Modeling Relationships Between Space, Movement, and Lithic Geometric Attributes

Abstract

Evidence for changes in human mobility is fundamental to interpretations of transitions in human socioeconomic organization. Showing changes in mobility requires both archaeological proxies that are sensitive to movement and a clear understanding of how different mobility configurations influence their patterning. This study uses computer simulation to explore how different combinations of reduction, selection, transport, and discard of stone artifacts generate patterning in the “cortex ratio,” a geometric proxy used to demonstrate movement at the assemblage level. A case study from western New South Wales, Australia, shows how cortex ratios are used to make inferences about movement. Results of the exploratory simulation show that redundancy in movement between discards reduces variability in cortex ratios, while mean assemblage values can be attributed to the relative proportions of artifacts carried into and out of the assemblages. These results suggest that raw material availability is a potentially crucial factor in determining what kinds of mobility are visible in assemblages, whereby different access to raw material can shift the balance of import and export of stone in an otherwise undirected movement configuration. These findings are used to contextualize distributions of cortex ratios from the raw material–rich study area, prompting suggestions for further fieldwork.

Aggregates, Formational Emergence, and the Focus on Practice in Stone Artifact Archaeology

“…Artifacts functioned together at particular times and places but arguably such an association cannot be presumed from a group of artifacts found together in a deposit. Selection, flaking, use, and transport events took place through a number of different spatiotemporal associations, and processes of erosion and sedimentation acted on artifact visibility and distribution, making them differentially available for new use events (Bailey 2007;Davies et al 2016Davies et al , 2018Dibble et al 2017;Foley 1981;Gould 1980;Holdaway and Davies 2019;Holdaway and Douglass 2015;Stern 1994;Waters and Kuehn 1996). Like flakes found and reused today by Maale in southwest Ethiopia during their forays, or spolia-stones taken from Roman ruins and used in construction during the later times-many stone artifacts in the deeper past have been re-associated into different collectives based on their availability and/or utilities in the changing social and environmental settings (Carr and Bradbury 2018;MacCalman and Grobbelaar 1965;McDonald 1991;Whyte 2014; see also Weedman Arthur 2018).…”

Time-dependent taphonomic site loss leads to spatial averaging: implications for archaeological cultures

“…Our report of spatial averaging adds an important dimension to the recent focus on time averaging in archaeological deposits. Several recent papers highlight its role in the formation and interpretive potential of the archaeological record (Davies et al, 2016(Davies et al, , 2018Dibble et al, 2017;Coco et al, 2020;Rezek et al, 2020). Furthermore, the effects of time averaging as a result of the way archaeologists group data has become better established (Miller-Atkins and Premo, 2018;Perreault, 2018).…”

Reflecting on siliceous rocks in central Australia: Using advanced remote sensing to map ancient “tool‐stone” resources

“…Accurately identifying where lithic raw materials suitable for stone artifact manufacture can be sourced is a prominent theme in Australian Aboriginal archaeology and landscape archaeology worldwide (e.g., Bird, ; Carr & Turner, ; Clarkson & Bellas, ; Davies, Holdaway, & Fanning, ; Douglass, Holdaway, Shiner, & Fanning, ; Duke & Steele, ; Fanning, Holdaway, Rhodes, & Bryant, ; Gould & Saggers, ; Hughes, Sullivan, Hiscock, & Neyland, ; Megarry, Cooney, Comer, & Priebe, ; Newman, ; Sullivan, Hughes, Way, & Spooner, ; Tanyaş et al, ; Thiry & Milnes, ; Tibbett, ). Raw material provenance offers archaeologists a foundation and scale to begin geographically investigating stone artifact technology and prehistoric lithic procurement practices.…”

“…Stone artifacts manufactured from silcrete and related silicified rock have been documented by many historic and contemporary researchers of central Australian Aboriginal anthropology and archaeology (Davies et al, ; Douglass et al, ; Douglass, Holdaway, & Fanning, ; Gould & Saggers, ; Gould, ; Gould, Koster, & Sontz, ; Graham & Thorley, ; Horne & Aiston, ; Howchin, ; Hughes & Lampert, ; Hughes et al, ; Hughes et al, ; Lampert, ; Law, ; Sullivan et al, ). Collectively, this previous work indicates that silcrete was an economically important raw material for Aboriginal groups; thus it is not surprising that silcrete is often recognized as the most common raw material used for stone artifact manufacture in central Australian archaeological sites (Davies et al, ; Douglass et al, ; Hughes et al, ; Lampert, ) (Figure ).…”