Stone tool life cycles
A
t TraceoLab, the general approach employed to study the function of lithic artefacts is to examine the “life history” of a stone tool, which implies the identification of wear traces and residues that form during the processes of manufacture, use, maintenance, discard, and burial. This work sheds light on past toolmaking and tool-using behaviours, aspects of raw material economy, and site formation processes.
During blank production and tool shaping, production wear traces and residues can form as the result of contact between the lithic artefact, the knapping tool(s), and/or the detaching shaping flakes. During use, friction between the stone tool and the worked material results in wear patterns and residual deposits on the active edges of the tool. Wear features and residues might develop also in the non-active tool parts due to contact between the stone tool and the hand or the hafting arrangement. Comparably to use-wear traces, the characteristics of hafting wear depend on the materials (wood, bone, antler, etc.) and the kinds of fixation mechanisms (bindings, glues) used to fix the stone tool into a handle. Also traces from resharpening may be observable and are important for reconstructing the life history of the tool. Microwear evidence can also help identify recycling, as previous use-wear traces may be cut by later reshaping removals. After discard, post-depositional traces (wear and residues) may develop and alter the surface of the stone tools to varying degrees. Studying the preservation state of the lithic material and the variety of alterations allows understanding the anthropic and natural processes to which the archaeological materials were subjected after their discard.
Further reading
- Beyries S. & Cattin M.I., 2015 – Resharpening and recycling: different conceptions of the Magdalenian tools. Quaternary International 361: 260-268
- Gould R., 1978 – The anthropology of human residues. American Anthropologist 80: 815-835
- Grimes J.R. & Grimes B.G., 1985 – Flakeshavers: morphometric, functional and life-cycle analyses of a Paleoindian unifacial tool class. Archaeology of Eastern North America 13: 35-57
- Rots V., 2005 – Wear traces and the interpretation of stone tools. Journal of Field Archaeology 30: 61-73
- Schiffer M.B., 1972 – Archaeological context and systemic context. American Antiquity 37: 156-165
- Schiffer M.B., 1975 – Archaeology as behavioral science. American Anthropologist 77: 836-848
- Schiffer M. B., 1987 – Formation processes of the archaeological record. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press
- Shanks M., 1998 – The life of an artifact. Fennoscandia Archaeologica XV: 15-30
- Taipale N., Rots V. & Conard N.J., 2020 – Cold-climate toolkits: firemaking, lithic recycling and assemblage formation in the Magdalenian of Hohle Fels Cave. In: Gibaja J., Marreiros J., Mazzucco N. & Clemente I. (eds.). Hunter-gatherers’ tool-kit: a functional perspective. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing: 154-176
- Tomasso S., 2021 – What is new in the Aterian? A functional view on tool use, hafted stone tool technologies and assemblage variability at Ifri n’Ammar within the context of the Northwest African Middle Stone Age. PhD thesis, University of Liège
- Van Gijn A., 2010 – Flint in focus: lithic biographies in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Leiden: Sidestone Press
