Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Stone Tools (stone + tool)
Selected AbstractsCOLD NEUTRON PROMPT GAMMA ACTIVATION ANALYSIS,A NON-DESTRUCTIVE METHOD FOR CHARACTERIZATION OF HIGH SILICA CONTENT CHIPPED STONE TOOLS AND RAW MATERIALS,ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 1 2008ZS. KASZTOVSZKY Recently, several archaeometrical projects have been started on the prehistoric collection of the Hungarian National Museum. Among the analytical methods applied, non-destructive prompt gamma activation analysis has a special importance. We have also tested the potential of this method on chipped stone tools, with the aim of determining their exact provenance. On the basis of major and trace element components, characterizations of stone tools and their raw materials,silicites (flint, chert, radiolarite and hornstone) as well as volcanites (felsitic porphyry and obsidian),were performed. We discuss some important results concerning each group, as case studies. Compiling the data set of different PGAA analysis series, compositions of 110 samples are reported, including 76 archaeological pieces. In the future, we plan to extend the number of investigated objects in each class. [source] DNA AND PROTEIN RECOVERY FROM WASHED EXPERIMENTAL STONE TOOLS,ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 4 2004O. C. SHANKS Traces of protein and DNA are preserved on stone tools used to process animals. Previous research documents the identification of protein residues from tools sonicated in 5% ammonium hydroxide, but it remains untested whether the same treatment yields useable DNA. In this study we report both DNA and protein recovery using 5% ammonium hydroxide from residues on stone tools. We extracted 13-year-old residues from experimentally manufactured stone tools used to butcher a single animal. We also show that surface washing procedures typically used to curate stone tools remove only a small fraction of the DNA and protein deposited during animal butchery. [source] Feminine Knowledge and Skill Reconsidered: Women and Flaked Stone ToolsAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 2 2010Kathryn Weedman Arthur ABSTRACT, Archaeologists continue to describe Stone Age women as home bound and their lithic technologies as unskilled, expedient, and of low quality. However, today a group of Konso women make, use, and discard flaked stone tools to process hides, offering us an alternative to the man-the-toolmaker model and redefining Western "naturalized" gender roles. These Konso women are skilled knappers who develop their expertise through long-term practice and apprenticeship. Their lithic technology demonstrates that an individual's level of skill and age are visible in stone assemblages. Most importantly, they illustrate that women procure high-quality stone from long distances, produce formal tools with skill, and use their tools efficiently. I suggest in this article that archaeologists should consider women the producers of Paleolithic stone scrapers, engaged in bipolar technology, and as such perhaps responsible for some of the earliest-known lithic technologies. [source] The recognition and description of knapped lithic artifacts in thin sectionGEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 2 2010Diego E. Angelucci Stone tools occur quite frequently in sediment and soil thin sections, yet their micromorphological characteristics have not been explicitly defined in the literature. The aim of this paper is to define the criteria for the identification and description of knapped lithic artifacts composed of flint and quartzite by examining and comparing thin sections from prehistoric sites and petrographic thin sections obtained from lithic artifacts. The main characteristics that allow the micromorphologist to identify a knapped lithic artifact, besides its composition, grain size, and alteration degree, are: the tabular or platy shape; the angularity; the smooth surface; the prominent and regular boundary. Some examples taken from prehistoric sites in southern Europe show the reliability of these criteria for the recognition of stone tools in thin sections. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Flores hominid: New species or microcephalic dwarf?THE ANATOMICAL RECORD : ADVANCES IN INTEGRATIVE ANATOMY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 11 2006Robert D. Martin Abstract The proposed new hominid "Homo floresiensis" is based on specimens from cave deposits on the Indonesian island Flores. The primary evidence, dated at , 18,000 y, is a skull and partial skeleton of a very small but dentally adult individual (LB1). Incomplete specimens are attributed to eight additional individuals. Stone tools at the site are also attributed to H. floresiensis. The discoverers interpreted H. floresiensis as an insular dwarf derived from Homo erectus, but others see LB1 as a small-bodied