Major Fallacies Surrounding Stone Artifacts and Assemblages

Abstract

While lithic objects can potentially inform us about past adaptations and behaviors, it is important to develop a comprehensive understanding of all of the various processes that influence what we recover from the archaeological record. We argue here that many assumptions used by archaeologists to derive behavioral inferences through the definition, conceptualization, and interpretation of both individual stone artifact forms and groups of artifacts identified as assemblages do not fit squarely with what we have learned from both ethnographic sources and analyses of archaeological 1 digitalcommons.unl.edu 2 D i b b l e e t a l. i n J. o f A r c h a e o l o g i c a l M et h o d a n d T h e o ry (2 0 1 6) materials. We discuss this in terms of two fallacies. The first is the fallacy of the "desired end product" in stone artifact manufacture, which also includes our ability to recognize such end products. The second fallacy has to do with the notions that lithic assemblages represent simple accumulations of contemporary behaviors and the degree to which the composition of the depositional units we study reliably match the kinds of activities that took place. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a comprehensive set of new methodologies and theoretical perspectives to solve these problems, our goal here is to stress the importance of rethinking some of our most basic assumptions regarding the nature of lithic objects and how they become part of the archaeological record. Such a revision is needed if we want to be able to develop research questions that can be addressed with the data we have available to us.

Are Lithics and Fauna a Match Made in (Prehistoric) Heaven?

“…However, flakes and retouched items, not necessarily used in fauna-related activities, were hafted in similar manners (e.g., Boëda et al 2008;Friedman et al 1994-5;Rots 2013;Rots et al 2011). MP stone tools, armatures among them, likely had multiple uses (e.g., Holdaway 1989;Plisson and Beyries 1988;Shea 1988Shea , 1991; and see reviews in Dibble et al 2017;Nelson 1991). The cumulative evidence does not support an important role for faunal exploitation as a trigger of MP lithic morphological or assemblage variability.…”

El Palimpsesto Como Una Puerta De Acceso a Diferentes Temporalidades: El Caso De Río Las Salinas 2 (Tucumán, Argentina)

“…Por definición, una superficie estable es aquélla que existe por un espacio significativo de tiempo y, por lo tanto, es capaz de contener o representar un agregado de ocupaciones distintas (Davies et al 2015;Dibble et al 2016). Para que esto sea así, la exposición de materiales arqueológicos a determinadas condiciones debe darse durante un lapso prolongado (Borrero 2006;Borrazzo 2006, entre otros).…”

“…El remontaje alude a la recolocación, en las relaciones espaciales preexistentes a su separación, de dos o más artefactos (por ejemplo la reconstitución de un núcleo y sus lascas). Si bien el remontaje informa acerca del orden en el cual fueron removidas las lascas de un núcleo, no comunica quién los removió (un tallador o varios talladores) o el tiempo involucrado en la reducción de dicho núcleo (Dibble et al 2016). El hecho de que existan piezas que puedan ser remontadas, independientemente del tiempo real involucrado en ese evento de talla (que pudo ser más de uno), da cuenta de ciertas condiciones de estabilidad en el paisaje.…”

In Rift Valley settings with a feedback loop, assortative mating for versatility predicts hominin brain enlargement in some detail

“…http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/164780 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Jul. 18, 2017; the fine serrated cutting edges of Achulean-style tools (Dibble et al, 2016) and the sharp flakes that are produced from such a core.…”