Composite hunting technologies from the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene,Niah Cave,Borneo

Renewed archaeological investigation of the West Mouth of Niah Cave, Borneo has demonstrated that even within lowland equatorial environments depositional conditions do exist where organic remains of late glacial and early post-glacial age can be preserved. Excavations by the Niah Cave Research Project (NCP) (2000–2003) towards the rear of the archaeological reserve produced several bone points and worked stingray spines, which exhibit evidence of hafting mastic and fibrous binding still adhering to their shafts. The position of both gives strong indication of how these cartilaginous points were hafted and gives insight into their potential function. These artefacts were recovered from secure and ¹⁴C dated stratigraphic horizons. The results of this study have implications for our understanding the function of the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene bone tools recovered from other regions of Island Southeast Asia. They demonstrate that by the end the Pleistocene rainforest foragers in Borneo were producing composite technologies that probably included fishing leisters and potentially the bow and arrow.     

Clovis biface technology at the Topper site,South Carolina: evidence for variation and technological flexibility

The Topper site in the South Atlantic Coastal Plain of South Carolina provides a rare glimpse of the entire range of Clovis tool manufacture. Topper is a quarry-related site along the Savannah River with an outcrop of Coastal Plain chert and a buried Clovis component. This paper focuses on the 174 bifaces and diagnostic debitage from recent excavations to understand biface production at Topper. I present the process of manufacture then measure the variation in production characteristics at the site in terms of our current knowledge of Clovis biface technology. I conclude that Topper flintknappers used reduction strategies typical of Clovis-period tool production but created a biface assemblage with greater flexibility in design than documented at most other Clovis sites. This variation in biface production suggests greater variability in Clovis behavior across America—Clovis groups adapted to local resource conditions and adjusted the organization of their technology accordingly.     

Points and convergent tools in the European Early Middle Palaeolithic site of Payre (SE,France)

The lithic assemblage from the Middle Palaeolithic site of Payre (Rhone Valley, France) contains a large number of convergent tools and pointed tools of various shapes, sizes and retouch types. These were excavated from several archaeological units, dating from marine isotopic stages 8–5, which also yielded human skeletal remains. Consideration of this large tool kit has led to an improved analysis of Middle Palaeolithic tools with two retouched convergent edges. The 350 tools were not described within the classical typological framework, but, rather, from a lithic technological perspective in relation to a discoid debitage. In addition, an initial macroscopic use-wear analysis aided in establishing whether they were used according to their technical and/or morphological features. The Middle Palaeolithic convergent tools from Payre are shown to be quite diversified, and the question of the significance of the retouch and the definition of the various types is addressed. Initial functional results indicate that a clear relationship between shape and function cannot be easily established, and that these tools were used as hand tools. This study contributes to the debate on the use of stone tip spears in the Early European Middle Palaeolithic.     

Early evidence of complexity in lithic economy: core-axe production,hafting and use at Late Middle Pleistocene site 8-B-11, Sai Island (Sudan)

Wear analysis indicates that Sangoan core-axes from site 8-B-11 at Sai Island, Sudan, were used while hafted. The middle Sangoan occupation level at 8-B-11 served as a locale where specialized activities were performed, including core-axe manufacture and hafting. Newly manufactured quartz core-axes served as replacements for exhausted items that were mostly fabricated out of raw materials other than quartz, which were carried back to the site in their hafts for re-tooling. The hafted core-axes appear as highly mobile, curated tools, being transported across a large territory. The evidence indicates that the Sangoan is the archaeological reflection of a complex behavioural system involving economic specialization, which appeared in this part of Africa for the first time around 200 ka ago.     

Introducing a new experimental design for controlled studies of flake formation: results for exterior platform angle,platform depth,angle of blow,velocity, and force

Potential variables that underlie variation in flake size, and in some instances shape, are investigated in a newly designed experiment. This new design, which utilizes glass cores molded to a specific shape, results in flakes that are identical to archaeological ones. Variation in exterior platform angle, platform depth and angle of blow all directly affect flake size, and in the case of exterior platform angle, flake shape as well (in spite of constant core surface morphology). In treating velocity and force independently, neither is found to affect flake size or shape. These results have implications for understanding different strategies that flintknappers may employ to control the size of their flake products.     

