Journal of Lithic Studies

The New evidence for the Palaeolithic on the island of Gökçeada (Imbros), North Eastern Aegean

2021-04-26T18:03:31+01:00

Eksino, on the island of Gökçeada (Imbros) in the Northeast Aegean, is a new open-air site with evidence of Palaeolithic cultural remains. Stone tools collected by an initial survey have clarified an assessment of the site from the Lower Palaeolithic, and brought to light new evidence from the Middle Palaeolithic as well as transition to the Upper Palaeolithic. Eksino is probably one of the most significant Lower Palaeolithic tool collections in the North Aegean, and finds such as chopper or chopping tools and Acheulean bifacial handaxes from the site show that the North Aegean may be another possible dispersal route from hominids to Europe via the East and Northeast Mediterranean during the Lower Palaeolithic. Middle Palaeolithic finds are frequent in the site and finds resemble the typical Mousterian type which is characterized by discoidal cores, Levallois cores and flakes, scrapers, denticulates, notches and points. Upper Palaeolithic finds are rare in the site, and a bifacial leaf point and large crescent-shaped backed pieces made on blades may reveal the presence of the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition on the island. This new data from Palaeolithic Gökçeada is likely to fill key geographic gaps associated with the initial dispersal of hominins through the northeast Aegean islands.

Stone Tools in the High Molise Mountains (Italy): a first Report

2021-04-26T18:03:04+01:00

In the last decades, several researches focused on the inland areas of Molise Region (Central-Southern Italy) to investigate the occupation and exploitation of this environment during Pleistocene and Holocene.

The “Molise Survey Project” started in 2015 with the aim to explore, through systematic surveys, an area of 60 square kilometres, chiefly characterized by a mountainous landscape and part of the Central-Southern Italy Apennines. The project seeks to investigate the patterns of human occupation in the mountainous landscape between the provinces of Campobasso and Isernia. The surveys, carried out during the last four years, allowed the identification of 19 prehistoric sites ranging from Palaeolithic to Bronze Age: the archaeological materials belonging to the latter period are being studied by the team of “Paletnologia” of Sapienza University of Rome. This work aims to show the preliminary results of the analysis of the lithic assemblage acquired during the summer of 2016 surveys, focusing on raw material procurement and the related chaîne opératoire, also considering post-depositional agents. The obtained data allowed to reassess the human presence over inland and high-altitude areas of Molise during prehistoric times, stressing a seasonal use of the territory, from Palaeolithic to Late Prehistory, with different patterns of occupation and exploitation.

Early Harappan interaction between Sindh and Gujarat, as evidenced by lithic tools

2021-09-14T07:15:20+01:00

The spread and development of the Indus Valley Civilisation, also known as the Harappan civilisation, one of the oldest civilisations of the world, is still an enigma. Indus Valley Civilisation was spread over modern day India and Pakistan. The civilisation has been divided into three phases, Early or Pre-Harappan, Mature or Urban Harappan and Post- or Late Harappan. The Urban phase is very well studied and understood. However, this phase is the culmination of a process that started much earlier. A lot of effort during recent years has led to new discoveries and clues regarding the interactions during the Early Harappan period between now politically divided areas. Unfortunately, this struggle to understand the spread of Early Harappan cultural traits between these distinct regions is one on-going and far from over.

Explorations and subsequent excavations at the site of Juna Khatiya, situated in Kachchh district of Gujarat, India have brought to light noteworthy evidence of the Early Harappan period in terms of artefacts and burials. Other than the ubiquitous pottery, these indications include a lithic blade industry comprising of various types of blades, various types of scrapers, points and associated lithic debitage. The tools are made out of locally available raw material (mostly chalcedony). However, the discovery of a few blades of chert imported from the Rohri hills (situated about 500 km as-the-crow-flies from Gujarat) in modern Pakistan is important. Rohri chert blades are significant since they are very distinct and easily identifiable. The wide distribution of standardised Rohri chert blades is also often regarded as a testimony to the Harappan efficiency in long distance trade and craft production. The technique used in the manufacturing of these blades is known as the crested guiding ridge, a technique not observed in Gujarat before this contact between Sindh (in modern Pakistan) and Gujarat (in modern India) developed. This paper highlights the contributions of lithic artefacts to understand the Early Harappan interactions between these two politically divided but culturally united regions.

Raw materials and functional designs of Fishtail projectile points from southern Brazil

2021-08-04T16:59:51+01:00

This study analyses the lithic landscape and the selection of rocks used to manufacture Fishtail points (FP) in southern Brazil, their designs, and some functional aspects. In order to identify the offer of lithic resources, we carried out several surveys throughout 15 months in 47 counties in the Southern Brazil covered by the Botucatú - Serra Geral Vulcano Sedimentary Complex. The lithic composition of numerous hill slopes, fallen rocks, and accumulations of pebbles and boulders in the riversides was evaluated. The results show that basalts (including a small proportion of andesites and rhyodacites-rhyolites), and silicified sandstones, are ubiquitous in the landscape. Conversely, non-translucent cherts are scarce, so their acquisition would have been time-consuming. However, these local cherts were the rocks mostly used to manufacture these points, being another example of the selectivity for high quality rocks by Paleoamerican hunter-gatherers. The same cherts selected in southern Brazil to produce the FP were used to manufacture other point-types by local hunter-gatherers of the early and middle Holocene grouped in the so-called “Umbú Tradition”. Not a single FP of the entire collection analyzed here was made from silicified limestones, which is one of the most common raw materials among the Uruguayan FPs, nor were they made from quartzites as were most of the FPs of the Pampean plains.

