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typology i

Stone Tools and Archaeology. Common throughout prehistoryOnly durable tool until metallurgy (over 2 million years)Reductive technology: manufactured by removing material from core (creates substantial residue: debitage)Inorganic: do not decaySame basic process for manufacture used across all of prehistoryPercussion (grinding

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typology i

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    1. Typology I Lithics: Stone Tools

    3. Stone Tools: Raw Materials Needs specific types of stone Non-crystalline; homogenous; Cryptocrystalline Conchoidal fracture Molecular edge Ideal: natural glass (obsidian) Chert/flint; quartzite; basalt; quartz

    4. Conchoidal Fracture

    5. Raw Materials

    6. Stone Tools vs. Metal Stone: Sharper (up to 1000x); ubiquitous raw materials Brittle; high breakage rate Metal: Durable; more flexible Require complex technology (smelting, alloying (natural cold hammering inferior to stone tools)

    7. Stone Tool Manufacture Percussion: using hard or soft hammer to remove flakes from core Subsequent hammering to shape flake or core to desired shape Pressure flaking for final shaping and sharpening Flintknapping

    8. Debitage Waste flakes left over from tool manufacture Most common artifact throughout most of prehistory Analysis: Reconstruct production sequence Utilization (retouch, polish)

    9. Flake Morphology

    10. Debitage

    11. Projectile Points Projectile Point, not just Arrow Heads Knives, spears, darts, Drills also Most common type of formal stone tool Formal: defined shape, extensive shaping, curated Informal: expedient tools; disposable (flake, utilized debitage) Change over time; size, shape, hafting Correlating point changes with stratigraphy or absolute dates: seriation; point chronology

    12. Stone Tool Typology Typology: formation and analysis of groups of similar artifacts (types) Can be used spatially (to distinguish between different archaeological cultures) Can be used temporally (to interpret changes in tools over time) Seriation

    13. Projectile Point

    14. Typology Example (1)

    15. Typology Example (2)

    16. Typology Example (3)

    17. Typology II Pottery and Ceramics

    18. Ceramics and Archaeologists Comparatively recent development Clay figurines (Europe) 30,000 BP True pottery: 10,000 BP (Japan); 8,500 BP (Anatolia); 7,000 BP (Iran); 4,800 BP (China); AD 500 (Mexico) Relationship to agriculture? Additive technology (less residue) Fragile but durable Plastic medium: lots of possible variation Pottery vs. Ceramic

    19. Impact of Pottery container revolution Widespread durable vessel form New cooking techniques Storage New medium for expression and symbolism First durable plastic medium

    20. Basic Nomenclature Jar vs. Bowl narrow vs. wide opening; storage vs. consumption Sherd: fragment Body vs. Base vs. Rim Rim: most useful for typology Glaze, Slip Decorations Painting, appliqu, incising, cord impressions

    21. Pottery Manufacture Clay + Temper Clay: provides strength (<0.002 mm) Temper: flexibility; prevents breakage during firing Grit, Grog, Shell, Straw, Sand, etc. Firing: causes clay particles to sinter (adhere to each other) Properties related to size of clay and temperature of firing <1000 C = Terra Cotta 900-1200 C = Earthenware 1200-1350 C = Stoneware 1350 C + = Porcelain

    22. Manufacture Techniques Vessel formation Pinching Coiling Slab Form Wheel Thrown Surface modification (Incising, Punctates, etc.) Drying Surface Treatment (slip, glaze, paint) Firing (open fire, covered fire, kiln)

    23. Pottery Examples

    24. What can Pottery Tell Us? Chronology Type seriations (same as for stone tools) Technology Crude, coarse earthenwares vs. High-fired Porcelain Craft Specialization

    25. What can Pottery Tell Us? Trade/Social Interaction Pottery types regionally specific Example: Pennsylvania types (Shenks Ferry) occur in Southern New York (AD 1000-1300) along with New York types (Owasco) Wife Stealing Hypothesis (Marital Exogamy) Assumption of female potters supported by ethnohistoric sources Open question: hostile abduction or willing exchange between neighboring populations

    26. Pennsylvania vs. New York Pottery Types

    27. What can Pottery Tell Us? Iconography (Ideology) Effigies (human, zoomorphic), Painted images Examples: Valdiva Phase pottery (South America); entoptic imagery related to hallucinogenic visions

    28. What can Pottery Tell Us? Subsistence (food production and consumption) Analogy: certain types of vessels historically used for certain foods; may have been the same in prehistory? Residue Analysis (Lipids, Alkaloids) GC/MS + related chromatographic techniques Phytolith analysis Raman microscopy Alkaloids: medicinal/psychoactive Nicotine, Morphine, Caffeine, etc.

    29. Non-Vessel Pottery Plasticity and Flexibility of pottery amenable to a variety of functions Artistic (figurines, etc.) Industrial (Spindle Whorls, etc.) Mortuary (e.g., Terra Cotta Sarcophagi) Smoking: pottery smoking pipes vs. stone smoking pipes North American Example: did the shift to pottery smoking pipes after 500 AD lead to a secularization of tobacco smoking, as opposed to its initial sacred context?

    30. Stone vs. Ceramic Pipes

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