This paper systematically studies newly excavated materials from the Redianchang area of the Xiaonanshan site along the Ussuri River, revealing vitric tuff exploitation strategies and technologies during 9.2-8.6 ka BP. Our research shows microblade technology dominated the lithic industry of Redianchang area, with tool assemblages overwhelmingly of direct and vertical pressure microblades. Use-wear observations and related experiments demonstrate that these retouched microblades functioned as specialized tools for processing particular resources. In terms of spatial distribution, the knapping area and the activity zones for tool use are spatially segregated, suggesting that the prehistoric inhabitants maintained a clear spatial organization of the site. Overall, this study systematically elucidates the adaptive behaviors of prehistoric humans in Northeast Asia during the Early Holocene. The results suggest that technological demand was the primary driving force behind these behaviors, and provide empirical support for the livelihood radiation model proposed for this period.
Within lithic assemblages, assessing tool-maker skill and understanding the required competences of tool production is important in the broader framework of lithic knowledge transmission. However, robust methods for measuring variation in skill from lithic artifacts are still in development. One obstacle to this development is a lack of understanding about how the qualities of raw materials influence our ability to detect variations in skill. In this study, two expert and two novice knappers were asked to produce flakes from nodules from high, medium, and low-quality flint. The results of our study show that expert knappers were more adept at extracting more flakes and effectively reducing cores than novice knappers across raw material grades. Expert knappers produced longer flakes and shorter shaping flakes while novices produced similarly sized flakes across the reduction sequence. Overall, experts were able to accommodate the challenges of varying raw material qualities more efficiently than novices.
Cha & icirc;ne op & eacute;ratoire has proven to be a valuable methodology in the study of lithic analysis. At the initial stage of the cha & icirc;ne op & eacute;ratoire system, understanding raw material procurement strategies is crucial. The primary objective of this paper is to examine the raw material procurement strategies employed by modern humans at Mehtakheri during MIS3. The lithic assemblage studied for the present research was excavated in 2017 from Mehtakheri in central India. The archaeological horizon of Mehtakheri, under study, is exclusively represented by microblade technology. This paper presents results of the qualitative analysis done on the entire lithic assemblage. It specifically focuses on the raw material procurement strategies and highlights a method that can be employed on any lithic assemblage during the preliminary examination. Results indicate that recording the level of abrasion on the cortex can give an insightful understanding and assessment of the source and choice of raw material for tool manufacturing. This research puts forward an easy-to-apply and less time-consuming methodology for analyzing lithics, with special focus on gaining insight into the raw material procurement strategies.
Vein or "milky" quartz is one of the most common raw materials used in lithic production all over the world. It is also one of the most difficult to analyze, given its large crystal structures and propensity to produce angular shatter during reduction. Archaeological and experimental research on quartz lithic production has been critical in developing analytical strategies to address these problems. This research contributes to these debates in presenting an assessment of how well quartz assemblages produced by economically distinct Early Holocene foragers and Later Holocene agro-pastoralists at Kakapel Rockshelter, western Kenya can be typologically and metrically distinguished from one another. The study finds that major economic differences between these groups manifest clearly in tool typologies and core morphologies, but are not as evident in any aspects of flake debris. This suggests that quartz constrains operational sequences, possibly reducing our ability to detect meaningful variation in the archaeological record.
