On the Spur of the Moment: Effects of Age and Experience on Hafted Stone Scraper Morphology

Abstract

North American archaeologists often designate spurs on scrapers as gravers or use them as temporal markers for the Paleoindian Period. The functional and stylistic aspects of spurred scrapers are explored here through an ethnoarchaeological study of stone scraper procurement, production, use, and discard among the Gamo of southern Ethiopia. This research demonstrates that the presence of so-called “graver” spurs does not have a functional significance, but is the result of inexperience and/or the waning strength of the hideworker. Furthermore, spurred scrapers occur in abundance at villages where breakage rates also are high, reflecting the presence of a number of inexperienced hideworkers. Lastly, this paper explores the relationship between the experience of the knapper and tool standardization. The analysis suggests that in lineage-based learning systems more-experienced hideworkers assist less-experienced hideworkers, and thus blur any relationship between experience and standardization.

An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Hafting and Stone Tool Diversity among the Gamo of Ethiopia

“…In addition, the Gamo edge angles ranged from 50 to 67 degrees, which falls in line with experimental expectations for hidescraping edge angles (Broadbent and Knutsson, 1975;Wilmsen, 1968). The increased presence of spurs (previously thought to have a secondary function) and increased breakage rates of Gamo stone scrapers were found to be associated with individuals who were either just learning how to produce tools or elderly hideworkers who were loosing their strength (Weedman, 2002a). The Gamo learn how to produce their stone tools from their fathers and since postmarital residence patterns are virilocal a discrete village/lineage based scraper style is discernable and statistically viable (Weedman, 2002b(Weedman, , 2005.…”

“…Fathers and their adult sons live in the same village, as postmarital residence patterns are virilocal. Stone tool variation among the Gamo is the result of multiple functional and social factors, such as age and skill of the hideworker (Weedman, 2002a), lineage, village, and ritual-political district membership, stage of use, and historical context (Weedman, 2000(Weedman, , 2002b(Weedman, , 2005. These earlier publications concerning the Gamo added to the literature that recognized variation as a reflection of stage of use (Dibble, 1984(Dibble, , 1987Kuhn, 1990Kuhn, , 1992, age-grade status (Hodder, 1982, pp.…”

“…To process a single hide requires a mean time of 4 h and 3 min, 3 during which time the hideworker uses approximately 4 1/2 scrapers, which are resharpened after a mean of 281 scrapes or 473 chops (Weedman, 2000(Weedman, , 2002a. The Gamo unused and used-up/discarded scraper morphologies are significantly different in t-tests in terms of maximum length, distal thickness, breadth/length ratio, and thickness/length ratio, and edge angle (Weedman, 2002b).…”

Entre abrigos e lagoas

“…Nesse sentido, cabe discutir a razão da elaboração de artefatos com tais restrições. Uma das possibilidades envolve o que já mencionamos anteriormente -a confecção de artefatos compostos, produzidos através de encabamento ou incrustação dos micro-artefatos em hastes ou suportes de outra natureza, como madeira e/ou osso, tal qual ocorre, por exemplo, no mesolítico europeu (Myers 1989), na Austrália (Hayden 1979) e na Etópia (Weedman 2002).…”

Untitled

“…As both Bleed (2001) and Shott (2003) note, there are clear similarities in the use of a stage approach to characterize an assemblage as capturing certain portions, as opposed to other portions, of the reduction sequence from raw material acquisition to discard of the exhausted retouched tool (Callahan 1979;Geneste 1985Geneste ,1988Holmes 1894Holmes , 1897. Similarly, both approaches use ethnoarchaeology (Bril et al 2005;Pétrequin and Pétrequin 1994;Shott and Sillitoe 2004;Sillitoe and Hardy 2003;Stout 2002;Weedman 2002) as well as experimental replication (Amick and Mauldin 1989;Bradbury and Carr 1999;Geneste and Plisson 1990;Pelegrin 1995Pelegrin , 2000Shott et al 2000) to shape their middle-level theory. Despite this overlap, the differences which do result from the practices in each approach are most apparent in lowand middle-level theory, as discussed by Dibble (1995) and Shott (2003).…”