microwear (Other Keyword)
1-15 (15 Records)
Cache Cave exhibits one of the most significant in situ assemblages of basketry and cordage recorded within the Chumash culture area. The abundance and quality of the unique items preserved in this cave system attest that caching served as one important aspect of site function. The presence of utilitarian lithic artifacts, identified during excavations at the cave in 2012 and 2014, suggest that this site may have served additional functions throughout the duration of its use. The...
Deciphering Bone Tool Production and Use: A Comparative Assessment of Quantitative Approaches to Microwear Analysis (2016)
Recent research in the pre-Columbian Pueblo Southwest has demonstrated the importance of understanding trends in bone industries that closely track other, related economic sectors such as perishable craft production. A vital next step in this line of inquiry is the identification the specific types of production activities in which bone tools are employed and variation across time and space. As illustrated by the results of this pilot study, texture analysis methods, developed within the...
Earthworks as Landscapes: An Examination of the Sampling Issue in Lithic Microwear Analysis (2016)
Lithic microwear analysis remains a powerful tool for anthropological archaeology by providing insights into stone tool function. As the method continues to mature, practitioners have recently made important advances in documenting and quantifying variation in wear patterns. Since its inception, however, little discussion has focused on the role of sampling in microwear studies. As a result, sample sizes in published microwear reports vary widely. A related issue involves generating a...
From Russia with Love: Ruth Tringham and the Early Days of Microwear (2015)
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE: RUTH TRINGHAM AND THE EARLY DAYS OF MICROWEAR ANALYSIS It was the early 1970’s and a time when the Cold War directed the geopolitical scene worldwide. It was also a time when a young British archaeologist brought to the USA a new approach to the study of material culture. Professor Ruth Tringham landed at Harvard in 1971 together with the technique of microscopic analysis of traces of use on chipped stone tools, a technique which she had studied in the USSR. There...
Integrating Lithic Microwear and sourcing to improve understanding of socioeconomic behaviour in the British Mesolithic (2017)
We present the results of an integrated study of lithic microwear analysis and lithic sourcing at the large Mesolithic site of Stainton West. Microwear analysis helped to understand why the site was so large and how the occupants supported themselves while at the site. Microwear analysis of 700 artefacts led to 49% identification of use. There is much diversity in tool use: hide working, butchery (meat/fish), impact, antler/bone working, wood working, and plant working. Various patterns were...
Lithic Analysis from the Rainbow Forest Clovis Site (2015)
During the late Pleistocene the Rainbow Forest Playa Paleoindian site at Petrified Forest National Park was an area where Clovis people procured lithic materials and took advantage of a local riparian microenvironment. This poster presents recent research on lithic tool assemblages from the Rainbow Forest Playa site, including microwear analysis from archaeological materials and the results of replicative experiments. Results suggest that while the site was clearly used as a lithic quarry, a...
Making amber beads: technological insights into a Late Neolithic and Bronze Age craft activity (2017)
Experimental research of different ways of shaping and perforating amber beads has provided insight into the signatures of different manufacturing techniques and the character of the tools involved. Using stereo and incident light microscopy it was for example possible to distinguish the features from the use of metal tools from the traces resulting from flint implements. Perforating amber with drills made of different raw materials like wood, metal, flint and antler, also show considerable...
Microwear and the Resolution of Post-Depositional Modification of Danish Underwater Mesolithic Deposits (2016)
It has been shown that the amount of rounding of a dorsal ridge of an unused flake is a good proxy measure for the amount of post-depositional modification by sediment movement. The technique has been applied often by the Lithic Microwear Research Laboratory to assess the suitability of an assemblage for study of tool use. Here, we report on the application of the technique to a unique problem. Orehoved is a port located in southern Denmark. The repositioning of a bridge carrying traffic between...
Microwear on Shell Beads at Cluny Fortified Village (EePf-1) (2017)
Beads in many forms have been used as decorative items on the Great Plains during the historic and prehistoric periods. Cluny Fortified Village (EePf-1), dating just prior to European contact, is an intrusive village unique on the Northwestern Plains. The unique artifact assemblage at the site offers information on the understudied topic of prehistoric shell bead production on the Northern Plains using local bivalves. During the past ten years, a number of shell beads, shell bead blanks, and...
¿Por Qué (No) Los Dos?: Investigating Simultaneous Blade and Flake Industries at the Ortiz Site, Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent analysis of the lithic assemblage from the Ortiz site, an early (2340 cal BC–cal AD 310) habitation site in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, has revealed the persistent parallel manufacture of blade and expedient flake technologies, with an average of 16.1% of the flaked stone assemblage consisting of blades. While other early Puerto Rican lithic assemblages...
The Recognition of Hafting Traces on Native American Stone Tools (2017)
As Keeley (1982) pointed out some time ago, the recognition of microwear traces due to hafting is an important source of information not only about how stone tools were prepared for use, but how their differential discard affects the recognition of site structure and site function. This is because the economy of different hafting arrangements and the act of "retooling" is different for hafted versus unhafted tools. In an effort to consider the variable range of hafting traces among Native...
A Scraper is Sometimes Just a Scraper: A Multi-Method Approach to Inferring Tool Use at an Oneota Site in Southeastern Wisconsin (2016)
A sample of lithic artifacts from the Crescent Bay Hunt Club site, a 12th-14th century Oneota village at Lake Koshkonong in southeastern Wisconsin, were subjected to a multiple-method analysis to determine individual tool use. In this example, an assemblage based analysis of raw material type and quality, heat alteration and energy input into manufacturing combined with debitage analysis provides an overall understanding of the lithic economy. Triangular bifaces and unifacial tools from Crescent...
TAKEN TO TASK AT STAR CARR: INTEGRATING SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES TO ARTEFACTS AND THEIR ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXTS (2015)
New research on micowear and micro-residue traces on flint and organic artefacts from Star Carr is currently underway. Extensive 3D recording of thousands of artefacts spanning several excavation seasons using GIS has provided an excellent high-resolution spatial record. As well as low/high power approaches to microwear analysis, microresidues are being analysed using the contextual approach. Flint tools displaying residues of particular interest are being flagged for more detailed imaging by...
Trollesgave: Hunter-Gatherer Social Organisation during the Late Glacial in Northwest Europe (2015)
Microwear analysis in combination with refitting and lithic reduction is applied to reconstruct the function and social organisation at the Late Glacial site of Trollesgave, Denmark. Analyses of the flint knapping and the spatial distribution of its products reveal the traces of at least three individuals: expert, medium competent, and inexperienced. Based on the quality of craftsmanship and the aberrant habits of disposing their products of the latter, there is evidence for one and possibly two...
Usewear and Assemblage Composition: The Role of Endscrapers in Paleoindian Technological Organization (2017)
Historically, microwear studies have focused around resolving issues centered on tool form and function. However, microwear also offers the opportunity to investigate site level activities surrounding "soft" technology, particularly in situations where organic preservation is poor or absent. In addition, when combined with a holistic approach to assemblage composition, microwear can provide larger insights into the organization of technology and larger patterns of adaptation. In this paper I...