Stone Tool Manufacture Research Articles

Effect of heat treatment on siliceous rocks used in prehistoric lithic technology

Stone tool manufacture by many prehistoric and recent societies was characterized by deliberate heating of fine grained siliceous rocks to improve their flaking properties. Extensive mechanical testing of heated and unheated cryptocrystalline and macrocrystalline quartz lithologies has shown that thermal treatment causes a consistent marked reduction in fracture toughness. This mechanical property can be used as an objective measurement of the flaking qualities of stone materials, and a reliable criterion for the recognition of intentionally heated artefacts in the archaeological record. X-ray diffraction studies and scanning electron microscopy have demonstrated that the change in fracture toughness with heating is the result of recrystallization. The poorly ordered, strongly interlocking cryptocrystalline fabric of the unheated samples becomes more equigranular and better crystallized with thermal treatment. As a consequence, fractures propagate more readily in heated samples, accounting for their better flaking properties.

On Planning and Curated Technologies in the Middle Paleolithic

The importance of planning or anticipatory organization in the technologies of archaic hominids has recently come under much scrutiny. Among modern populations, the extent to which technologies are planned depends on a variety of factors external to and internal to the cultural system, including the distribution of raw materials and settlement mobility. While data on the European Mousterian suggest that the manufacture and maintenance of tools were planned to a limited degree, evidence of truly long-term projection of needs is sparse. Most of the extant information is insufficient to evaluate whether these facts directly implicate the capacities of Mousterian hominids or whether they reflect the operation of independent factors that rendered more complex forms of planning unnecessary or impractical. Studies of a series of Italian Paleolithic sites employing independent data to control for the contexts of stone tool manufacture and use suggest that apparent differences in technological planning among Middl...

Subsistence, Technology, and Adaptive Variation in Middle Paleolithic Italy

This collaborative study addresses questions about variation in behavior within the Middle Paleolithic period of west‐central Italy. The findings are directly relevant to the evolutionary “fate” of Neandertals and the appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe. Analyses focus on variation in a number of dimensions of subsistence and technology, including patterns of ungulate procurement, food transport, and tactics of stone tool manufacture and use. All of these dimensions exhibit marked, possibly “vectored” change in the study area between 110,000 and 35,000 years ago. Interpretations of the archeological data are supported by independent studies linking food search, procurement, and transport behaviors to ecological rules affecting all large terrestrial predators. In this way, variation observed in the faunal and lithic data sets can be shown to reflect startling diversity in the responses of Mousterian hominids to the world around them. The data provide important insights into the nature of adaptive “raw material” already in place during the Middle Paleolithic, the foremost conclusion of this study. That this variation in resource exploitation and land use also appears directional is more difficult to evaluate. It could be explained by hominids' adjustments to local changes in coastal habitat as sea level regressed or, alternatively, an evolutionary shift in hominid capabilities. The first interpretation is preferred, on the basis of available evidence, but cannot be advanced as a certain conclusion. This question provides much stimulus for continued research in the study area and other regions, using the methods presented.

EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN THUMB

The bones and joints of the human thumb are a mosaic of primitive and unique features, reflecting stages in the evolution of the hand from a support element on the ground to a grasping structure in the trees and eventually to an organ dedicated entirely to manipulation. The trapeziometacarpal saddle joint configuration and associated musculature are shared with most nonhuman primate species, whereas the broad distal phalanx with its specialized palmar pad is unique to humans. Most of the distinctive features of the modern human thumb can be explained by the requirements for a firm grip and tolerance of large stresses associated with the use and manufacture of stone tools, which contributed for several million years to the survival of human ancestors after they returned to the ground. Fossil remains indicate that early members of the human family, Hominidae, had short thumbs relative to the length of the fingers, which were not subject to the large stresses associated with modern human manipulative behavior. Later hominids had very flat trapeziometacarpal joints and large distal phalanges, indicating a capacity for opposition of the thumb to all four fingertips and for tolerance of large stresses. Pathologies involving thumb joints contribute to the understanding of the sequence of changes in thumb morphology in the fossil record.

Petrographic analysis and preliminary source identification of selected stone artifacts from the Maya sites of Seibal and Uaxactun, Guatemala

Petrographic descriptions of the rocks from which selected ground stone tools from Seibal and Uaxactun were made are used as the basis for matching the samples with outcrops known to occur in a restricted area in Belize. The results suggest that the pinpointing of sources of raw materials used in ground stone tool manufacture is possible, but that more work needs to be done in characterizing outcrops and assembling comparative collections of rock types.

