An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Hafting and Stone Tool Diversity among the Gamo of Ethiopia

The significance of flaked stone tool variation has been a source of great archaeological debate for over 100 years. Even though evidence for stone tool hafting exists as far back as the Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age, there is a dearth of information concerning how hafting affects stone tool technology. This ethnoarchaeological study of hafted stone scrapers among the Gamo of southern Ethiopia examines why a single cultural group utilizes two different hafts, which generate different lithic morphologies, technologies, and spatial distributions. The relationships between history, environment, and social group membership are explored to demonstrate how these associations create variation in technological practices.

Evaluating consistency in typology and classification

Typological systems are essential for communication between anthropologists as well as for interpretive purposes. For both communication and interpretation, it is important to know that different individuals using the same typology classify artifacts in similar ways, but the consistency with which typologies are used is rarely evaluated or explicitly tested. There are theoretical, practical, and cultural reasons for this failure. Disagreements among archaeologists using the same typology may originate in the typology itself (i.e., imprecise type definitions, confusing structure) or in the classification process, because of observer errors, differences in perception and interpretation, and biases. We review previous attempts to evaluate consistency in typology and classification, and use consensus analysis to examine one well-established typology. Both consensus and disparity are apparent among the typologists in our case study, and this allows us to explore the kinds of forces that shape agreement and diversity in the use of all typological systems. We argue that issues of typological consistency are theoretically and methodologically important. Typological consistency can be explicitly tested, and must be if we hope to use typologies confidently.     

A preliminary study of patterns of replication in Scoring linear enamel hypoplasias

In order to investigate replicability in scoring linear enamel hypoplasias 59 anterior teeth were evaluated by three observers. Hypoplasias were identified with low-power microscopy and by the unaided eye. Location on the tooth was determined through caliper and micrometer measurement as well as assignment to tooth ‘thirds’. Hypoplasia size was determined through measurement of episode width and comparison with a cast designed to categorize types of hypoplasia severity. Intra-observer analysis showed consistent scoring of about 65 per cent of individual hypoplasias between rounds, with high replicability in episode location, size and severity using all methods tested. Inter-observer error was similarly low for episode size and location, but consistent scoring of individual hypoplasias between observer pairs ranged between 21 and 39 per cent. It is likely that the most important factor in the low level of replicability is the slight size of the majority of hypoplasias involved. Thus, the results suggest that further work should be directed toward developing the minimum threshold for scoring episodes. Other issues include measures to control ‘drift’ in scoring procedures over time, and procedures to score large cervical hypoplasias in canines, which can appear as multiple episodes with magnification. Among the various scoring methods tested, determination of episode location was highly replicable using all three techniques. Episode width was also highly replicable using the micrometer, but the cast association proved less successful.     

Reinventing Imperata: Revaluing Alang‐Alang Grasslands in Indonesia

This article takes a new look at the economic value and cultural significance of Imperata cylindrica grasslands in Indonesia, drawing particularly on fieldwork in Bali, Lombok and West Timor, where the focus is on the use of alang‐alang grass for roof thatch. The development of tourism has resulted in the commodification of thatch in Bali and Lombok for quality roofing and insulation. With its visual impact reinforcing its traditional cultural significance, the thatched roof has become a tourist artefact, its resulting high price elevating Imperata to the status of temporary cash crop and lucrative export. In West Timor, on the other hand, the grass has become a scarce commodity for roofing traditional houses. While it lacks the high prices of Bali‐Lombok, in Timor the cheapness of thatch in this time of economic crisis has increased its value over alternatives. This article explores the valuing and revaluing of Imperata within various agro‐ecological and economic niches, and provides case studies of some of the highly adaptive and opportunistic responses of local people to land‐use change. While the Bali case represents an extreme example of the grass as commodity, the more significant view of its value is the place it continues to occupy, in a subsistence or contingency sense, in many rural economies.     

Manipulating the Maritime Cultural Landscape: Vernacular Boats and Economic Relations on Nineteenth-Century Achill Island,Ireland

Resistance to British control of Ireland’s maritime landscape under the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1800–1922) was highly localized, enacted in part through Irish choices in boat construction and patterns of movement at sea. British naval authorities overseeing Achill Island in County Mayo used both coercive and conciliatory means to replace Irish subsistence fishing from regional vernacular boats with commercial fishing from larger non-local vessels reliant upon piers and dredged harbors. These changes encouraged islanders’ dependency upon imported food and wage-based employment performed under Protestant surveillance. Indigenous boats including curraghs and yawls played central roles in Irish resistance to these changes, through the assertion of traditional lifeways and practices.     

An assessment of the luminescence sensitivity of Australian quartz with respect to sediment history

This study provides a preliminary systematic characterisation of OSL sensitivity, with respect to sediment history, of single grains of Australian quartz from a variety of source rocks and depositional contexts. Samples from two distinct lithologies and with relatively short modern sedimentary histories were compared in an examination of the influence of rock type on OSL sensitivity. Sediments derived from weathered sandstone were found to be brighter than those from metamorphosed schists, suggesting that sensitivity may be inherited from the source rock and its earlier sedimentary history. Secondly, quartz from the same source, but different modes of deposition, was compared to assess the effect on sensitivity of nature of exposure to light during the most recent bleaching event. Quartz grain sensitivity appears not to vary depending on the mode of sediment deposition, suggesting that the nature of exposure to light during deposition is less important in the sensitisation process. This study highlights the complexity and variety of natural sedimentary quartz, demonstrating the limitations of an investigation based solely on OSL sensitivity. Further systematic investigation into the physical, geological and geomorphological characteristics of sediments is proposed to better understand the mechanisms of luminescence sensitisation in quartz.