Back to Basics: Analyzing knapped stone recovered during survey in southeastern Senegal

Summary

Archaeological ethics require all sites identified on survey to be reported and described in such a manner as to allow for the archaeological community to understand their research potential. This can present a challenge in regions without a significant body of previous research to aid in the interpretation of finds. The Bandafassi Regional Archaeological Project in southeastern Senegal faces just such a situation. A research question driven survey strategy, directed at the archaeological record of the Atlantic Era and using current methods for regional analysis, has produced a wealth of knapped stone finds from pre-ceramic periods, which cannot be easily interpreted and reported in any useful manner. This is due to a lack of established detailed local culture-history chronologies for pre-ceramic periods, utilizing technological and morphological typologies for knapped stone artifacts. This paper explores how methods of analysis borrowed from other well-researched regions have and have not been successful in generating interpretations. In many ways, this process has required a return to some of the earliest and most basic methods in archaeology, as well as an alteration of research strategies in order to meet the basic recording and, therefore, interpretive requirements of regional survey.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16688