Foreseeable Tools: Lithic Use-Wear and Technological Organizations in Evolutionary Perspectives

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The paper explores some problems concerning the relationship between aspects of lithic technology and the cultural evolutionary theory. There are three fundamental realms in stone tool analysis, namely, typology, technology, and functional studies. These research phases are integrated into the study of "technological organizations" in the sense of Binford (1979). It is important to understand thus described variabilities in lithic industries from evolutionary viewpoints. In other words, why and how selection pressures have been in operation on such diversities in lithic technology needs to be pursued. The present study focuses on the Upper Paleolithic period in East Asia. Case studies in the northeastern Japanese archipelago and the middle Korean peninsula are evaluated on adaptive advantages of such industries as blank blades, backed knives, tanged points, and microblades. The results of detailed functional reconstruction based on microscopic use-wear analysis are combined with technology and morphology. Concrete data from microwear analysis of both high-power and low-power methods shed light on some modern human behaviors such as planning depth, hafting, and composite tool usage for foreseeable future activities by new arrivals of population to the most peripheral region of Asia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24563