• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage

The Middle Pleistocene sile of El Sartalejo is localed in the Alagon valley of the western Southern Meseta of central Spain close to the. confluence of the Alagon and Jerte rivers. Lower Palaeolithic artefacts have been reported in this area between the Alagon and Jerte valleys for some time. Most of the sites are located in the middle terraces of the Alagon and Jerte rivers, in the widest areas of the Valleys. Indeed the Alagon valley provides a natural path through this area of the Central Cordillera between the region of Extremadura to the east and the northern Meseta.

(1981). A Pilot Study in Bifacial Lithic Reduction Sequences. Lithic Technology: Vol. 10, No. 2-3, pp. 34-47.

This study was prepared as part of a lithic analysis for an archaeological testing project undertaken by the Australian Museum Business Services in 1996 at three Aboriginal sites encountered on Bettys Creek, near Singleton in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. The goal of the analysis was to determine the place of the Bettys Creek assemblage within Hunter Valley lithic technology, thereby providing information relevant to evaluating the significance of the Bettys Creek sites. The analytical approach of the Bettys Creek analysis involved applying a 'technological typology' to the lithic assemblages. In this approach, flakes are classified into types based on the knapping techniques which produced them (Andrefsky 1998: 118-122; Shott 1994). Formed objects -- artefacts from which flakes have been removed -- are examined scar-by-scar to determine the sequence and strategy of stone reduction (Andrefsky 1998: 136-188; Moore 1992). The results of the flake and formed tool studies are correlated through knapping experiments and artefact conjoining. A stage-based reduction model, often in the form of a flow chart, is used to structure the results. The intent is to develop a detailed model of the way in which stone was manipulated at a site or in a region. This approach has rarely been applied in Australia, although two published examples are available for the Hunter Valley: Flenniken and White (1985) and Hiscock (1993). The first step of the Bettys Creek analysis involved extrapolating a reduction model from these studies. The intent was to examine the nature and distribution of reduction steps at Bettys Creek in light of the reduction model. It quickly became apparent during the fieldwork that, while the reduction model derived from these studies reflected one method of microlith production, the model was too narrow in scope to account for all aspects of knapping behaviour practiced at Bettys Creek. A review was then undertaken of unpublished pre-1996 Hunter Valley lithic analyses in order to expand and refine the reduction model and provide a more holistic account of the Bettys Creek artefact assemblages. However, most pre-1996 Hunter Valley studies involved attribute analysis and this method yields results which are of limited use in developing lithic reduction models. Hence, the necessary technological information was not available in any single analysis. Nevertheless, as a group, these studies covered most aspects of Hunter Valley reduction technology. By extrapolating from information in the unpublished literature combined with analysis of the Bettys Creek assemblages and heat-treatment experiments, it was possible to broaden the scope of the initial model to include the range of manipulations stone went through prior to tool exhaustion and discard. This paper describes the reduction model.

Quarries are fixed locationally, whereas most seasonally abundant food resources in northern latitudes are not. Toolstone procurement must therefore be ‘factored in’ to other resource procurement strategies. As sources of useable toolstone, quarries are the logical starting point for the study of how stone tool-using societies organized their technologies in accordance with their subsistence and social needs. Yet they have often been ignored by archaeologists because of the logistical problems presented by their typically enormous and variable assemblages. Quartz differs from more common, crypto-crystalline raw materials such as chert, flint or chalcedony. It is harder, more brittle, and has different fracture properties. It is less common archaeologically than crypto-crystalline toolstone, and archaeologists tend to either avoid quartz assemblages altogether, or to automatically and uncritically analyze them in the same manner as crypto-crystalline toolstones without considering their different properties. The Grandfather Quarry (HbMd-4) offers an opportunity to address these problems at once. Using Lithic Technological Organization theory, a mass analysis (after Ahler 1989), modified and combined with an attribute analysis, demonstrates that this method is a useful tool for examining large, complex assemblages such as those found in quarry sites. While more time-consuming and labour-intensive than a standard mass analysis, the modified version allows for the collection of a large number of attribute data that lend robusticity to the results and provide academic rigour. This research also demonstrates that quartz assemblages can indeed be examined using the same methods as for other raw materials, provided the unique properties of quartz as a toolstone are considered. It is shown that although the overall quality of toolstone from this source is quite poor, the Grandfather Quarry was likely the only reliable source, or at least one of a very few reliable sources, of quartz toolstone in the Churchill River Basin. All useable toolstone was intensively exploited, but rare nodules of higher quality quartz were set aside for in situ reduction into cores, tools and bifaces. Lastly, the unexpected discovery of microblade technology at the quarry opens new avenues for future research in the northern Manitoba Boreal Forest.

Data for attribute analysis conducted for MPhil dissertation. Xuan Truong Enterprise

Excavations at site 40HO13 in Houston County, Tennessee, documented three prehistoric lithic reduction areas associated with a Benton Phase occupation. The site was located in an area of abundant c...

While lithic objects can potentially inform us about past adaptations andbehaviors, it is important to develop a comprehensive understanding of all of the various processes that influence what we recover from the archaeological record. We argue here that many assumptions used by archaeologists to derive behavioral inferences through the definition, conceptualization, and interpretation of both individual stone artifact forms and groups of artifacts identified as assemblages do not fit squarely with what we have learned from both ethnographic sources and analyses of archaeological materials.We discuss this in terms of two fallacies. The first is the fallacy of the \"desired end product\" in stone artifact manufacture, which also includes our ability to recognize such end products. The second fallacy has to do with the notions that lithic assemblages represent simple accumulations of contemporary behaviors and the degree to which the composition of the depositional units we study reliably match the kinds of activities that took place. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a comprehensive set of new methodologies and theoretical perspectives to solve theseproblems, our goal here is to stress the importance of rethinking some of our most basic assumptions regarding the nature of lithic objects and how they become part of the archaeological record. Such a revision is needed if we want to be able to develop research questions that can be addressed with the data we have available to us.

A review of recent research on lithic technology and functional analysis is presented. Our perception of the state of the art is based on a review of the literature published during the past three years and on the topics that were covered at conferences and workshops on lithic analysis. While the goals have essentially remained the same since the turn of the century, concerns with chronology and the classification of lithic artifacts have given way to studies that treat stone implements as products of a dynamic system of human behavior. In order to understand stone artifacts and the people that made and used them, archaeologists must understand theprocesses involved in the acquisition, production, exchange, and consumption of lithic artifacts. In the past ten years, experimental studies involving the manufacturing and use of stone tools have been integrated with studies of refitted or conjoined lithic artifacts and microwear analysis. The result is a much more dynamic view of the variability in assemblages of lithic artifacts. In this review, we focus on replication and technological analysis of chipped stone artifacts and microwear analysis, and consider the implications of this research.

Grants for fieldwork: British Academy; National Geographic Society, Washington; INSTAP, Philadelphia; McDonald Institute, Cambridge; Isaac Newton Trust, Cambridge; AHRC; Oxford/NERC Radiocarbon Research Lab Photos of artefacts