Exploitation of chert resources by the ancient Maya of northern Belize, Central America

Abstract The region of the Maya Lowlands that is now northern Belize has two major lithic resources that were utilized by prehistoric populations. The major resource is chert, restricted to a 500‐square kilometre zone. To the west and north, geologic faults have exposed outcroppings of chalcedony, a much poorer quality material, in this instance, for stone tool manufacture. The fine‐grained cherts were utilized as early as Paleo‐Indian and Archaic times, atlhough the intensive use of this raw material began in the Maya Late Preclassic, around 250 B.C. This is best documented at the site of Colha, the locus of stone tool mass production for more than 1000 years. Chert nodules were collected or quarried with minimal effort from surface exposures and there is also evidence of shallow pit mining activity. From Colha, formal tools made from these cherts were exported to Maya communities outside the chert‐bearing zone, where they were used as axes, adzes, and hoes and greatly augmented a limited range of expediency tools made of chalcedony.

A Fluted Biface Fragment from the Lange Site in Gloucester County, New Jersey: Implications for Paleoindian Site Selection and Function

Replicative experiments indicate that a fluted biface fragment found at the recently destroyed Lange site in Gloucester County, New Jersey, was from a preform broken during the fluting stage of projectile point manufacture. The nearby occurrence of lithic raw materials suitable for flaked stone tool manufacture suggests that the site possibly functioned as a more permanent base camp for Paleoindian populations. This speculation may be supported further by the occurrence of late stage fluted biface manufacture. Additionally, other flaked stone tools of probable Paleoindian affiliation have been recovered from the site. Together, these data provide further support for Marshall's (1982) hypothesis that the occurrence and distribution of pebble cherts in the New Jersey Coastal Plains figured significantly in the settlement patterns of Paleoindian populations.

Problems in the interpretation of radiocarbon dates: the Pastoral Neolithic of East Africa

For the Pastoral Neolithic of East Africa radiocarbon dates suggest two apparent anomalies in the archaeological record: pastoralism in the Central Rift at perhaps 7000 bp, and the very long duration of particular pottery traditions. This paper examines the dating evidence closely, in particular the assertion that apatite gives more reliable dates than collagen. Both the assertion and the anomalies appear to be false. It is shown that there is no firm evidence for pastoralism in East Africa before about 4000 bp. Similarly, the Narosura tradition is of shorter duration and more recent than previously supposed. The meagre dating evidence for the Namoratunga sites and its implications are also assessed. Examination of the dates for the Pastoral Iron Age shows that the Turkwel tradition is dated only by a single date and that the appearance of twisted cord rouletted pottery in the present millennium post-dates the end of stone tool manufacture by several centuries. The paper concludes with a plea for more critical assessment of radiocarbon dates and for greater rigour in their presentation.

Microdebitage analysis: Initial considerations

Abstract Microdebitage is defined as all stone flaking residue less than 1 mm in maximum dimension. Experimental replication indicates that it is produced in great quantities by stone tool manufacture and can permeate site matrices as a permanent signature of past cultural activity. Initial sampling studies suggest that microdebitage analysis may have considerable utility as a means of lithic site surveying.

An analysis and application of the size distribution of waste flakes from the manufacture of bifacial stone tools

Abstract A replication experiment tested the hypothesis that the size range of waste flakes from biface manufacture decreases from initial to final reduction stages and may be used to estimate biface reduction stages in prehistoric flake samples by comparison with replicated flake data. All waste flakes from the replication of twelve projectile points were separated into four experimentally defined stages, and were then sieved into ten size categories. The size distribution was based on the cumulative distribution function of flake frequency by size category, and was accurately modeled by the Weibull distribution. Constrained least squares analysis successfully assigned most single and multiple stage test samples to their correct stage of reduction. Based on careful replication, this method should allow the rapid, systematic estimation of biface reduction stages in unbiased prehistoric flake samples. The Weibull distribution may potentially serve as a screening device to help assure that a particular prehistoric flake sample represents the unbiased remains of biface manufacture.

Experimental implement manufacture and use; a case study from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

Experiments involving the manufacture and use of stone tools are described. The original tools that served as models came from two sites in upper bed IV at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The following conclusions are drawn. Widespread use of terms such as ‘crude’ or ‘refined’ in describing stone tools tells us nothing of the technical level achieved by the makers of the assemblages. The different qualities of the available raw materials, the forms in which they occur and how they function when used may have influenced the tool maker’s designs and the morphology of the tools. The experiments suggest uses for the tools that are relevant to our understanding of what is found on some archaeological sites.

Emergence of human behaviour patterns: Archaeological tests of alternative models of early hominid behaviour: Excavation and experiments

Several rival hypotheses have been advanced regarding behavioural innovations, which may have put important selection pressures towards the development of cognitive faculties and expanded brain functions. These hypothesized changes in behaviour include increased dependence on tool-making, intensification of hunting as a subsistence activity and social patterns involving food-sharing. Archaeology constitutes one of the principal sources of evidence against which such hypotheses can be tested and the paper reports on research that has been undertaken in recent years to make the tests clear and explicit. In addition to excavation, the work reported includes experimental studies of bone fracture, experiments in the manufacture and use of stone tools and experiments on processes of site formation.

