Thesis (M.Sc. (Palaeoarchaeology))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Science, 2003 / This project was inspired by the identification of 108 bone tools (dated roughly to between 2 and 1 Mya) from sites in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, Gauteng. An experimental study was lUldertaken in an attempt to answer the basic question of "what caused modification marks on early hominid bone tools?" Five experimental tools were used in each of seven different task oriented experiments. The purpose of this project was to broaden the existing database of experimentally employed bone tools and the associated process-pattern relationships. Analysis was based on an optical comparison of primarily microscopically, but also macroscopically visible usewear patterns observed on the experimental tools. The experimental data were then used to make inferences on a middle range theoretical level regarding the use of the fossil specimens and comment on the currently held opinions.

The development of grinding technology is a topic that has not received much attention from archaeologists in the American Southwest. Presented here is a technological approach to ground stone analysis capitalizing on the methods of ethnoarchaeology, experimentation, and use-wear analysis. These methods are applied to an existing collection of ground stone artifacts amassed by the University of Arizona field school's excavation of the Point of Pines sites in east-central Arizona. The heart of the technological approach is the recognition that technological behavior is social behavior and as such is culturally distinct. Both puebloan and nonpuebloan ethnographies provide models for understanding how ground stone tools were used by different cultural groups in daily activities and for making inferences about gender-specific behaviors. Culturally distinct behaviors are sustained through technological traditions, defined as the transmitted knowledge and behaviors with which people learn how to do things. A technological approach is applied to the ground stone assemblages from nine Point of Pines sites that date within eight phases, from A.D. 400 to A.D. 1425-1450. The assemblages are compared and assessed in terms of variation that might reflect developments in grinding technology. Developments may have derived from local innovations or from introduced technological traditions. Assemblage variation is evaluated in light of major events in Point of Pines prehistory, particularly the change from pit house villages to pueblo villages and the immigration of Tusayan Anasazi. Point of Pines grinding technology continued relatively unchanged until late in the occupation. Around the mid-1200s, an Anasazi group immigrated to the Point of Pines area and took up residence in the largest Point of Pines pueblo. Foreign technology was introduced but not immediately adopted by the resident Mogollon. Food grinding equipment of two different designs coexisted for about 100 years, until around A.D. 1400 when there is evidence of a change in the social organization of food grinding. It is this change that signals the blending of Mogollon and Anasazi into Western Pueblo.

This thesis examines the Mid Upper Palaeolithic (MUP) of Russia (ca. 30,000-20,000 14C BP). During this time, as in the rest of Europe, the principal archaeological industry is known as the Gravettian. However, in Russia two other industries, the Streletskayan and the Gorodtsovian, are also known from the beginning of the MUP. Historically, there have been significant problems integrating the Russian MUP record with that from the rest of Europe. The research described in this thesis concentrates on backed lithic assemblages (including Gravette points, microgravettes, other backed points and backed bladelets) from five Russian Gravettian sites: Kostenki 8 Layer 2, Kostenki 4, Kostenki 9, Khotylevo 2 and Kostenki 21 Layer 3. These are studied from an explicitly Western European theoretical perspective, using standard techno-typological methods to construct typological groupings and describe the variation between and within sites. Alongside this, new radiocarbon dates from several sites Kostenki 8 Layer 2, Kostenki 4 and Borshchevo 5) were obtained. These radiocarbon dates are critically analysed alongside published dates and unpublished dates made available to this research. The results of the research constitute a new culture history for the Russian MUP. Each stage of the MUP is dated and described, and the uncertainties in our knowledge outlined. One new lithic index fossil is defined and two others are re-assessed. The Russian record is compared with the contemporary archaeological record elsewhere in Europe, in order to describe large-scale synchronic variation and changes through time in the homogeneity and regionalisation of material culture. The relationship between these dynamics and climate change are discussed.