The Importance of Being Ad Hoc: Patterns and Implications of Expedient Lithic Production in the Bronze Age in Israel

Summary

Analysis of the ad hoc component of lithic assemblages from three Bronze Age sites in Israel shows common technological patterns without significant chronological and geographical differences. Like more formal components of lithic industries, expedient and opportunistic production of tools can be characterized using technological criteria and parameters which discern recurrent patterns in lithic manufacture. Irregular flakes, variable in shape, size, and raw material, and with only minimal retouch, constitute coherent assemblages, resulting from basic knapping strategies based on a few rules and simple flaking schemes. Specifically, the absence of standardized morphologies should not be misconstrued as random production. A general uniformity and stability in the ad hoc production system through the Early, Middle, and Late Bronze Ages indicates the maintenance of common technical behaviors that did not change in parallel to other technological transformations, either within the flint system or outside it, and nor in response to significant socio-political changes. This diachronic continuity, attested through the early Iron Age, reflects a stable technological substrate. Low technical investment and elementary production/consumption systems represent domestic contexts, widespread within the society, which for millennia played a leading role the daily life of ancient people.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Global Perspectives on Lithic Technologies in Complex Societies

Keywords

Spatial Coverage