microcephalic Homo sapiens. Study of virtual endocasts, including LB1 and a European microcephalic, purportedly excluded microcephaly, but reconsideration reveals several problems. The cranial capacity of LB1 (, 400 cc) is smaller than in any other known hominid < 3.5 Ma and is far too small to derive from Homo erectus by normal dwarfing. By contrast, some associated tools were generated with a prepared-core technique previously unknown for H. erectus, including bladelets otherwise associated exclusively with H. sapiens. The single European microcephalic skull used in comparing virtual endocasts was particularly unsuitable. The specimen was a cast, not the original skull (traced to Stuttgart), from a 10-year-old child with massive pathology. Moreover, the calotte does not fit well with the rest of the cast, probably being a later addition of unknown history. Consideration of various forms of human microcephaly and of two adult specimens indicates that LB1 could well be a microcephalic Homo sapiens. This is the most likely explanation for the incongruous association of a small-brained recent hominid with advanced stone tools. Anat Rec Part A, 288A:1123,1145, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] The recognition and description of knapped lithic artifacts in thin sectionGEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 2 2010Diego E. Angelucci Stone tools occur quite frequently in sediment and soil thin sections, yet their micromorphological characteristics have not been explicitly defined in the literature. The aim of this paper is to define the criteria for the identification and description of knapped lithic artifacts composed of flint and quartzite by examining and comparing thin sections from prehistoric sites and petrographic thin sections obtained from lithic artifacts. The main characteristics that allow the micromorphologist to identify a knapped lithic artifact, besides its composition, grain size, and alteration degree, are: the tabular or platy shape; the angularity; the smooth surface; the prominent and regular boundary. Some examples taken from prehistoric sites in southern Europe show the reliability of these criteria for the recognition of stone tools in thin sections. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Pilot study experiments sourcing quartzite, Gunnison Basin, ColoradoGEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 6 2008Bonnie L. Pitblado This paper reports the results of pilot-study efforts to develop methods to profile quartzite, a rock type to which geochemical and other sourcing techniques have only rarely been applied. The long-term goal of the research is to fingerprint sources of quartzite in the Gunnison Basin, southwest Colorado, used by Paleoindian people ca. 11,500,8,000 years ago to make stone tools. Success would facilitate reconstruction of Paleoindian mobility in the Southern Rocky Mountains and potentially anywhere prehistoric people used quartzite. The goals of this paper are more modest: to demonstrate that a small-scale exploration of sourcing techniques suggests reason for optimism that quartzites may be amenable to source discrimination. For the same twenty Gunnison Basin quartzite samples, this study evaluated petrography, ultraviolet fluorescence (UVF), wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WD-XRF), instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry,both acid-digestion (AD-ICP-MS) and laser ablation (LA-ICP-MS),as means to differentiate among the specimens and the sources they represent. Although more testing is needed to verify and refine our results, the study suggests there is potential for petrography, INAA, and both versions of ICP-MS to discriminate among quartzites from different source localities in the Gunnison Basin. The greatest potential for discriminating among different sources of quartzite in the Gunnison Basin may lie in a methodology combining petrographic analysis and LA-ICPMS. Future testing is required to evaluate this two-fold approach. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] FxJj43: A window into a 1.5-million-year-old palaeolandscape in the Okote Member of the Koobi Fora Formation, northern KenyaGEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2002Nicola Stern FxJj43 differs from most other archaeological sites preserved in the Okote Member of the Koobi Fora Formation in ways that make it especially suited to the problem of clarifying the behavioral information encapsulated in fine time-lines. At this site in northern Kenya, a continuous strip of outcrops, preserving a set of interlocking landforms, can be traced around the modern erosion front for more than half a kilometer. The characteristics and three-dimensional geometries of the beds making up these outcrops show that they have preserved the southern bank, levee, and floodplain of a westerly flowing sandy channel. Both stone tools and