Regarding to the designs of these projectiles, some morphotypes appear to have been designed to produce multiple injuries through successive thrusts and withdrawals in the bodies of the prey, while in others, the design seems to have favoured penetration and fixation on the prey, suggesting in this case, a single shot technique for each projectile. As the maintenance process unfolded, especially for points below ~ 80 mm in length, they show features that negatively impacted their efficiency, including distinct asymmetries, somewhat open front angles, a decrease in the cutting perimeter and cross-sectional area, an increase in the bevel angle of the blade edges, and a tendency to a conical cross-section. Behaviours intended to counteract these problems were maximizing the length of the leading edge, maintaining the symmetry and the triangular blade resting on straight shoulders, and maintaining the aerodynamic properties as much as it were possible, in order to improve their lethality and the fixation capacity.

Beyond these rejuvenation processes, three different morphotypes of points appear to be included within the sample. The first includes points over 120 mm and ~ 80 g in weight, with triangular or slightly lanceolate limbs, which mostly present straight shoulders, but there are also examples of rounded shoulders. The second design corresponds to projectiles between 110 and 87 mm and ~30 g in weight, with triangular or slightly lanceolate blades and straight shoulders. The third design presents the classic shape of these projectiles, with a fish silhouette, with maximum lengths below 90 mm, with a more robust and conceptually different design, where the angles of the edges of the blades and of the shoulders are equal, perhaps with the intention to facilitate the spear withdrawal to produce multiple injuries.

Shine on you crazy diamond: Symbolism and social use of fluorite ornaments in Iberia’s late prehistory

2021-08-12T19:23:34+01:00

Fluorite ornaments have been recorded in different sites of Europe since Upper Paleolithic. Due to its visual appearance and physical properties, some translucent or transparent mineralogies like fluorite were searched for or casually acquired by late prehistory’s human communities. After intensive research on archaeological contexts from the Iberian Peninsula with personal ornaments from 4^th to 2^nd millennia BCE, we have recently identified and characterized for the first time an important number of fluorite ornaments, confronting a previous background where little attention was paid. Our work has been carried out in different archaeological collections and museums from the whole Iberian Peninsula by non-destructive techniques (Raman spectroscopy, portable X-ray fluorescence (p-XRF) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD), that revealed the nature of fluorite ornaments and points to its consideration as scarce and highly symbolic items during late prehistory. A total of 36 fluorite beads from 23 sites are here recorded and studied, many of them unpublished or wrong catalogued as other mineralogies. These adornments could have important roles in trade and use among the communities of Iberia from the 4th millennium BCE onwards, because of their scarcity and its recurrent association with important funerary complex and exotic materials. Fluorite ornaments could have been significant and special symbols in the development of new and exclusive raw materials in the context of increasing social complexity and inequality.

A prehistoric jade axe from Galicia (Northwestern Iberia): Researching its origin

2021-05-12T10:07:20+01:00

The Vilapedre axe (Lugo, Northwest Iberia) has been traditionally considered by archaeologists as evidence of prehistoric long-distance contacts along the Atlantic Coast of France and Spain. This artefact - as other “Tumiac type” axes (long polished blades, generally butt-perforated) - would have been produced in Brittany during the Neolithic (5th millennium BCE) using jadeitite as raw material, a green-coloured rock for which there are sources in the western Italian Alps. In this paper, we have traced the possible archaeological origin of this artefact back by examining the personal files of one of its first owners, Santiago de la Iglesia. Furthermore, we have conducted a mineralogical (X-Ray Diffraction, XRD) and an elemental analysis (Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-ray Detection, SEM-EDX) of both the Vilapedre axe and geological samples from several places at the Alps where prehistoric quarrying of greenstones has been reported. The aims were physicochemically characterizing the axe to provide information about its possible geological source. During our analyses, we have found significant compositional similarities between the Vilapedre axe and one of the geological samples coming from the Alps (Alp06). The results are therefore consistent with the alleged Alpine origin of this artefact. The presence of this axe in Northwest Spain, together with other evidence, such as the presence of objects of Iberian origin in Breton monuments, strongly suggests the existence of contacts between both regions of the Atlantic façade during the Neolithic onwards in which seafaring would undoubtedly have played an important role.

