Use-wear (Other Keyword)
1-25 (26 Records)
Methods, materials, and acknowledgments for generating the ground stone use-wear reference materials.
Analyses of Archaeological Use-Wear on Artifacts Recovered from the Salado Draw Watershed, Lea County, New Mexico (2023)
This lithic use-wear study is a component of an undertaking entitled Salado Draw Archaeological Survey, Small-scale Excavation, and Geomorphological Characterization, GSA Contract No. GS-10F-0396P. The work was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Carlsbad Field Office (CFO) as part of research carried out under the Permian Basin Programmatic Agreement, Blanket Purchase Agreement No. 11, Contract No. L14PA00010. It addresses Task 16 (lithic use-wear and...
An Analysis of an Early-to-Mid Holocene Projectile Point Assemblage from Little Steamboat Point Rockshelter, Warner Valley, Oregon (2015)
Little Steamboat Point 1 (LSP-1) is a small stratified rockshelter in Warner Valley, Oregon. It contained an early-to-mid Holocene component consisting of faunal remains, lithic tools, and debitage. My use-wear analysis of 20 Great Basin Stemmed and Cascade projectile points examines how those tools were used via macroscopic and low-power microscopic techniques. Since the shelter seems to represent a short-occupation activity site, this analysis provides insight into the hunting and processing...
Apparel in Peril: An archaeological study of how clothing becomes embedded with human suffering (2015)
The Undocumented Migration Project has recovered over 4,000 articles of clothing once worn by migrants crossing the MexicoArizona border. This often darkly colored apparel is intended to help people furtively move across the desert and avoid detection by Border Patrol. When recovered archaeologically, this clothing is often torn, faded, and stained with bodily fluids that reflect different forms of physical pain experienced en route. Here we employ the concept of "usewear" (i.e. modifications...
Differential use of copper in northern and southern Wisconsin socieities (2016)
Avocational collectors in Wisconsin have collected thousands of copper artifacts over the last century and half. This copper has gone largely unexamined by the professional archaeological community. The archaeological literature is therefore silent on basic facts such as size ranges and changes in use of the raw material from society to society. Copper entered the economic systems of these Archaic Wisconsin societies as an innovative, but ultimately redundant raw material given the existence of...
Elemental and microscopic characterization of quartzite stone discs and knives from the Slocan Narrows Pithouse Village, Upper Columbia River Region. (2015)
Chipped stone tools made from fine-grained quartzite with thin mica-rich (phyllitic) lamellae are commonly recovered from archaeological contexts along the Upper Columbia River in the interior Pacific Northwest. In this study we present the results of a comprehensive analysis of a collection of quartzite discs and knives recovered from the Slocan Narrows Pithouse Village. Our analysis includes examination of microscopic use-wear traces to attempt tool function interpretation, as well as...
Evaluating lithic microwear traces in terms of settlement mobility patterns and raw mateiral distributions (2015)
The paper investigates concrete methods to evaluate lithic microwear data in conjunction with human mobility patterns and raw material distributions. Since the discovery of micro-polish variety reflecting different worked materials, use-wear analysts emphasized reconstruction of individual behavioral episodes at the site location. However, actual wear traces reveal highly complex patterns, partially attributable to combined factors of mobility and raw material selection. Conventional methods of...
Examining the Use Lives of Archaic Bipointed Bifaces: Cache Blades from the Riverside Site (2017)
During the Late Archaic to Early Woodland transition, caches of blue gray chert bifaces were deposited throughout the Midwest, often in association with burials. Their utility between manufacture and deposition has long been the subject of speculation, but never compellingly demonstrated. Comprehensive use-wear analysis of these bifaces demonstrates that they were, in fact, used prior to deposition. Unfortunately, use-wear data in isolation tells us little about the actual role these bifaces...
