Traditional Knowledge and Lithic Resources

Many archaeologists that carry out research on the geological sources of raw materials used for stone tools, pigments, construction materials, or adornments have remarked on the repeated coincidence between these locations and local traditional knowledge. Oral traditions, ethnohistoric documents and toponymy, for example, regularly contain references to locations where raw materials could be found that would have been useful to people in the past. In addition, there is often a relationship between the sacred or cultural landscape and these extraction locations. This relationship can imbue the raw materials with meaning and power that becomes inherent to the materiality of the objects made from these materials. This session will bring together researchers from around the world that work on several different time periods in order to compare and contrast the traditional knowledge base and the archaeological data on raw material extraction sites.