Lithic raw material in the Cantabrian region: Dialectical relationship between flint and quartzite in the Palaeolithic record

2021-08-04T14:36:00+01:00

The increase, in quantitative and qualitative terms, of research attending to the geological nature of rocks found in archaeological contexts is changing our perspectives about social and economic territories articulated by Palaeolithic societies in the Cantabrian Region. Practically the only raw material researched in a solid geoarchaeological approach in this area is flint. This paper addresses how the near absence of in-depth geoarchaeological research into raw materials other than flint is modifying our perception of the procurement and management mechanism of raw material in the Cantabrian Region during the Palaeolithic.

To consider this matter in depth, we present the bibliographic and quantitative analysis of 30 representative archaeological sites from the Cantabrian Region whose assemblages were described lithologically using basic and primary categories. The state of play depicts a geographic distribution of raw material in the Cantabrian Region where quartzite is associated with the western sector and flint with the east. Interconnected with this axis, there is a chronological tendency that promotes standardisation in the use of flint by Palaeolithic societies following a chronological order, from the older to the more recent periods. This information, and its contextualisation with the new perspectives resulting from the application of the geoarchaeological proposal used to understand flint procurement, allows us to understand the general tendencies of raw material distribution of the region. Especially, we can detect how the absence of geoarchaeological methodologies of other raw materials than flint has modified the perception of the economic and social dynamics articulated around raw material by Palaeolithic people. This bias does not only affect the geographical and chronological axes, emphasising information from the regions and periods where flint is represented, but also promotes the over-interpretation of long-distance procurement, therefore, building up narratives exclusively based on human mobility.

This situation has generated an incomplete and unbalanced picture of the procurement and management strategies followed by Palaeolithic societies because quartzite, the second most-often used lithic raw material, and other raw materials have only been studied using geoarchaeological methods within the last few years. This research finally points to the continuation of in-depth research of quartzite and other raw materials as the next steps to re-interpret the current paradigms about procurement and management of raw material by Palaeolithic societies, and, therefore, modify our perspectives of social and economic territories.

Book review: The prehistoric apprentice: Investigating apprenticeship, know-how and expertise in prehistoric technologies; L’apprenti préhistorique: Appréhender l’apprentissage, les savoir-faire et l’expertise à travers les productions techniques des soci

2021-06-02T18:04:27+01:00

Describing cultural change and variability and inferring sociocultural dynamics about past people and communities may be among archaeology’s main goals as a field of practice. In this regard, the concept of skill has proved its usefulness to, time and again, expand the breath of archaeologists and lithic technologists’ analyses. It covers a wide range of applications, from apprenticeship, cognition, paleo-sociology, spatial organization. It is one of the main causes for material culture variability, up there with raw material constraints, design, technological organization or cultural norms. Yet, while skill has certainly been the focus of some research in the last decades, it remains quite peripheral, when considering how central the concept should be to technological inquiries. Whatever the reasons may be, this book, edited by Laurent Klaric and fully bilingual (French and English), aims at changing that, and argues for skill to become a central concern in lithic technology. Its chapters do so strongly and the end-result is a book that should become a reference for lithic technologists, whatever their research interests or schools of thought may be.

Book review: Anthropomorphic images in rock art paintings and rock carvings

2021-09-14T12:55:59+01:00

Anthropomorphic Images in Rock Art Paintings and Rock Carvings

by Terence Meaden and Herman Bender

Archaeopress, 2020, pp. 322. ISBN 978-178-969-357-7

https://www.archaeopress.com/archaeopressshop/public/displayProductDetail.asp?id={19B19455-
613A-41E7-968F-D99720CA62C2}

Hunting on the coast: An image gallery of Rompecráneos

2021-06-04T21:19:01+01:00

The Rompecráneo is a special kind of lithic artifact which was, presumably, involved in the capture of pinnipeds carried out along the Patagonian coast of Argentina during prehistoric times. Recent papers had offered some information about their morphology but up to now they are poorly studied. In order to offset this situation in a previous work we addressed their role in hunting technics developed at the archaeological locality of Punta Entrada (Santa Cruz, Argentina). This allowed us to propose that rompecráneos were used in combination with spears when hunting on the coast. With the aim of expanding this information, here we present an image gallery of some rompecráneos recovered there. Two of these pieces share a similar morphology but were made of different lithic raw materials. The other one has the appearance of a bola stone but its weight is higher than other bola stones in Patagonia. That is why it is considered a different kind of artifact. The importance of studying these kinds of artifacts is that they have the potential of providing information about the way people interacted with the different resources (biotic and abiotic) in the past so that a better understanding of human behavior can be developed.

Gallery

Figure 1. Geographic location of Punta Entrada.

Figure 2. Rompecráneo made of andesite. The base can be seen in the lower part of the image. Weight: 593 g.

Figure 3. Different view of the rompecráneo shown in Figure 2

Figure 4. Rompecráneo made of coquina. The base can be seen in the lower part of the image. Weight: 421 g.

Figure 5. Different view of the rompecráneo shown in Figure 3.

Figure 6. Bola stone made of andesite. Weight:1.476 kg.

Figure 7. Detail of the groove of the bola stone shown in Figure 6

Figure 8. Context of recovery of bola stone presented in Figure 6.