Experimental Research Concerning the Production of Early Holocene Ostrich Shell Beads at the Shui Donggou Site, Ningxia, China. (2015)
The appearance of art is an important development in behavioral modernity. In this paper we address the production of early Holocene ostrich eggshell beads. Such beads have been found in many Chinese late Paleolithic sites and also the early Holocene site of Shui Donggou. The study of these ancient beads will help us to better understand early craft production and the role art played in the development of society. In this paper, we present the results of our experimental ostrich shell bead...
An Experimental Study of Lithic Use-wear Multi-stage Formation (2015)
Use-wear analysis has become an essential method for the functional study of lithic artifacts from archaeological assemblages. However, research concerning multi-stage use-wear formation is poorly developed. In this paper, we report the results of an experimental study focusing on flake scar patterns, rounding and polish formation in multiple stages. For comparative data and interpretation, nine cases of single working tasks were undertaken on scraping bone with Onondaga chert from Ontario Lake....
Exploring the Ineffable Aspects of Stone Tools (2017)
Use-wear analysis provides precise functional attributes for materials and provides yet another source of data for archaeologists to use in classifying objects. People who used objects in the past knew them in other ways including what they did, when and how they were used, and by whom. In my presentation I propose that by combining use-wear, technological, and spatial evidence it is possible to approach more closely the complex correspondences that exist between materials and people. ...
"Flesh Wounds": Migrant Injuries and the Archaeological Traces of Pain (2015)
While crossing the desert clandestinely, migrants routinely experience a broad range of physical injuries including dehydration, hyperthermia, exhaustion, cuts, bruises, and blisters, all of which are conceptualized by federal law enforcement to act as forms of deterrence. Drawing on a combination of interviews with migrants and experimental research on hiking injuries, we highlight the many ways that the desert hurts people and the various coping strategies that border crossers have developed....
The Functional Analysis of an Expedient Flake Tool Industry:Preliminary Results (2016)
Expedient technology, which may appear to be indiscriminant from non-utilized flakes and flaking debris, likely constitutes larger components of most lithic assemblages. Both retouched and minimally modified flakes were examined using different methods of lithic analysis. The preliminary results of both a low and high power microwear analysis of the expedient flake artifacts from the Mussel Beach site are reported in this study. The microscopic examination of these artifacts may offer an...
Ground Stone Use-Wear Digital Reference Materials
Images of experimentally generated use-wear: wild grass seed processing on a variety of basalt and sandstone mortars and grinding slabs This collection of photomicrographs and photographs is posted on tDAR to facilitate data sharing and comparisons between different experimental use-wear programs. The images can also function as a teaching aid, or as a supplemental resource for use-wear analysis of ground stone. Images were created as part of the following project: Formal models of...
The Gunflints of St. Charles: A General Analysis of Their Characteristics (2018)
23SC2101 is a multi-component site with French Colonial through 20th-Century domestic occupations. A number of gunflints have been located throughout the site. The site is located in an urban area and many of the upper levels have suffered from severe disturbance. Based off the shape and color of these gunflints, this poster will suggest the weapon types the gunflints may have been used in and the geographic areas from which the flints were sourced. Analysis of the wear-patterning will also be...
Handaxe Function at Shishan Marsh-1: Preliminary Results of an Experimental Use-Wear Analysis (2017)
Although handaxes are one of the longest lasting and most iconic stone tools in the Paleolithic, little experimental work has been done to inform archaeologists about handaxe function. The research presented here explores handaxe function using low powered microscopy and an image-based GIS approach. 32 handaxes were created with chert collected from outcrops in the region surrounding Shishan Marsh-1. For the purpose of this study, the researchers focused on experiments involving subsistence...
Interpretation of Burial M33 at the Longshan Site of Liangchengzhen (2015)
A relatively rich burial, M33, was excavated in 2000 at the late prehistoric, Longshan period center of Liangchengzhen by a collaborative team from Shandong University, The Field Museum, and Yale University. The most unusual grave good was a turquoise artifact located on the left arm of the interred. This presentation provides a description of contextual, use-wear, comparative and replication analyses in order to better understand the nature of the turquoise artifact and the burial ritual for...