animal bones are strewn across the eroding surfaces of these outcrops, and excavations show that they are derived from a narrow stratigraphic horizon immediately overlying the volcanic ash at the base of the sequence. The blue tuff, and the archaeological horizon that overlies it, have been dated using the 40Ar- 39Ar method on single crystals of alkali feldspar. Although there is no direct measure of how long it took the archaeological horizon to accumulate, it probably accumulated over a time span of 102,103 years. Thus the locality may be used to test the proposition that the analysis of archaeological debris from fine-time lines will help to resolve ambiguities in the interpretation of early Pleistocene archaeological assemblages. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Feminine Knowledge and Skill Reconsidered: Women and Flaked Stone ToolsAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 2 2010Kathryn Weedman Arthur ABSTRACT, Archaeologists continue to describe Stone Age women as home bound and their lithic technologies as unskilled, expedient, and of low quality. However, today a group of Konso women make, use, and discard flaked stone tools to process hides, offering us an alternative to the man-the-toolmaker model and redefining Western "naturalized" gender roles. These Konso women are skilled knappers who develop their expertise through long-term practice and apprenticeship. Their lithic technology demonstrates that an individual's level of skill and age are visible in stone assemblages. Most importantly, they illustrate that women procure high-quality stone from long distances, produce formal tools with skill, and use their tools efficiently. I suggest in this article that archaeologists should consider women the producers of Paleolithic stone scrapers, engaged in bipolar technology, and as such perhaps responsible for some of the earliest-known lithic technologies. [source] Tool hoards and Neolithic use of the landscape in north-eastern IrelandOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 1 2004Douglas B. Bamforth Summary. Archaeologists frequently suggest that the Neolithic occupants of Ireland and Britain may not have been fully settled farmers, but were, instead, at least partially nomadic pastoralists. However, human use of any landscape is more complex than the current debate suggests, and this debate has included few systematic studies designed to evaluate this issue in detail. This paper examines hoards (or ,caches') of flaked stone tools in County Antrim, Ireland, to consider the links between anticipatory tool storage and human land-use patterns. Our data imply regular human movements over the study area, possibly linked to transhumant use of different altitudinal zones, with functionally and, sometimes, technologically specific classes of tools stored in different areas. However, the larger context of data on the Irish Neolithic clearly indicates that these movements were part of a way of life centred on permanent horticultural homesteads. [source] Upper limb kinematics and the role of the wrist during stone tool productionAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2010E.M. Williams Abstract Past studies have hypothesized that aspects of hominin upper limb morphology are linked to the ability to produce stone tools. However, we lack the data on upper limb motions needed to evaluate the biomechanical context of stone tool production. This study seeks to better understand the biomechanics of stone tool-making by investigating upper limb joint kinematics, focusing on the role of the wrist joint, during simple flake production. We test the hypotheses, based on studies of other upper limb activities (e.g., throwing), that upper limb movements will occur in a proximal-to-distal sequence, culminating in rapid wrist flexion just prior to strike. Data were captured from four amateur knappers during simple flake production using a VICON motion analysis system (50 Hz). Results show that subjects utilized a proximal-to-distal joint sequence and disassociated the shoulder joint from the elbow and wrist joints, suggesting a shared strategy employed in other contexts (e.g., throwing) to increase target accuracy. The knapping strategy included moving the wrist into peak extension (subject peak grand mean = 47.3°) at the beginning of the downswing phase, which facilitated rapid wrist flexion and accelerated the hammerstone toward the nodule. This sequence resulted in the production of significantly more mechanical work, and therefore greater strike forces, than would otherwise be produced. Together these results represent a strategy for increasing knapping efficiency in Homo sapiens and point to aspects of skeletal anatomy that might be examined to assess potential knapping ability and efficiency in fossil hominin taxa. Am J Phys Anthropol 143:134-145, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Flores