There are many ancient cultures in the world where there are no written sources and material evidence as artefacts preserved. Their identification or even revealing of signs is an important impetus ...for the initiation of further systematic research. In this sense, Indonesia, including the island of Bali, is a very typical example, where the earliest reliable evidence can be dated not earlier than the 4th century CE. Due to the natural conditions, there are few opportunities for the artefacts of natural origin and evidence of human activity to survive. Therefore, studies of stone material by deliberately exploring human actions that resulted in artificially assigned shapes of the stones, treated surfaces and fragments of images still present on the stone surface, can be a valid indication. Taking into consideration historically relevant tools, human knowledge of the properties of stones and their skills to process the surfaces, it is possible to distinguish stones that have been treated before metal tools become available. The study on the island of Bali indicates that there are many stones that in ancient times have been treated using stone tools only, and their shapes are similar to other megalithic cultures known elsewhere in the world. The results of this research demonstrate that the prehistory of Bali has material evidence and systematic contemporary archaeological research would form the basis for further studies of this ancient culture.
This article summarizes the current state of research on the chipped stone assemblages from the settlement of Alsónyék-Bátaszék. This site belongs to the southeast Transdanubian group of the Late ...Neolithic Lengyel culture. Over 300 Lengyel culture sites are known in Hungary, about half of which are in southern Transdanubia. However, the site with the largest number of houses and graves is Alsónyék. Its huge extent and more than one thousand archaeological features make this one of the most important Neolithic sites in Central Europe. The chipped stone tools come exclusively from the settlement at Alsónyék-Kanizsa-dűlő. For this reason, only the preliminary results from the Kanizsa-dűlő settlement will be presented. Technological analysis of the chipped stone tools provides an opportunity for the reconstruction of the tool making process, which may be the result of the tool production system of a cultural unit. The research emphasis is on raw material identification. The focus of the interpretation is the technological and typological analysis and the aspect of household archaeology.
Recent literature on Paleoarchaic and Early Archaic strategies in the arid west of North America has characterized the shift from the earlier to later period as constituting an adaptive ...discontinuity. The empirical bases for this conclusion are shifts in mobility, subsistence, and technology. Paleoarchaic peoples are described as highly mobile, focused on a diversity of animal resources, including birds and small game, and using more exotic toolstone, an aspect of mobility. In contrast, Early Archaic strategies are less mobile, yet more focused on large game, using more local toolstone, and adopting grinding tools presumably to process small seeds. Accompanying this transition is the shift from stemmed to notched projectile points. Data bearing on this transition on the Colorado Plateau have been scarce. Excavations of finely stratified deposits at North Creek Shelter on the Colorado Plateau in southern Utah have yielded support for the adaptive discontinuity position, although qualitative differences between the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau are apparent in mobility and faunal use.
A report in press finds that
Homo habilis
's dietary range was more like that of an australopithecine than
H. erectus
, suggesting that the handyman had yet to make the key adaptations associated ...with our genus.
In the past decade,
Homo habilis
's status as the first member of our genus has been undermined. Newer analytical methods suggested that
H. habilis
matured and moved less like a human and more like an australopithecine, such as the famous partial skeleton of Lucy. Now, a report in press in the
Journal of Human Evolution
finds that
H. habilis
's dietary range was also more like Lucy's than that of
H. erectus
, which many consider the first fully human species to walk the earth. That suggests the handyman had yet to make the key adaptations associated with our genus, such as the ability to exploit a variety of foods in many environments, the authors say.
Stone tools emerged at least 2.5 mya in Africa and were manufactured continuously by early Homo species through the emergence of cognitively modern Homo sapiens. Aspects of hominin cognitive ...evolution, reflected in hominin intentions, may therefore be preserved in this durable aspect of the archaeological record. Stoneworking design space is cellular in structure and two levels of hominin intentions are apparent in modifying stone: the intention to remove a single flake and the higher-order intentions reflected in the ways that flakes are combined to produce effects. Archaeologists have traditionally interpreted early hominin intentions using the higher-order skills and experiences of modern knappers as analogues, an approach that is epistemologically flawed. Further, the tightly constrained structure of design space could have led early hominins inadvertently to produce what appear to be highly-designed tools or tool attributes in the absence of an intention to do so. Controlled experimental research is necessary to provide an empirical baseline for identifying higher-order intentions in the archaeological record.
Emergency salvage excavations at the Anderson site, a late thirteenth century, Late Woodland Iroquoian community on the lower Grand River of southern Ontario, produced a large assemblage of chipped ...lithic tools and debris. In this paper, I examine how end scrapers were manufactured. Specifically, patterns of flake detachments are identified and contrasted with some of the patterns of flake detachments seen in biface manufacture. Using the concept of "constellations of knowledge", which spans the selection of a preform to the manner of modification of both the bit or working end and the presumed haft, one product of a juvenile or apprentice flint knapper is identified and contrasted with specimens inferred to represent the work of more-skilled knappers. From this, some insights are generated into how the manufacture of end scrapers was learned which may ultimately allow us to explore the transmission of knowledge, etc., through time.