Late Wurm adaptive systems in Tohoku Japan: viewed from lithic use-wear analysis (2016)
The paper investigates lithic use-wear data from the viewpoint of human mobility patterns and functional inter-site variability. Microwear analysis based on controlled experiments was initiated in 1970s in Japan, and the method combined both high power and low power (that is, high magnification and low magnification) approach. Since then accumulated case studies focused on the Upper Paleolithic period of Northeastern Honshu Island of Japan (Tohoku District). Chronological sequences and...
Multiple functions for an assemblage of Middle Stone Age Points: Use-Wear Evidence from Magubike Rockshelter, Tanzania. (2017)
Preliminary lithic use-wear evidence from Magubike Rockshelter, Tanzania, suggests a mixed function for an assemblage of Middle Stone Age points, including a possible projectile point role. The development of hafted hunting weapons during the Middle Stone Age is thought to have marked a major juncture in human behavioural evolution. Not only did the emergence of this technology likely have a major impact on the foraging strategies of hunting and gathering populations, many have speculated that...
Patterns of Lithic Edge Damage from the Open-air Middle Stone Age Assemblages at Vleesbaai and Oyster Bay, South Africa (2015)
Much of our understanding of the South African Middle Stone Age (MSA) comes from deep sequences recovered from caves and rockshelters. These discreet, enclosed contexts represent one aspect of a foraging continuum; where many other activities take place on the continuous, open landscape. A different suite of taphonomic processes are also more likely to occur on open landscapes, complicating comparisons between site contexts. Developing meaningful inferences regarding past human behaviors...
Pitchstone in Prehistory: New Insights into the Mesolithic and Neolithic use of Pitchstone in Scotland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Obsidian Studies of the Old and New Worlds" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pitchstone is a glassy volcanic rock similar to obsidian but in Europe, its geological occurrence and its use as a raw material for prehistoric chipped-stone assemblages are much more restricted. In northern Britain where good quality flint is scarce, pitchstone circulated widely in the Neolithic with artifacts made from this...
Quantitative Use-Wear Analysis with ImageJ (2017)
Traditional use-wear analysis is mostly subjective and requires considerable experience. Researchers have tried image analyzing software to quantify use-wear patterns; however, the cost of software and the lack of training to use the software made common adoption of the approach less practical. In this research, we tested the open source software ImageJ for use-wear measurement in two-dimensional images. The results show that the software can reliably quantify the polish development, the polish...
Toward standardization of lithic use-wear identification in conjunction with technological organization and raw material variability (2017)
The paper examines theoretical problems concerning characteristics of lithic micro-wear traces in the Paleolithic. Use-wear studies already experienced 40 years of research since the discovery of micro-polish varieties which reflect worked materials with wide applications to site structure analysis. However, global standardization of identification criteria still needs comparative efforts, especially on raw material variability and behavioral diversity among regional settlement and subsistence...
Understanding Oneota Stone Tool Functions: A Case Study of Precision and Accuracy in Use-Wear Analysis (2015)
A combination of assemblage analysis, microwear analysis and blood residue analysis allows us to build a new understanding of the role of lithic material in the technological economy of Oneota groups in eastern Wisconsin. One foundation of this approach is accurate and replicable recognition of use-wear patterns. Blind tests have been an essential component of use-wear research since the 1970s. In this paper, we describe a study of 100 experimentally made and used chipped stone tools. Made...
Use-wear Analysis of the Ground Stone Tools from the Jiahu Site (2015)
Word Count =147. 200 maximum. Jiahu is one of the most important settlement sites of the Chinese Middle Neolithic Age (ca.7000-5500 BC) and is located in the upper Huai River Valley, China. During excavations, a number of ground stone tools were uncovered. Use-wear analysis and replication experiments were conducted in order to understand the functionality, usage and contact materials of these tools. Our experiments involved stone shovels, axes, adzes, gouges and other common stone tools from...