Lithic Materials and Paleolithic Societies

by Adams, Brian; Blades, Brooke

• ISBN13: 9781405168373
• ISBN10: 1405168374
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781444311969
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-27
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• More Book Details

Summary

The procurement and reduction of lithic raw materials are widely considered to be primary means of unravelling fundamental aspects of group mobility and settlement patterns. Studies have expanded to encompass regional conceptualizations that, when combined with refined paleoenvironmental data, present powerful statements on Paleolithic natural and social landscapes and on modern conceptions of cultural change.The papers in this volume reflect the most recent research on major issues such as assessing the complexities of geologic attributions for specific materials; evaluating the relevance of lithic reduction to questions of mobility and landscape utilization, and identifying cognative and social dimensions within lithic material patterns.

Author Biography

Brooke Blades has conducted archaeological research and excavations for more than three decades in various temporal and geographic contexts in eastern North America and in western Europe. He held a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship to conduct archaeological research in Northern Ireland in 1979-80. His research in western Europe has been generously supported by the American Philosophical Society, International Relations and Exchanges Board (IREX), the National Science Foundation, and New York University.

Brian Adams is currently Assistant Director of the Public Service Archaeology & Architecture Program in the Anthropology Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include lithic analysis, microwear analysis of lithic artifacts, hunter-gatherer adaptations, and the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe. He has conducted research at Palaeolithic sites in Central Europe and Egypt, as well as prehistoric and early historic sites in the Midwest USA.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	p. vii
Introduction: Lithics, Landscapes and Societies	p. ix
Regional Landscape Perspectives	p. 1
Raw Materials and Techno-Economic Behaviors at Oldowan and Acheulean Sites in the West Turkana Region, Kenya	p. 3
Patterns of Lithic Material Procurement and Transformation During the Middle Paleolithic in Western Europe	p. 15
Revisiting European Upper Paleolithic Raw Material Transfers: The Demise of the Cultural Ecological Paradigm?	p. 25
Sourcing Raw Materials for Chipped Stone Artifacts: The State-of-the-Art in Hungary and the Carpathian Basin	p. 47
Upper Paleolithic Toolstone Procurement and Selection Across Beringia	p. 54
Reduction, Recycling, and Raw Material Procurement in Western Arnhem Land, Australia	p. 78
Technological and Assemblage Variability	p. 95
Paleolithic Exploitation of Rounded and Sub-Angular Quartzites in the Indian Subcontinent	p. 97
Filling the Void: Lithic Raw Material Utilization During the Hungarian Gravettian	p. 116
Technological Efficiency as an Adaptive Behavior Among Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherers: Evidence from La-C&ohat;te, Caminade Est, and Le Flageolet I, France	p. 127
Trash: The Structure of Great Basin Paleoarchaic Debitage Assemblages in Western North America	p. 144
Micro-Landscape Perspectives	p. 161
Reconstructing Landscape Use and Mobility in the Namibian Early Stone Age Using	p. 163
Changing the Face of the Earth: Human Behavior at Sede Ilan, an Extensive Lower-Middle Paleolithic Quarry Site in Israel	p. 174
Aurignacian Core Reduction and Landscape Utilization at La Ferrassie, France	p. 186
Oblazowa and Hlomcza: Two Paleolithic Sites in the North Carparthians Province of Southern Poland	p. 196
Raw Material Economy and Technological Organization at Solvieux, France	p. 208
Hominid Cognition, Adaptation, and Cultural Chronology	p. 217
Inferring Aspects of Acheulean Sociality and Cognition from Lithic Technology	p. 219
Quina Procurement and Tool Production	p. 232
The Impact of Lithic Raw Material Quality and Post-Depositional Processes on Cultural/Chronological Classification: The Hungarian Szeletian Case	p. 247
Raw Material Durability, Function, and Retouch in the Upper Paleolithic of the Transbaikal Region, Siberia	p. 256
Clovis and Dalton: Unbounded and Bounded Systems in the Midcontinent of North America	p. 270
Index	p. 289
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