hominid: New species or microcephalic dwarf?THE ANATOMICAL RECORD : ADVANCES IN INTEGRATIVE ANATOMY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 11 2006Robert D. Martin Abstract The proposed new hominid "Homo floresiensis" is based on specimens from cave deposits on the Indonesian island Flores. The primary evidence, dated at , 18,000 y, is a skull and partial skeleton of a very small but dentally adult individual (LB1). Incomplete specimens are attributed to eight additional individuals. Stone tools at the site are also attributed to H. floresiensis. The discoverers interpreted H. floresiensis as an insular dwarf derived from Homo erectus, but others see LB1 as a small-bodied microcephalic Homo sapiens. Study of virtual endocasts, including LB1 and a European microcephalic, purportedly excluded microcephaly, but reconsideration reveals several problems. The cranial capacity of LB1 (, 400 cc) is smaller than in any other known hominid < 3.5 Ma and is far too small to derive from Homo erectus by normal dwarfing. By contrast, some associated tools were generated with a prepared-core technique previously unknown for H. erectus, including bladelets otherwise associated exclusively with H. sapiens. The single European microcephalic skull used in comparing virtual endocasts was particularly unsuitable. The specimen was a cast, not the original skull (traced to Stuttgart), from a 10-year-old child with massive pathology. Moreover, the calotte does not fit well with the rest of the cast, probably being a later addition of unknown history. Consideration of various forms of human microcephaly and of two adult specimens indicates that LB1 could well be a microcephalic Homo sapiens. This is the most likely explanation for the incongruous association of a small-brained recent hominid with advanced stone tools. Anat Rec Part A, 288A:1123,1145, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] The physical characteristics and usage patterns of stone axe and pounding hammers used by long-tailed macaques in the Andaman Sea region of ThailandAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 7 2009Michael D. Gumert Abstract Stone hammering in natural conditions has been extensively investigated in chimpanzees and bearded capuchins. In contrast, knowledge of stone tool use in wild Old World monkeys has been limited to anecdotal reports, despite having known for over 120 years that Macaca fascicularis aurea use stone tools to process shelled foods from intertidal zones on islands in the Andaman Sea. Our report is the first scientific investigation to look at the stone tools used by these macaques. We observed they were skilled tool users and used stone tools daily. They selected tools with differing qualities for differing food items, and appeared to use at least two types of stone tools. Pounding hammers were used to crush shellfish and nuts on anvils and axe hammers were used to pick or chip at oysters attached to boulders or trees. We found significant physical differences between these two tools. Tools at oyster beds were smaller and exhibited scarring patterns focused more often on the points, whereas tools found at anvils were larger and showed more scarring on the broader surfaces. We also observed grip differences between the two tool types. Lastly, macaques struck targets with axe hammers more rapidly and over a wider range of motion than with pounding hammers. Both our behavioral and lithic data support that axe hammers might be used with greater control and precision than pounding hammers. Hand-sized axe hammers were used for controlled chipping to crack attached oysters, and larger pounding hammers were used to crush nuts and unattached shellfish on anvils. In addition to stones, they also used hand-sized auger shells (Turritella attenuata) as picks to axe attached oysters. Pound hammering appears similar to the stone tools used by chimpanzees and capuchins, but axe hammering has not yet been documented in other nonhuman primates in natural conditions. Am. J. Primatol. 71:594,608, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] The enhanced tool-kit of two groups of wild bearded capuchin monkeys in the Caatinga: tool making, associative use, and secondary toolsAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 3 2009Massimo Mannu Abstract The use of stones to crack open encapsulated fruit is widespread among wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Cebus libidinosus) inhabiting savanna-like environments. Some populations in Serra da Capivara National Park (Piauí, Brazil), though, exhibit a seemingly broader toolkit, using wooden sticks as probes, and employing stone tools for a variety of purposes. Over the course of 701.5,hr of visual contact of two wild capuchin groups we recorded 677 tool use episodes. Five hundred and seventeen of these involved the use of stones, and 160 involved the use of sticks (or