Emic Knapping Perspectives and the Analytical Concept of Raw Material Similarity: Building a Contextualized Theory of Lithic Raw Material Selection

Summary

Existing frameworks for analyzing lithic raw material economies insufficiently characterize the complex interface of reduction strategies with local raw material variability. This presentation contextualizes assemblage technological organization from the Middle and Upper Paleolithic of Portugal with occurrence frequencies and size variability in local raw material cobbles. The new analytical concept of similarity differentiates Middle Paleolithic quartz preference within a pattern of overall raw material equivalency from two radically-different and synergistic chaînes opératoire structuring EUP assemblages. At the site of Espadanal, chert and quartz were utilized for different functions and as blanks for fashioning different tool forms, demonstrating that prehistoric knappers considered them dissimilar raw materials. Focusing on evidence for prehistoric decision-making facilitates a robust theoretical framework of raw material economy that integrates both the structural and the contextual.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20787