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 developmental model for the evolution of language and intelligence in early hominids

AbstractThis paper presents a model for the nature and adaptive significance of intelligence and language in early hominids based on comparative developmental, ecological, and neurological data. We propose that the common ancestor of the great apes and man displayed rudimentary forms of late sensorimotor and early preoperational intelligence similar to that of one- to four-year-old children. These abilities arose as adaptations for extractive foraging with tools, which requires a long postweaning apprenticeship. They were elaborated in the first hominids with the shift to primary dependence on this feeding strategy. These first hominids evolved a protolanguage, similar to that of two-year-old human children, with which they could describe the nature and location of food and request help in obtaining it. The descendents of the first hominids displayed intuitive intelligence, similar to that of four- to seven-year-old children, which arose as an adaptation for complex hunting involving aimed-missile throwing, stone-tool manufacture, animal butchery, food division, and shelter construction. The comparative developmental and paleontological data are consistent with the hypothesis that the stages of development of intelligence and language and their neural substrates in our species recapitulate the stages of their evolution.

Thermally Altered Novaculite and Stone Tool Manufacturing Techniques

This paper describes a study of the physical origins of improved flaking properties, called flakeability, for novaculite, a material exploited for stone tool manufacture by the peoples of prehistoric Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and Louisiana. Experimentation in thermal pretreatment and ways to detect and discriminate the results of this pretreatment were carried out. The criteria derived for distinguishing this alteration in the novaculite are easily determined by a straightforward analysis that can be done in almost any laboratory.The results of this experimentation have direct implications for the study and identification of thermal pretreatment in this and other stone materials. From the correlations between the physical alteration of such source materials and the implication for manufacturing techniques, the archeologist can more validly infer relationships between prehistoric lithic technology and the knappers who developed highly diversified and specialized techniques. Such experiments combined with wear analysis, material source determination, and other lithic studies will allow the archeologist to delineate manufacturing and exploitative patterns and examine their relationship to all forms of cultural and environmental variables.

This Spring—Two Mid-Western Congresses Include Pharmacy Topics

In the mid-eastern part of the southern cone of South America, sources of silcrete extend from eastern Entre Ríos province in Argentina to mid-western Uruguay. As a material for stone tool manufacture this rock was used with different levels of intensity in the regional archaeological record. In areas currently covered by Buenos Aires province in Argentina and the Republic of Uruguay in particular, diverse Paleo-American artifacts were made with this material between ~ 13 and 12 cal. ka BP. Due to this material's exploitation by early human occupiers, this paper addresses and discusses its distribution, source location, quality, use, and its probable preference by one of the earliest groups of foragers living during the late Pleistocene.

Microlithic Sites in the Asiatic USSR

AbstractMicrolithic cultures of the steppe and desert zone of Asia include the Kel'teminar of the Aral Sea region and comparable cultures in Kazakhstan, Turkmenia, Trans-Baikal, Mongolia and China. This microlithic industry is characterized not by the size of the tools, but by the use of blades rather than flakes for the manufacture of stone tools. The prismatic core, often small and pencil-shaped, is very common; bifacial retouch is rare. The microliths are consistently found in association with pottery and bifacially worked projectile points of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the third and second millennia B.C. The tendency of Soviet archaeologists to seek the ethnic affiliations of archaeological complexes may explain the considerable regional variation in pottery and stone tool inventories, but adjustment to environment is a more likely explanation for the wide-spread occurrence of the basic features of the microlithic industry. A way of life based on migratory hunting of small game and collecting developed as a result of refinements in missile weapons which included the bow and arrow. These developments can be correlated with the introduction of the microlithic blade technology. This way of life and the use of microliths survived in the steppe and desert areas, but in the regions to the south where farming developed the microliths were rapidly replaced by heavy tools such as hoes and pestles, and in the northern forests harpoons, fishhooks, and heavy wood-working tools indicate a shift to a more sedentary life based on intensive fishing. The widespread microlithic survivals in northern Asia demonstrate similar subsistence patterns in similar ecological zones rather than basic ethnic unity. Suggestions concerning origins, historical and cultural ties, and possible population movements are gradually emerging from detailed studies of the boundaries between the microlithic zone and the pottery and forest areas as well as from broader comparative analyses.

The Alibates Flint Quarry, Texas

It has been thought that one of the most easily recognized types of flint used in the manufacture of stone tools in the Southern Plains is Amarillo or Alibates flint (Kidder 1932: 31, 44; Krieger 1946: 50, 62; Skinner 1956: 13). This flint has been widely recognized in Texas, central and western Oklahoma, southern Kansas, eastern Colorado and western New Mexico (Watson 1950: 32; Bell and Baerreis 1951: 84; Suhm and Krieger 1954: 71). The material has been dated as early as Folsom and as late as protohistoric (Roberts 1942: 18; Schmidt and Toldan 1953: 173; Baker, Campbell, and Evans 1957: 2).