other plant parts) as probes to access water, arthropods, or the contents of insects' nests. Stones were mostly used as "hammers",not only to open fruit or seeds, or smash other food items, but also to break dead wood, conglomerate rock, or cement in search of arthropods, to dislodge bigger stones, and to pulverize embedded quartz pebbles (licking, sniffing, or rubbing the body with the powder produced). Stones also were used in a "hammer-like" fashion to loosen the soil for digging out roots and arthropods, and sometimes as "hoes" to pull the loosened soil. In a few cases, we observed the re-utilization of stone tools for different purposes (N=3), or the combined use of two tools,stones and sticks (N=4) or two stones (N=5), as sequential or associative tools. On three occasions, the monkeys used smaller stones to loosen bigger quartz pebbles embedded in conglomerate rock, which were subsequently used as tools. These could be considered the first reports of secondary tool use by wild capuchin monkeys. Am. J. Primatol. 71:242,251, 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Exploring the location and function of a Late Neolithic house at Crossiecrown, Orkney by geophysical, geochemical and soil micromorphological methodsARCHAEOLOGICAL PROSPECTION, Issue 1 2010Richard Jones Abstract Magnetic prospection was instrumental in the discovery of a multiphase Neolithic settlement at Crossiecrown on Mainland Orkney. Subsequent excavation revealed a number of structures, including a large circular walled house of Late Neolithic date with a range of well-defined architectural features in its interior. This paper presents the discovery, excavation and in particular the functional analysis of this house. Soil micromorphology established the sequence from the house's initial floor construction to its abandonment. On the basis of multi-element and magnetic susceptibility data obtained from analysis of samples taken from the floor of the house, several element distributions were found to be distinctive in the way they correlated with some of the house's ,fixed furniture' and moreover with the distributions of certain artefacts, notably the stone tools. The archaeological implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] ARCHAEOLOGICAL PETROLOGY AND THE ARCHAEOMETRY OF LITHIC MATERIALS,ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 2 2008M. S. SHACKLEY For 50 years, archaeologists and physical scientists have been dating, determining the composition of and measuring stone tools, and reporting them in Archaeometry and many other journals. In Archaeometry specifically, the number of papers devoted to the analysis of lithic material has increased at least 30 times since 1958 and volume 1. This is a reflection not only of an increase in the number of scholars devoting their time to the archaeometry of stone, but also of increases in the quality and quantity of instrumental technology available to researchers in the field. [source] COLD NEUTRON PROMPT GAMMA ACTIVATION ANALYSIS,A NON-DESTRUCTIVE METHOD FOR CHARACTERIZATION OF HIGH SILICA CONTENT CHIPPED STONE TOOLS AND RAW MATERIALS,ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 1 2008ZS. KASZTOVSZKY Recently, several archaeometrical projects have been started on the prehistoric collection of the Hungarian National Museum. Among the analytical methods applied, non-destructive prompt gamma activation analysis has a special importance. We have also tested the potential of this method on chipped stone tools, with the aim of determining their exact provenance. On the basis of major and trace element components, characterizations of stone tools and their raw materials,silicites (flint, chert, radiolarite and hornstone) as well as volcanites (felsitic porphyry and obsidian),were performed. We discuss some important results concerning each group, as case studies. Compiling the data set of different PGAA analysis series, compositions of 110 samples are reported, including 76 archaeological pieces. In the future, we plan to extend the number of investigated objects in each class. [source] DNA AND PROTEIN RECOVERY FROM WASHED EXPERIMENTAL STONE TOOLS,ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 4 2004O. C. SHANKS Traces of protein and DNA are preserved on stone tools used to process animals. Previous research documents the identification of protein residues from tools sonicated in 5% ammonium hydroxide, but it remains untested whether the same treatment yields useable DNA. In this study we report both DNA and protein recovery using 5% ammonium hydroxide from residues on stone tools. We extracted 13-year-old residues from experimentally manufactured stone tools used to butcher a single animal. We also show that surface washing procedures typically used to curate stone tools remove only a small fraction of the DNA and protein deposited during animal butchery. [source] | ||||||||||||||||