Insights into early Middle Palaeolithic tool use and hafting in Western Europe. The functional analysis of level IIa of the early Middle Palaeolithic site of Biache-Saint-Vaast (France)

Results are presented from the functional analysis of a large selection of tools from level IIa of the early Middle Palaeolithic site of Biache-St-Vaast (France). Results indicate that the site represents a hunting stand with a strong focus on hunting and animal processing activities, next to a maintenance component that appears to concern retooling and repair activities in preparation of the hunting episode(s). In spite of the site's age, a large part of the tool assemblage proves to have been used while hafted. Expertise in hafting was even quite elaborate in the sense that it includes tools for which hafting is not essential. It confirms the importance of hafting studies for improving insights into assemblage variability and past human behaviour.     

First molecular identification of a hafting adhesive in the Late Howiesons Poort at Diepkloof Rock Shelter (Western Cape,South Africa)

The hafting of tools using adhesive is one of the innovative features that characterizes the southern African Middle Stone Age. This technology has mainstream implications but remains insufficiently documented, largely due to unequal organic preservation and non-adapted analytical procedures. A notable exception is provided by the recent results from the site of Sibudu (Lombard, 2006; Wadley et al., 2009).     

Oskar von Miller and the Art of the Electrical Exhibition: Staging Modernity in Weimar Germany

Within the larger framework of understanding how modernity wasframed within and through the domestic sphere, this articleconsiders the efforts of Bavarian electrical engineer Oskarvon Miller to electrify and modernize Germany against the backdropof Weimar reform movements. Unlike modernist reformers associatedwith such projects as the Bauhaus or the Werkbund, Miller wasa practical systems-builder who sought to encourage consumptionwithin traditional frameworks of home and Heimat. For Miller,exhibiting the benefits of technology was a key element in securingits success, and his reliance on consumers rested on a corporatistideal that would create a new kind of community centred on technology.Whereas in the Imperial era Miller focused on Handwerker andsmall machines as the guarantors of both progress and socialstability, in the Weimar era he turned to housewives and housework.Through his involvement in electrification schemes as well asin his work in founding the Deutsches Museum, one of the firstmuseums of science and technology in Europe, Miller createda powerful narrative of technological progress that was bothtraditional and modern.     

Nature and significance of the Howiesons Poort to post-Howiesons Poort transition at Klein Kliphuis rockshelter,South Africa

This paper considers the transition from Howiesons Poort to post-Howiesons Poort technologies at the rock shelter site of Klein Kliphuis, South Africa. The transition at this site is shown to be gradual, with incremental changes in material selection and in the size and shapes of flakes and cores. Implements which appear to blend characteristics of those distinctive of the earlier and later industries appear briefly at the mid-point of the transition. The results suggest that there is unlikely to have been an occupational hiatus between the Howiesons Poort and post-Howiesons Poort. Explanations for the Howiesons Poort phrased in terms of population expansion and contraction are also difficult to support. Technological changes at this time may relate to environmental variation, though the limited nature of terrestrial archives documenting changes in resource productivity necessitate that any such suggestion be made with caution.     

Clovis,Folsom, and Midland components at the Debra L. Friedkin site,Texas: context,chronology, and assemblages

The archaeological transition from Clovis to Folsom and Midland in the North American Great Plains coincides with the end of the Pleistocene and onset of the Younger Dryas. Comparisons exploring the adaptive changes that took place during this period frequently employ regional-scale approaches. The focus on regional-scale analyses largely results from the dearth of sites repeatedly visited by multiple early Paleoindian groups. However, regional-scale comparisons have the potential to overlook smaller-scale differences. The Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas offers an opportunity to study Midland, Folsom, and Clovis technology and site-use at a single site. This paper presents the context and chronology of the Midland, Folsom, and Clovis assemblages and a site-scale analysis of lithics from the Friedkin site. It is argued that point production and late-stage reduction were primary activities, and the use of bifacial cores for flake tools was important throughout these occupation periods. Site use at Friedkin differs from early Paleoindian occupation at the nearby Gault site and expands our understanding of settlement and technological organization in the region.     

