Lithic Technology: Measures of Production, Use and Curation

Description

The life history of stone tools is intimately linked to tool production, use and maintenance. These are important processes in the organization of lithic technology, or the manner in which lithic technology is embedded within human organizational strategies of land use and subsistence practices. This volume brings together essays that measure the life history of stone tools relative to retouch values, raw material constraints and evolutionary processes. Collectively, they explore the association of technological organization with facets of tool form such as reduction sequences, tool production effort, artifact curation processes and retouch measurement. Data sets cover a broad geographic and temporal span, including examples from France during the Paleolithic, the Near East during the Neolithic, and other regions such as Mongolia, Australia, and Italy. North American examples are derived from Paleoindian times to historic period aboriginal populations throughout the United States and Canada.

William Andrefsky, Jr is Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. He is the author of more than 100 articles and books, including Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis.

Review of the hardback: 'The different approaches to lithic analysis proposed by the authors will be of great value in broader archaeological interpretation as issues raised in the volume are explored in the future ... The authors in this volume present us with interesting ideas and a healthy debate.' Geoarchaeology Review of the hardback: 'Lithic Technology succeeds in its goal of combining unique temporal and cultural examples to demonstrate a link between technological organization theory and the reconstruction of lithic retouched tool life histories ... It should be required reading for any upper division undergraduate or graduate lithics class where its chapters can be discussed, debated and used as reference points for future research. Lithic Technology is also highly recommended for anyone interested in reading about diverse analytical measures for retouched lithic tools and theoretical arguments regarding lithic production trajectories currently debated by lithicists around the globe.' PaleoAnthropology