Includes bibliographical references (leaves 283-303). / This research explores the related roles of quartz and bipolar reduction in the composition of Later Stone Age (LSA) lithic assemblages from the Verlorenvlei area, Western Cape Province. With few exceptions, these two elements strongly dominate the assemblages from this area, and the attitudes to and reasons for their continuous use are considered here. Discussions on typology and raw material classification illustrate and attempt to solve problems existing in current systems, and a comprehensive classification scheme for the western Cape area is provided. The use of an innovative analytical technique, in which each raw material is assessed individually, allows considerable variation in the flaking and subsequent use of each material to be demonstrated. While fine~grained rocks are undoubtedly preferred for artefact manufacture, overall raw material proportions are clearly determined by the ubiquitous availability of quartz in the study area, but less important factors, virtually impossible to differentiate from the lithics alone, are undoubtedly also implicated. Technological change related to the use of quartz and bipolar flaking is explored through three critical periods, the late Holocene, the terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene, and the late Pleistocene. In order to ascertain the factors governing assemblage composition, the frequencies of various artefact types are compared with those of quartz and bipolar cores by means of scatter plots. Correlation coefficients are calculated to assist the analysis of the data, but due to the small sample sizes some visual interpretation of the graphs based on intuitive archaeological knowledge is also essential. Considerably different approaches to the reduction of quartz are demonstrated for each period, with distinct strategies of raw material conservation, each operating in a different manner, existing throughout most of the LSA. These promoted the variable use of bipolar and non-bipolar reduction techniques and microlithic technology in order to make best use of the relatively intractable quartz on offer in the local landscape. Such strategies only broke down during the late Holocene, possibly due to the changing social relations that must have occurred with the introduction of pastoralism to the area some 2000 years ago. The nature of industrial change is also explored, and it is evident that in this area the LSA lithic sequence constitutes a continuous progression of sporadic change with no distinct breaks or periods of absolute stability being apparent. It is recommended that larger sample sizes be used in similar future analyses in order to alleviate the difficulties inherent in drawing general conclusions from small sets of data. The frequency of chips in any assemblage is shown to be unreliable and their exclusion from comparative typological data will lend greater validity to all lithic analyses.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/7418 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Orton, Jayson |
| Contributors | Rodgers, Allen, Sturrock, Edward D |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Science, Department of Archaeology |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MA |
| Format | application/pdf |
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