Mobility patterns and core technologies in the Middle Paleolithic of the Levant

Mobility is thought to be a significant source of Middle Paleolithic archaeological variability in the East Mediterranean Levant. However, models of Levantine Middle Paleolithic land-use have historically been based on rare and taphonomically sensitive evidence from a limited number of sites. Because lithic artifacts are the most ubiquitous archaeological remains available to the prehistorian, relationships between stone tool technology and mobility patterns can improve tests of hypotheses about prehistoric land-use strategies. This paper examines variation in Middle Paleolithic mobility strategies in the Levant from the perspective of core technology. A model linking expedient core reduction techniques and decreased mobility is adapted from one developed for late prehistoric contexts in the New World. Incorporating core data from numerous Levantine Middle Paleolithic assemblages, this study tests hypotheses about diachronic change, synchronic geographic variation, and possible hominin behavioral differences in mobility strategies.     

Blade technology and tool forms in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa: the Howiesons Poort and post-Howiesons Poort at Rose Cottage Cave

It has been suggested that between 80 and 35 ka the Middle Stone Age record of South Africa reveals episodes of inventiveness and innovation, punctuated by apparent returns to more conventional technologies. One such episode is the Howiesons Poort (HP). The appearance of a range of small geometric forms, apparently used as insets in multi-component tools, has been considered as evidence of improved hunting weapons, with possible social and symbolic connotations. On the basis of evidence such as backed tool production, small blade technology, the occurrence of typical end-scrapers and burins similar to those encountered in the European Upper Paleolithic, long-distance transport of fine-grained raw materials, and non-lithic novelties, the HP is associated with increased levels of technological efficiency and with behavioral innovations that could have allowed the expansion of African populations to other regions. Yet our knowledge of HP technology and tool production is limited to the analysis of Klasies River Main site by Singer and Wymer and Sarah Wurz, and a few preliminary reports from other sites. This is why we present here a detailed technological and typological analysis of several HP and post-HP assemblages from the well-excavated, well-dated and well-stratified site of Rose Cottage. Our analysis shows: (a) that the HP blade production was a real technical innovation, but was not based on indirect percussion, as often suggested; (b) that blade production was based on the use of marginal percussion which does not occur in the blade production of the Eurasian Middle Paleolithic; (c) that the tool kit was dominated by backed pieces, but not all can be considered as hunting weapons; (d) that neither end-scrapers nor burins are typical of this industry and are no more an antecedent to the European Upper Paleolithic than the end-scrapers and burins of the Middle Paleolithic; (e) that patterns of raw material procurement do not conform to models based on evidence from Klasies; (f) that diachronic changes within the Rose Cottage sequence indicate slow, gradual abandonment of the technological style of the HP; (g) that the post-HP assemblages are of MSA character and are typologically and technologically quite similar to the European Middle Paleolithic; (h) that the lack of persistence of the HP innovations is in need of an explanation. The HP is not a monolithic entity. Implications for the symbolic interpretations of the HP phenomenon are discussed.     

Measuring prehistoric mobility strategies based on obsidian geochemical and technological signatures in the Owens Valley,California

We compare the organization of obsidian flaked stone technologies in two different time periods at CA-INY-30, a village site in southern Owens Valley, eastern California. Previous archaeological studies suggest a reorganization in settlement patterns between the Newberry (ca. 3500–1500 BP) and Marana (ca. 650-contact) periods, from a highly mobile to a more residentially sedentary one. New geochemical data, based on laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analyses of obsidian artifacts associated with discrete house floors, support this basic settlement model, but reveal new detail in how people moved across the landscape and accessed, extracted, reduced and used obsidian resources. In the earlier Newberry period, there is no relationship between flake size and distance-to-source, and the falloff curve relating frequency of obsidian against distance is more gradual, as expected, but contrary to our expectations, source diversity is not higher. These factors suggest extremely high mobility, but also selective extraction of particular sources. Newberry obsidian may have been acquired by groups of hunters who embedded quarrying within long-distance trips to distant hunting grounds, and subsequently transported bifacial cores to base camps. By contrast, Marana patterns show strong relationships between flake size and distance from source and steeper fall-off curves, suggesting groups acquired their obsidian primarily from closer sources, likely via exchange networks. At the same time, geochemical diversity, especially among smaller resharpening flakes, is higher in the Marana period, highlighting the wide-ranging conveyance systems through which obsidian moved.     

Lithic refitting and movement connections: the NW area of level TD10-1 at the Gran Dolina site (Sierra de Atapuerca,Burgos, Spain)

The first lithic refit studies were carried out at the end of 19th century, but the method was not considered an area of real interest to archaeology until quite recently. Today, lithic refitting is applied in a multitude of areas of enquiry including lithic technology, intra-site and inter-site spatial distribution, archaeostratigraphy and formation processes. In this paper, we present a refit study of the lithic materials recovered in the base of the NW sector of level TD10 at the site of Gran Dolina (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain). We aim to provide information about spatial distribution through identifying activity areas and the internal connections between those areas. Our work resulted in various refits whose connections reveal the movements of the pieces and/or knappers that once occupied the site. Our results also show the importance of studying the set of materials as a whole and the bias involved in analyzing only a small sample. The refits, connections and directions of movement allow us to infer areas in which an activity took place, but these results must be confirmed in future works covering the entire lithic assemblage of TD10.     

Prepared core reduction at the site of Kudu Koppie in northern South Africa: temporal patterns across the Earlier and Middle Stone Age boundary

Kudu Koppie is a stratified late Earlier Stone Age and Middle Stone Age archaeological site located in the northern Limpopo Province of South Africa. The prepared core reduction strategies are described and temporal trends across the ESA–MSA boundary are presented. The prepared cores and endproducts of Kudu Koppie suggest that both the late ESA and MSA toolmakers employed the Levallois Volumetric Concept, but they often exploited a nodule's natural convexities and form. The MSA toolmakers used a greater variety of prepared core methods and more intensively exploited cryptocrystalline and microcrystalline nodules, the scarcity of which may have resulted in a more “formalized” application of the Levallois Volumetric Concept. These observations are considered within the context of human behavioural evolution.     

Late Pleistocene Crocuta crocuta spelaea (Goldfuss, 1823) clans as prezewalski horse hunters and woolly rhinoceros scavengers at the open air commuting den and contemporary Neanderthal camp site Westeregeln (central Germany)

Late Pleistocene Ice Age Crocuta crocuta spelaea ( Goldfuss, 1823) hyenas from the open-air gypsum karst site Westeregeln (Saxony-Anhalt, central Germany) is dated into the early to middle Late Pleistocene. Hyena clans apparently used the karst for food storage and as “commuting den”, where typical high amounts (15% of the NISP) of hyena remains appear, also faecal pellets in concentrations for den marking purposes. Additionally small carnivores Meles, Vulpes and Mustela appear to have used some cavities as dens. Several hundreds of lowland “mammoth steppe fauna” bones (NISP = 572) must have been accumulated primarily by hyenas, and not by Neanderthals at the contemporary hyena/human camp site. Abundant caballoid horse remains of “E. germanicus Nehring, (1884)” are revised by the holotype and original material to the small E. c. przewalskii horse. Woolly rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis remains are also abundant, and were left in several cases with typical hyena scavenging damages. Rangifer tarandus (11%) is mainly represented by numerous fragments of shed female antlers that were apparently gathered by humans, and antler bases from male animals that were collected and chewed in few cases (only large male antlers) by hyenas. The large quantities of small reindeer antlers must have been the result of collection by humans; their stratigraphic context is unclear but such large quantities most probably resulted from schamanic activities. The hyena site overlaps with a Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal camp, as well as possibly with a later human Magdalénian site.     

A tale of two sites: Functional site differentiation and lithic technology during the Late Pithouse period in the Mimbres area of Southwestern New Mexico

The raw materials from which stone tools are made can provide considerable information relevant to behavioral variation within a prehistoric population. By examining the stone used for tools from two different types of Late Pithouse period (A.D. 550-1000) residential sites from the Mimbres Mogollon area of Southwestern New Mexico, this paper illustrates how understanding the lithic landscape of a region provides a means to assess behavioral variation in stone procurement practices. The analysis indicates that the differences in mobility and economic pursuits between longer-term residential sites containing pit structures and a shorter-term seasonal residential site with ephemeral architecture structured the raw material procurement practices of site’s occupants. Pit structure sites were focused on agricultural pursuits and used a technology that centered on the production of informal tools fashioned from locally available raw materials. The seasonal residential site focused on wild resources and evidenced greater reliance on formal tool production using raw materials acquired from beyond the immediate vicinity of the site. Despite increasing sedentism and agricultural dependence of the region’s population, some portion of the population exercised seasonal mobility strategies and associated technological and behavioral practices more typical of hunting and gathering populations, suggesting a diverse socio-economic system within the region.     

Interpreting pachyderm single carcass sites in the African Lower and Early Middle Pleistocene record: A multidisciplinary approach to the site of Nadung’a 4 (Kenya)

Nadung’a 4 is one of the single carcass pachyderm sites recorded in East Africa during the Lower and Early Middle Pleistocene. The site has yielded an abundant lithic assemblage in close association with the partial carcass of an elephant. Conjoined pedological, geoarchaeological, spatial, technological, and taphonomical analyses have been carried out to address the relationship between hominids and elephant. The resulting data are consistent with a non-fortuitous association between both categories of remains. The lithic artefacts do not match a classical Acheulean tool-kit, as would be expected for the time period ascribed to the site, and the functional patterns inferred from their analysis make this site radically different from other purported butchery sites. The implications of these original features are discussed.     

The technology of Stone Age colonization: an empirical,regional-scale examination of Clovis unifacial stone tool reduction,allometry, and edge angle from the North American Lower Great Lakes region

There is now broad consensus that the appearance of Clovis in Northeastern North America (Great Lakes, New England) represents a colonization pulse into recently deglaciated landscapes. Due to the increased resource uncertainty that comes with colonizing unfamiliar landscapes, it was hypothesized that the majority tool component of Clovis assemblages, unifacial stone tools, should have been knapped on tool blanks possessing the design properties of longevity and functional flexibility to facilitate exploration mobility and guard against the absence of toolstone sources in the new landscape. These properties are optimized by large, flat flakes, possessing large surface area relative to flake thickness. Since discarded and, at times, exhausted unifacial stone tools do not preserve the original dimensions of the blank upon which they were created – necessary items for a true test of blank morphology selection – this study presents a set of predictions for inferring whether Clovis unifacial stone tool blanks were selected for the properties of longevity and functional flexibility based on evidence that Clovis people actually capitalized on those properties. Due to the nature of Clovis unifacial stone tools, tool size was of necessity used as a proxy for tool reduction, on the grounds that smaller tools are more likely to have been resharpened than larger tools, at least in the case of unifacial flake tools. The results showed that less resharpened tools possessed flatter, less spherical shapes than the more resharpened tools, which possessed more globular, spherical shapes, suggesting Clovis foragers exploited the retouch potential afforded by the larger, flatter blanks. Edge angles showed no relationship with tool reduction, suggesting that Clovis foragers exploited the functional flexibility afforded by flatter blanks by adjusting the edge angle to be either higher or lower as needed. These results are consistent with the notion that human colonizers, who did not know the abundance or location of stone outcrops prior to settling an unfamiliar territory, not only “geared up” before leaving a stone source, but geared up as efficiently as possible by carefully selecting the blanks they chose to carry. Broader implications for such careful unifacial stone tool blank selection are discussed.     

Lithic Artefacts as a Source of Cultural,Social and Economic Information: the evidence from Aksum,Ethiopia

Extended research covering an area of approximately 300 sq km centered on the ancient metropolis of Aksum has revealed a coherent sequence of development in stone tool production and use spanning most of the last millennium BC and the first millennium AD. It has provided new evidence of the presence of multiple independent lithic traditions in the Pre-Aksumite period, and of Aksumite social and economic organization. This paper summarizes the results of the detailed study of a large corpus of excavated and surface-collected lithics, emphasizing their functional characteristics.

---

Résumé  De vastes recherches couvrant sur une superficie d’environ 300 kilomètres carrés et concentrées sur l’ancienne métropole d’Aksoum ont mis à jour une série cohérente de développements dans la production et l’utilisation d’outils de pierre au cours du dernier millénaire avant J.C. et du premier millénaire après J.C. Ces recherches ont fourni de nouvelles informations sur la présence de multiples traditions lithiques indépendantes durant la période pré-aksoumite, et sur l’organisation sociale et économique des Aksoumites. Cet article présente les résultats d’une étude détailée portant sur un large répertoire de vestiges lithiques recueillis au cours de fouilles et collectes de surface, et met en exergue leurs caractéristiques fonctionnelles.