are presented in the framework of the operative field concept. The results suggest that the technological changes in the Middle Palaeolithic can be explained by technical criteria that are reflected in different domains of analysis; these criteria are related to the degree of technical knowledge invested in lithic production and the range of technical options envisaged in each archaeological level.

Correlations between Reduction Strategies and Settlement Patterns

This paper describes the relationships observed between reduction sequences, distances to raw material sources, and settlement mobility. Alternative economizing measures are discussed. The traditional measure based upon a “distance decay” model is contrasted with economizing behaviors that were linked to finishing tools more completely near raw material sources and to curating blanks and tools. It is suggested that prehistoric groups selected these alternative means of economizing their use of raw material dependent upon the ultimate size contraints of the finished tools.Both qualitative and quantitative techniques for establishing the ranges of reduction sequences are described. Data sets from Epipaleolithic sites in southern Jordan and from Late Prehistoric sites in Oklahoma are used to define relationships between settlement patterns and lithic reduction strategies.