The Long Branch site (31JK477) was a multi-component late prehistoric and Late Archaic site located in the Appalachian Summit region of western North Carolina. It contained deeply-stratified Late ...Archaic cultural deposits, including a substantial quartzite lithic assemblage and numerous intact cultural features. The most significant and unique aspect of 31JK477 was a series of postholes and a small, artificially-created basin that defined the partial remains of a structure, the only documented instance of Late Archaic architecture in the region. Lithic debris and tools were concentrated within and immediately adjacent to the structure's outline. Preliminary spatial analysis of the distribution of lithic refits, debitage, and knapping tools at the site suggests that tool production occurred in discrete areas, including in the interior of the structure, during the site's use.
A comprehensive (forty seven elements) geochemical data set for eighteen artifacts strategically selected after macroscopic examination of approximately six thousand lithic artifacts from the Punchaw ...Lake Village Site (FiRs-1) on the Nechako Plateau, in the north-central interior of British Columbia (B.C.), shows that dacite was the dominant lithology used in stone tool manufacture. The macroscopic descriptions, plus exploratory statistics utilizing all geochemical data, reveal at least three geochemical artifact groups (A, B, and D). Differences between groups are consistent with derivation from three Paleogene caldera complexes in the central interior. Comparisons with tool stone (dacite) from the southern interior of B.C. show that, although there is little geochemical overlap, the compositional variation at Punchaw Lake is similar to what is seen for all of the southern interior. Geochemical group A artifacts from Punchaw Lake (eight artifacts, 41 percent) resemble, but do not overlap with, available geochemical data for Cache Creek/Arrowstone Hills dacite (approximately 300 km south) in the south-central interior, suggesting derivation from a geologic site/caldera between Punchaw Lake and Cache Creek, but a Cache Creek origin cannot be ruled out. Geochemical group A artifacts have textural traits leading to superior "workability" (e.g., finer-grained) compared to the two, less-abundant, geochemical groups (B and D). Group A dominance implies that "workability" was as important as proximity to a geological source in determining the abundance of dacite types at Punchaw Lake. Two group B samples (11 percent of artifacts) are very similar to dacite artifacts from Smith Creek and Princeton River in the southern interior suggesting five hundred kilometers of transport. Previous work on obsidian and valuable artifacts at Punchaw Lake supports exchange/transport for great distances, but dacite tool stone may be largely of local/regional (central interior) derivation. Hypothesis testing requires data for dacite artifacts from Quaternary, glacial outwash fields, associated with Paleogene caldera complexes in the central interior. Un ensemble de données géochimiques (quarante-sept éléments) de dix-huit artefacts sélectionnés parmi environ six milles artefacts lithiques du site Punchaw Lake Village (FiRs-1) du plateau Nechako, dans le centre-nord de l'intérieur de la Colombie Britannique (C.-B.), démontre que la dacite était dominante dans la production lithique. L'exploration statistique des données géochimique ainsi que l'apparence macroscopique dévoilent un minimum de trois groupes géochimiques (A, B, D). Les différences entre ces groupes suggèrent la provenance de trois complexes de caldeiras du Paléogène situés dans le centre de l'intérieur. Des comparaisons effectuées avec des lithiques du sud de l'intérieur de la C.-B. (dacite) démontrent que bien qu'il y ait peu de correspondance géochimique, la variabilité de composition de l'assemblage de Punchaw Lake est comparable à celle observée dans l'ensemble du sud de l'intérieur. Le groupe géochimique A de Punchaw Lake (huit artefacts, 44 %) ressemble mais ne corresponde pas exactement aux données géochimiques disponibles pour la dacite de Cache Creek/Arrowstone Hills (environ trois cents kilometres au sud) dans le centre-sud de l'intérieur, ce qui suggère une origine d'un site ou d'une caldeira entre Punchaw Lake et Cache Creek, bien que l'origine de Cache Creek ne puisse être éliminée. Les caractéristiques texturales (par exemple un grain plus fin) du group géochimique A indiquent une maniabilité supérieure comparé aux deux autres groupes géochimiques qui sont moins abondants (B et D). La fréquence du groupe A signifie que la maniabilité était aussi importante que la proximité de la source géologique dans la détermination de l'abondances des types de dacite à Punchaw Lake. Deux échantillons du groupe B (11 % des artefacts) ressemblent fortement à la dacite provenant de Smith Creek et Princeton River dans le sud de l'intérieur, ce qui suggère cinq cents kilomètres de transport. Des recherches précédentes à Punchaw Lake soutiennent la possibilité d'échanges ou de transport sur de longues distances, mais ces lithiques de dacite pourraient être d'origine locale ou régionale (centre de l'intérieur). Evaluer cette hypothèse exigerait des informations sur la dacite provenant de plaine d'épandage fluvio-glaciaires du Quaternaire, associés à des complexes de caldeiras du Paléogène dans le centre de l'intérieur.
