This is a study of cobblestone tools from metalliferous mine sites in England and Wales dated to the Bronze Age which were most probably used to extract copper ore. The site assemblages studied are from the Great Orme, Copa Hill in Cwmystwyth, Nantyreira, Parys Mountain and Alderley Edge. The majority of the tools are hammerstones used to mine and beneficiate metal ore. Some of these have been modified to facilitate hafting. The functional uses of these tools have been identified by the form and position of use- wear on a macroscopic level. The recording procedure encompasses cobble morphology, the degree, type and direction of use, breakage patterns, the reuse of tools and tool fragments and the classification of hafting modification. The possibility of tool specialization within tool types has been examined by the analysis of use-wear and cobble shape and size. The analysis of stone hammer size suggests that the Great Orme material is related to specific working techniques employed to extract ore from the different types of ore deposits. Ore comminution has been demonstrated to have been generally achieved by ‘block-on-block’ crushing with flat-sided hammers. Conclusions are draw on the overall efficiency of ore extraction in the Bronze Age and theories on the organization of mining are presented. The sedimentary form of the cobblestone tools has also been examined, including the identification of natural abrasion marks and features. At Cwmystwyth and the Great Orme possible sources of cobblestones have been studied in order to assess the nature of cobble selection. / SERC studentship / The additional content files which accompanied the thesis are not available on Bradford Scholars, but are available from the British Library Ethos Service.

This study is a collections-based project that employs approximately 1,300 projectile points to investigate behavioral response to the Younger Dryas in north Alabama (12,900 to 11,700 BP). I apply a version of the marginal value theorem to determine how changing resource structures caused changes in projectile point technology. I argue that changes in technology during the Younger Dryas were not conditioned by access or availability of lithic raw material. Instead, variation in technology is likely a response to changes in return rates from hunting and foraging. Further, the changes in hunting return rates correlate with changes in north Alabama forest structure, which were conditioned by the Younger Dryas. To this end, I argue that the sustained impact of the Younger Dryas, and subsequent Holocene warming, had an effect on the subsistence economies of hunter-gatherers living in northern Alabama during this time, which is exhibited by changes in projectile point technology.

The Land Hill and Hidden Hills study areas were the site of the 2006 and 2007 Brigham Young University's archaeological field schools. The two study areas are located in contrasting environments; the Land Hill area is located along the Santa Clara River in southwestern Utah, and the Hidden Hills area was is located on the Shivwits Plateau in northwestern Arizona. The Land Hill study area is located within a well-watered environment which would support a primarily horticultural lifestyle. The Hidden Hills study area is located in an arid environment without permanent streams which would support a more mobile hunting lifestyle. The contrasting environments of these two study areas allowed for a study of the similarities and differences in the use of stone tools. Based on the results of the analysis and comparison of the stone tool and debitage assemblages, from sites in both areas throughout time, suggests that the people in the Land Hills study area actually seemed to be living a lifestyle similar to the people in the Hidden Hills area.

The Sardinian Bronze Age (Nuragic period) and the factors which created and maintained an island-wide identity as seen through the presence of its distinctive nuraghi have received considerable attention; however the amount of research directly related to the stone tools of the era has been relatively limited despite the wealth of knowledge it is capable of yielding. This thesis hopes to contribute to Sardinian archaeology through the study of ancient technology, specifically obsidian lithic technology, by combining typological information with source data gleaned from the use of X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF). These data are integrated with statistical analyses breaking down the spatial distribution of nuraghi across the island through the use of distance-based methods, including k-means and kernel density analyses, which create a more comprehensive understanding of the island-wide political and social structure. This research will test the hypothesis that changes in the acquisition of obsidian raw materials were coupled with corresponding changes in how the obsidian was used. The results provide precedence for future work in Sardinia and create a model for integrating two types of analyses, sourcing and typological. By combining these results, it is possible to investigate how obsidian influenced the ancient economy as well as assess its cultural significance for people of the past.

Abstract. The goal of this case study is to further the understanding of the social and economic structure, such as trade routes and/or prehistoric man’s movement, during prehistory in the inland of Västerbotten, Sweden. This is achieved by studying the sets of lithic tools found in six archaeological sites (RAÄ 977:1 Vilhelmina, RAÄ 553:1 Vilhelmina, RAÄ 132:1 Vilhelmina, RAÄ 519:1 Vilhelmina, RAÄ 399:1 Vilhelmina och RAÄ 129:1 Åsele) using NIR-spectroscopic (Near InfraRed-spectroscopy), statistical and archaeological methods. By using PCA-models (Principal Component Analysis-models) and the classification method SIMCA (Soft Independent Modelling of Class Analogies) on NIR-spectroscopic data collected over the course of this study, it was possible to show signs that prehistoric man in the studied area, might have deposited quartzite materials, not naturally occurring at the RAÄ 519:1 Vilhelmina, Sweden, site. Four geographic areas (the vicinity of the sea Vojm, the North and South part of the sea Malgomaj and the vicinity of the Southwest part of the Ångerman river in the studied area) could also be shown to display distinct patterns in the PCA-models, related to the use of particular combinations of quartzites. These findings lead to the conclusion that prehistoric man in this area, typically used locally available materials for toolmaking. Furthermore, this study resulted in a large NIR-spectroscopic dataset from the archaeological sites that makes up the main material for this study, that may be beneficial to future NIR-spectroscopic studies in archaeology and/or further studies of NIR-spectroscopy applied to lithic materials.

The examination of the tools that prehistoric people crafted for subsistence and related practices offers distinctive insights into how they lived their lives. Most often, researchers study these practices in isolation, by tool type or by material. However, by using a relational perspective, my research explores the tool assemblage as a whole including bone, stone and shell. This allows me to study the changes in tool industries in relation to one another, something that I could not accomplish by studying only one material or tool type. I use this broader approach to tool manufacture and use for the artifact assemblage from Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI41), two sequential Middle and Late Woodland Period (A.D. 1-1050) archaeological sites on the central Gulf coast of Florida. The results of my research show that people made different choices, both in the type of material they used and the kind of tools they manufactured during the time they lived at these sites as subsistence practices shifted. Evidence of these trends aligns with discrete changes in strata within our excavations. The timing of depositional events and the artifacts found within each suggest people also used the sites differently through time. These trends exemplify the role of crafting tools in the way people maintain connections with their mutable social and physical world.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

The research presented in this thesis examines a lithic assemblage from the multi-component habitation site Gorelyi Les in the Belaia river valley, Cis-Baikal region, Siberia. The distinctive traits of this collection are the relatively small size of the lithic assemblage and the large proportion of debitage. The chosen methodological framework for this research concentrates on obtaining maximum information from the available materials through application of typological, technological, use-wear, and spatial analyses. The results suggest that there were differences in the organization of the technological process of lithic tool manufacture during the Early Neolithic and Late Neolithic. During the Early Neolithic, lithic tool manufacture and use were rather intensive and diversified, while during the Late Neolithic, tool manufacture and use were limited to a narrower range of technological operations and functions.

No description available.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal